The workmen that have been populating Bonhams auction house for the past eight months have left. The building noise has stopped polluting the usually serene atmosphere of the salesrooms and galleries and the work is done. The upgrade to Bonhams is finished and it looks very sharp, if a little anonymous and minimal for my liking.

On a small 1st floor spot surrounding the Haunch of Venison square, a restaurant serving mostly lunch and breakfast opens every Thursday for dinner. There can’t be space for many more then 25 covers, so it feels intimate.

On Thursdays the restaurant is opened for dinner, and given we had a connection with the sommelier, Charlotte, we visited yesterday. There is only a tasting menu, no a la carte.  It was executed with real confidence in its simplicity. The chef, Tom Kemble has studied at the desks of Scandinavian ingrediant obsessives at Favikon and Hedone and he told us after the meal how as he gets older he tries to step away more and more from imposing his ego onto the plates. We also chatted about how important it is for this approach to work that the chefs have a good palate.

As befits the wine focus of Bonhams and the expertise of director Richard Harvey, who dined opposite our table, the wine list is superb. Not long and 3*ish but dynamic, filled with interesting producers and wonderfully fairly priced. When I go out I don’t want to have to spend 10 minutes reading a book, I want a curated choice.

We drank a 2013 Pesquier Terraces from the Ventoux (£34) followed by bottles of 2008 Roumier Bourgogne Rouge, a snip at £55, 1990 Beychevelle (£120), 2011 Les Terraces Palacios (£56) and some 2009 Chianti Classico Sa’etta  from Monte Bernadi.

The 2008 Bourgogne Rouge was certainly the highlight. Without being over-dense or extracted it had real depth, nice Chambolle-style aromatics and a good sense of personality. The Terraces seems to me to have got a lot worse since I first tried it in the 1998 vintage. A Grenache that manages to do that thing a lot of Spanish Grenache seems to of being both rich and acidic, with no real sense of balance.

After dinner, it transpires wearing trainers in Mayfair is an offence punishable by total exclusion from any upscale bar. Can’t help feeling it’s not my part of town.

The Harwood arms continues to quietly offer one of the nicest dining experiences in West London. Without being flashy, it offers carefully cooked food, a thoughtful wine list and excellent service.

We went through the following, wines, all served blinds.

I brought a bottle of 2009 Chardonnay VV from Pierre Overnoy in the Jura. Pierre Overnoy recalls how he was treated ‘like an extra-terrestrial’ in the early 1990s when he was first making wine without sulphur additions. Now he has become one of the legends of an area that is getting increasingly exposed. This bottle was in great shape, showing no heat at all, to the extent that a couple of guesses round the table were tending towards Austria.

We next moved to the Rhone with a bottle of 1985 Cote Rotie Brune et Blonde by Guigal.  In some ways the template for the Guigal style, long ageing in wood, around 36 months. Clearly had some nice age on it and I think we were all around the 70s and early 80s. Very good and retaining excellent freshness.

Moving towards a more muscular style, we had a bottle of 1995 Penfolds Bin 407. In the same way that Bin 389 is commonly referred to as ‘baby Grange’, this could be seen as a ‘baby 707’ We were guessing something American as it had a sort of oak and fruit polish that recalled Ridge Zindandels with a bit of age.

A classic 1998 Leoville Barton delivered the kind of effortless class that seems to be Bordeaux birthright. As we talked about modern Bordeaux over this, we shared mutual admiration towards Anthony Barton,  one of the true gentlemen of the region. Someone who has never chased the buck or yuan, never souped up his wines, just travelled the world and tended the estate with a level eye and a long view on history. It wasn’t so long ago that he took over from his father and found himself in possession of an estate with crumbling machinery and an empty bank account. I guessed St-Julian, as I find sometimes the style of this region is about understated harmony. All the other left-bank appellations seem to have more of a trademark flavour characteristic. Crudely put, cassis for Pauilac, Tannin and spice in St-Estephe, Violets in Margaux and smoky minerality in Pessac.

We finished with a nice sweet wine and headed off to polish off a few pints before the pubs shut.

As we were ambling in the general direction of Baileys I was saying that there was a glass-ceiling on Fish and Chips. Unless you are beside the sea, there is a limit as to how good it can be.

How wrong was I.

Baileys in Fulham was a total revelation. One tiny room with mirrors so you can see how terrible you look  shovelling chips in your mouth. A menu of all of the classic staples, including picked eggs and food that is as good as it gets. As good as fried food gets anyway. Which is pretty good. Perfectly cooked fish and chips, no corkage on wine and service so charming you could be in the Ivy.

We had some fairly basic wines which we raced through.

2012 Clos Floridene Blanc

Always the fallback when looking for a top wine at the Co-Op at short notice. The oak seems more integrated then when I’ve had it before, when it seemed a bit obvious. Really nice light tropical, citrus flavours and admirable intensity. A worthy wine also in the sense that White Bordeaux often goes from cheap plonk to ball-shrivellingly expensive with little between.

2012 Wild Boy Au Bon Climat

Not a wine I’ve often picked up because it’s quite ubiquitous in the off (and on) sector but this was lovely, really filled out and toffeeish, reminded me a bit of the Karia Stags Leap style. Much denser then I remember.

We then decamped to the Harwood Arms where we finished the night with this lovely wine. I love Clos Perdu as they are one of the producers that manage to imbue their wines with delicacy and finesse in a part of the world where cooked and flabby is usually more common.

2011 Cuvee 91 Les Clos Perdus

Quite bold and muscular in style, a Carignan / Grenache blend with the texture and salinity of the Carignan really helping to freshen up the Grenache. A really nicely balanced wine.

It also brought back good memories of a cycle trip and dinner with Ben Adams (below) from the estate. A friend and I turned up after quite an easy cycle through the mosquito infested Peyriac de Mer, downed a good deal of Campari as a health measure, tried the whole range and enjoyed wonderful Saussage casserole, great wines and conversation well into the night.

There’s a moment in the recent Woody Allan film Midnight in Paris where the Owen Wilson character goes back in time to the age he adores, 1930’s Paris. Whilst there, he falls in love with a woman, only to find out that for her, the Belle Epoque was the time she wanted to be alive in. She didn’t like the 1930’s. She wanted to go back too. The point you take out of this is that you never think you’re living in the best time, or even a good one sometimes, but you are.

This is more true for wine then ever we were talking about this over a few bottles last night, particularly in reference to Burgundy. We are incredibly fortunate that the wines are still more or less affordable, if you know where to look. But with every visit to Burgundy, the Modern Age looms larger. There is more money, more sophistication and more internationalism. The parochialism that allows crusty old domaines like Camus to carry on making terrible wine from some of the most hallowed terroir in Burgundy will soon be over. They, and others will probably have to sell their holdings to pay for inheritance tax (in Camus case we worked it out to be over 45 Million Euros) and the people moving in will be the same sorts who have long brought up the UK’s national treasures. It will be a shame and as much as the wine might be better, Burgundy will be a poorer place without producers like Camus. (whose wine is actually quite good value)

We had a mixed bag of bottles, which all showed really well, I wasn’t super-impressed by the Savigny, but only because I have such high expectations of their wine.

2003 Riesling Urziger Wurzgarten Auslese JJ Christoffell

A nice gift from James at Howard Ripley, this was lovely with a real spiky vein of acidity running through that kept it really feeling quite dry. Lots of grapefruit and a nice floral quality. Perhaps a touch short but loaded on the front end like many 2003s

2013 Lioco Chardonnay

A well-priced, well focused cool climated style. It’s not Burgundy and it’s not the highest expression of Californian Chardonnay. But nor is it probably trying to be.

1996 Domaine Peyre Rose ‘Oro’

I couldn’t believe I’d see another bottle of this. This was given to my old colleague when we visited Marlene Soria at her impossible to find winery in the South of France. I was dressed up like I was visiting a Bordeaux estate and I managed to get our car (and my expensive shoes) stuck in the deep clay. Luckily for us, we got a tow from Marlene’s husband and we got to the tasting room in the end. We loved this wine when we were there so she generously gave us some bottles to take home. This 1996 doesn’t seem to have shifted that much since I last had it a few years ago. Which is not hugely surprising as it is a very oak dominated wine, but not in that new, toasty style, more that integrated character I get in Coche-Dury’s wines. Reminds me of the character you get a bit from aged Bourbon.

1999 Savigny-Les-Beaune 1er Jarrons Domaine Guillemot

Somewhere on my phone I’ve got some photo’s and tasting notes from the Domaine from a visit four years ago. The young Jean-Pierre showed us some older vintages from the mid-ninteies and they were wonderful. Built to last but also with lovely definition and freshness. This lacked a little finesse for me and had a coarse character that I rarely find in these wines. Others liked it very much though. On a side note, one of the best tales I heard about Jean-Pierres father was this note from Kermit Lynch: “Everyone loved having him, because he wowed them with comparisons of certain wines with various characteristics of the male and female genders. Kermit noticed at some point in the morning that Pierre had quieted down. He looked over and saw that, as Pierre tasted, he did not avail himself of a spit bucket. Suddenly there was an “Alors, au revoir, à bientôt j’espère,” and up the stairs he went. Kermit followed and watched Pierre walk away, awfully close to a Charlie Chaplin pantomime of a drunken French vigneron weaving down the street, barely able to stand up.” Chapeau Pierre!

1999 Cote Rotie ‘Les Rochains’ Bonnefond

I loved this, still enveloped in oak but not in an unattractive way, smokey and dense, well extracted but not OTT and certainly not with that hot, Washington State style that I get from some growers who seem keen on getting every inch of punch from their terrroir.

2013 Syrah Luke Lambert

Lots of black pepper, still quite fruit-forward and dare I say it, Australian but very good. Not sure how much it costs but I’m not sure I’d pay more the £25 for it though.

1998 Fontalloro Felsina

A lot of people really liked this. I enjoyed the high-toned acidity and nice complexity but it seemed like a wine not entirely in balance with itself.

1990 Villars Fronsac

From my own stock, I wanted to try this for a while. Loved it. Loved it so much I probably told everyone how much I loved it for way to long. Just sublime, still really vital and a reminder that Bordeaux can just do mature reds, even at cheaper prices better then almost anywhere in the world.

1989 Suduiraut

Lovely substance and full-bodied fruit. No need to wait.