Many people have apparently found salvation in eating the Hemsley way, and sure, an excess of carbohydrates and too much sugar isn’t a great idea for anyone’s waistline, but I suggest that eating Proper Food might also be a radical solution to the stresses of modern existence. You could, for example, try Richard Corrigan’s perfectly delightful Mayfair seafood restaurant, Bentley’s, and have some chewy, sweet soda bread with lots of butter (Vogue recently announced that butter is actually good for you, so it’s really, really OK), and then you could try some Carlingford rock oysters — raw, plenty of zinc and protein, followed by some vibrant, zingy crisp squid and a crab cake or two. I would then suggest the lobster and chips, with plenty more garlic butter (implements are provided to tackle those pesky claws), and then, if you are really concerned about your five a day, you could hop in a cab up to Marylebone High Street and have a macchiato and a slice of Black Forest Gateau at Fischer’s, which does MittelEuropean food better than anywhere I have ever eaten in MittelEuropa. I tried this recently and I have to say, I felt perfectly marvellous.

Or you could try for a table at the newly-reopened Ivy, the famous Covent Garden restaurant, which feels very much like the old Ivy, with the addition of some blameless modern art and an onyx central bar, and the subtraction of the gawking hordes. At lunch, cod with coco beans, chorizo and smoked paprika emulsion was harmonious and subtle, and plaice with brown shrimps and samphire was saline perfection. Shepherd’s pie, turned out of the customary dish, came poised and quivering, with a gravy so good that we wanted to lick the plate. Sticky toffee pudding, accompanied by a cheerful little jug of crème anglaise, was not quite sticky enough, but it was still sufficiently delicious to be the stuff of the Hemsleys’ nightmares. The Ivy classic of frozen berries in white chocolate sauce no longer features on the menu, but is apparently available to those who ask — a secret reward for the brave.

Just round the corner is another theatreland stalwart, Mon Plaisir, which has been offering classic French dishes to publishers and actors since Lord Weidenfeld was a hungry young intern. The food here can be uneven, but asparagus with lashings of just-set hollandaise followed by steak tartare, the raw meat beaten creamy with mustard and capers, and lightly dressed leaves make an excellent carb-free treat.

Nutritionists suggest that the production of cortisol, a stress hormone, can lead to the accumulation of dangerous fat around the abdomen. Orthorexic eating, with its promise of optimum health, if not immortality, when the right alchemy of dawn-picked kale and fermented chia seeds can be achieved, seems nothing more than a recipe for anxiety-induced obesity. Taking pleasure in Proper Food will not make you fat, but it will provide a more robust and sprauncy approach to life in general. To think otherwise is, literally, decadent.