Several weeks on, and outrage is still pouring in from bearded types in sandals and clothes made from lentils, aghast that I could possibly spend north of R3000 on a single dinner (Nobu at the One&Only), and that the money should have gone to setting up support groups for disabled puppies with Aids, or some such.

Which means the same crew will be angrily banging their tambourines and waving placards outside the iafrica.com offices tomorrow morning, after revealing that I spent just about the same again for a meal — and threw in a liberal dose of carbon footprint for good measure.

It's been a while since I've had a meal in London that genuinely excited me.

I've had some very good meals, some excellent and innovative cooking, and plenty of pleasant and mildly inventive fare at gastropubs (which are apparently different to pubs, although I can't fathom how in London).

'Fleeting gastronomic indulgence'

This meant I needed something exceptional to celebrate a bittersweet occasion: a weekend dash to Heathrow for the 21st birthday of my little sister, which was a grand occasion for her, but a solemn reminder to me that I am thus slipping ever faster into the doldrums of middle age. Ah well, all the more reason to spend large amounts of money on fleeting gastronomic indulgence.

And so to a quite splendid home of assorted Italian cuisine, dug up by my gourmet detective of a mother: Bocca di Lupo, a small, outwardly anonymous den of a spot in the West End, conveniently close to the evening's show. (Les Miserables, should you be interested; the current production boasts some ethereal voices, a forbidding set, and as good a night out as the West End offers at the moment).

Long marble-topped bar, small chunk of dining room at the back, modern without being pretentious — the omens looked good on arrival. And so they proved.

Waited on by a gentleman cut from the same cloth as the Italian policeman in 'Allo 'Allo, all bold Italian gestures and sweeping introductions to the menu, there was the threat of a little too much pastiche to the 'look how Italian we are' approach, but once the menu unfolded, the theatre faded to the periphery, and the food took over. Glorious, glorious Italian food.

'Sophia Loren of a menu'

Bocca di Lupo — alternately 'howl of the wolf', or 'mad South African rugby player' — offers a slew of region specific dishes in portions of alternate sizes, lining everything up as starter or main (or in the case of my mother, six starter portions, each preceded by a breathless "I couldn’t possibly eat another mouthful"). Which, with 20-odd options on a Sophia Loren of a menu, made for painstaking decision.

A menu studded with Italian terms means a little translation is occasionally called for (cue more Italian dramatics), which adds a light touch of the exotic, but doesn't necessarily simplify selections; finally, after much internal wrangling, I settled on two dishes that turned out to be bold, simple, and glorious.

Cotechino, or twice-boiled pork sausage, a signature greater Rome, came with black chickpeas (menacing in appearance, anything but to the palate), spinach, and the masterstroke, guanciale: thin, lightly fried pig's cheek, bacon in all but name, albeit richer. Bellisimo.

If guarding that from marauding family members was tough enough (my little sister has recovered from a nasty spell of vegetarianism, which gives her a Baptist zeal about eating meat), then guarding the follow-up was far more challenging.

Gnudi, an offshoot of what we'd know as gnocchi, but made with sheep's milk ricotta for an unexpected fromaggio spin, came dressed up in an understated lamb ragu (a basic stew), the Tuscan combination just another reason to drop everything and head straight for one of Europe's most delightful corners. I reckon I managed to hang on to about half of it…

Splendid Italian fare

But socialist eating is a two-way platform, which meant raiding the rest of the night's selections from everyone else.

Lamb prosciutto flirts with Carpaccio territory, but has a drier, finer edge that pecorino only sharpens, but that broad beans in turn soften.

An agnolotti (not to be confused with Glenn, the Joburg gangster) of veal and pork continued the playful use of meat that Italian cooking encourages; Sicilian spaghettini with assorted seafood and plenty of ginger suggested laidback Mafiosi looking out across the Straits of Messina over pasta as child-infested Italian chains will never come close to touching; and a risotto, of which I can remember neither the name nor the contents, does still linger as a vague memory of risotto as it ought to be.

I missed out on the squacquerone cheese dish, which deserves to be sampled on name alone, and a dazzling dessert list had to be forsaken in order to get to the theatre, and to prevent my mother from attempting to get our waiter's telephone number.

There were a couple of bottles of more than decent wine (also from Tuscany, I think), but as is so often the case when travelling, nothing to beat a top quality South African. Like the waiter, the wine played very much a support role: splendid Italian fare that's as much art as cuisine. Worth every little carbon inch.

Review unannounced and paid for in full. Dinner for five, with wine and service, £240 (which is pretty good for London). Bocca di Lupo, 12 Archer Street, Soho; telephone 020 7734 2223 for reservations.