Few restaurants are grander or more reassuring than The Delaunay, the vast semi-subterranean brasserie in Covent Garden that serves the best schnitzel in Zone 1. But the morning after the Prime Minister announced the nationwide lockdown in March, The Delaunay closed. This week, it's finally opened its doors again, to a London now hovering in the purgatory of Tier 2.
Stepping into the restaurant has always felt like going back in time. It only opened in 2011 but it has the permanence and clout of a far older establishment. With its muted greens and golds, its low lighting and discreet seating arrangements, the restaurant seems transported from a bygone era, in which people didn't wear trainers and chew gum - or fret about virus transmission rates.
All these months later, The Delaunay menu is much the same: at breakfast, go for the restaurant's trademark porridge or pillowy pancakes with bacon; and for lunch and dinner, pick the creamy stroganoff, finished off with apple strudel.
Jeremy King, the soft-spoken founder of the restaurant group that owns The Delaunay (as well as the Wolseley, Brasserie Zedel, and a few other London gems), says it's been 'gratifying to see the restaurant be brought back to life'. All the same, the decision to reopen was made before Tier 2 was imposed, meaning that people from different households are not now allowed to socialise over a meal indoors in London. There's no outdoor seating at The Delaunay; will staff be checking that diners aren't breaking the rules?
'Absolutely not', King says. 'I'm not doing the policing for the government.' King went to the trouble this week of sending out a press release to remind punters that while socialising indoors isn't allowed, 'business meetings are acceptable within the rules'. As he stressed, coronavirus outbreaks within restaurants are vanishingly rare: 'Since 4 July, our 550 staff have served over 250,000 guests at The Wolseley, Brasserie Zedel, Colbert, Fischer's, Soutine and Bellanger - without a single notification of infection neither amongst the staff nor customers.'
While King is broadly satisfied with the support the hospitality sector has received from the Treasury, he has a big issue with the lockdown policy itself. 'They're saying don't go on public transport, don't go to work, don't go to restaurants unless you're in your bubble, and hurry up to leave before 10pm. In that sense, the government has done everything in their power to destroy hospitality.'
Though The Delaunay has had to make some people redundant, King and his team have battled to keep the casualties to a minimum. (About 120 people work in the restaurant in total). But even if loyal customers flood back in, many of the activities around The Delaunay that kept it thriving have tapered out: surrounding offices are shut, as are the theatres that brought in an early and very late crowd. And the barristers from nearby who used to fill the restaurant are mostly now working from home.
Still, I can report the food and service are as superb as ever. When I first went to The Delaunay, years ago with a friend, she remarked that her favourite thing about our meal was the perfect temperature of the tap water, which comes lightly iced in attractive silver pitchers. I laughed at her for being so particular. Then I tasted the water. It was the perfect temperature then, and I can report it's the perfect temperature now.
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