It got worse. They didn’t only bring memories of Italy with them; they carried spoils, too: Bottarga di tonno rosso from Marzamemi, Gerardo di Nola long spaghetti from Gragnano, Poggio di Bortolone extra virgin olive oil from the Chiramonte Gulfi winery of the same name.  The first thing one of our house guests did after setting down his bags was commandeer our kitchen and toss together a large bowl of spaghetti alla bottarga con limone e prezzemolo.

As I ate his maddeningly impeccable pasta I chewed over my London EATinerary:

St. John Bread and Wine
Present (coffee from World Barista Champion Gwilym Davies)
Monmouth Coffee (Borough Market)
Kappacasein (toasted cheese sandwich)
Tayyabs
De Gustibus Borough Market (salt beef)
Dock Kitchen
Petersham Nurseries

Each outing began with a steep climb from our temporary home in Crouch End to the Highgate tube station. Charming as this leafy stretch may be in its autumnal splendor, the 20-minute hike was no stroll through the Piedmontese vineyards. If my friends wanted to burn their quadriceps and destroy their knees I’m sure they would have chosen to do so while in the bucolic hills of Langhe and Monferrato. The white truffles of Alba do wonders for ruptured tendons. Moreover, it was difficult for them to enjoy their walks in this deceptively calm area of North London given the clear and present danger of being run off the pavement at any moment by a Bugaboo buggy or a Micro kick scooter.

They made it safely to the first 4 stops on my food tour without incident. Their luck changed at Tayyabs, where the queue inside the dining room moved at the pace of a glacier – that is to say, a glacier prior to the era of global warming. A more benevolent Tayyabs would hand out naan noshes and toothpick-skewered sheekh kebabs to ease the long wait. Instead they torture you for 90 minutes by parading sizzling platters of succulent kebabs and lamb chops within inches of your nostrils at 10-second intervals. The dizzying aroma from the Punjabi spice mix is so potent it could be used in place of smelling salts to revive any Tayyabs waiters knocked unconscious by the fists of the victims left to starve on the endless queue.

The Friday night journey to Dock Kitchen, beside the Grand Union Canal in Ladbroke Grove, took 1 hour 50 minutes – over 30 minutes longer than the London Journey Planner estimate. Suffice to say that if you are going to travel nearly two hours to a Grand Canal you want it to be the one in Venice. That schlep, however, was no more bothersome than a November breeze when compared to our Saturday expedition to Richmond’s Petersham Nurseries. We left the house at 11am for a 12:30 lunch booking and arrived at 1:40pm. Royal Mail would have delivered us to our destination more quickly than the District line.

Steven Biondolillo is a respected marketing consultant who should be famous for his radius restaurant-rating system. Instead of using stars or point scales to evaluate restaurants he scores them according to the distance you would be willing to travel to dine there. Under his radius system, elBulli might rate a 5,000 to indicate a radius of 5,000 miles within which the restaurant would be worth a detour. A sympathetic critic might award Subway sandwich shop a score of 0.00000013.

For London purposes the Biondolillo radius system needs to be revised. The journey from front door to first course must be measured in minutes, not miles. And so, if Petersham Farms, described by these two ultimately delighted Californians as “Chez Panisse in the English countryside”, merits a journey of 160 minutes, then award it a rating of 160.

Judged solely by my friends’ comments I have critiqued the London food tour as follows:

St. John Bread and Wine – 90 minutes
Present – 30 minutes
Monmouth – 30 minutes
Kappacasein – 40 minutes
Tayyabs – 60 minutes
De Gustibus – 20 minutes
Dock Kitchen – 30 minutes
Petersham Nurseries – 160 minutes

Of course it’s possible we appreciate things more when we experience great difficulties beforehand. The French have an expression for it: après l’effort le réconfort – “after effort comes comfort.” Sounds to me like a great poster slogan for Transport for London.