As the £20,000 magnum of burgundy on the wine list will tell you, our latest venue for the GCSS is not exactly a dive. It’s a rather snazzy grill restaurant located near the US Embassy and our hopes for a fine Caesar salad (as well as the prices) were high.

The salad was available as a starter, which was a good sign, and either with chicken or without. We were also informed that there were no anchovies in the dish itself but the dressing was ‘blitzed’ with them, which sounded slightly odd but hey.

And so, our starters arrived. The bowls were not too large or deep, which boded well for the portion size, and on first glance everything looked good: the dressing was evident, the lettuce was crisp, the croutons were large and clearly not from a box, and there was parmesan in both finely grated and thinly sliced form.

But of course, we’ve been wrong before.

As we began, it was clear the lettuce had just come from the fridge – very chilled indeed. The first few bites, however, showed little taste of the dressing. I was getting concerned that we’d once again missed the boat when I dug a little deeper and found the piquant creaminess I’d been missing. The dressing was quite heavy and so had slipped through the cracks a little.

As my fellow reviewer and I reached the bottom of our bowls, which we did swiftly and happily, we realised that so many of the previous restaurants had tried to reinvent the wheel and failed miserably in the attempt. 34 Mayfair, however, offered a simple, clean and fresh approach that didn’t try to be anything other than a Caesar salad – and it had paid off in spades.

The steak I had for my main course was undercooked and had to be sent back, but the salad that preceded it was, frankly, excellent. Undoubtedly 9/10, and an object lesson in that you don’t have to offer something wacky and different to stand out from the crowd.