I just wish they wouldn't do that annoying thing with the lower-case 'd'...

Since I rather selfishly went and got meself a fella, Medad – who used to appear regularly on these pages as ‘guest’ in many guises – has been a bit neglected. Time to redress the balance. “Come on, Medad!”, I trilled. “We’re going to demuths, Bath’s long-established contemporary bistro renowned for elegant vegan, vegetarian and largely organic food and drink” (okay, I didn’t put it quite like that - Medad and I tend not to talk in ad-man lingo, but you get the idea).

Despite being one of toytown’s most venerable institutions, demuths – much like Medad, really – doesn’t ‘do’ laurel-resting. The food and décor constantly evolve, and on the evening we visited, both sparkled with colourful innovation.

I started with tortellini because girls love dinky portions of Big Stuff. Having said that, my very fresh pasta parcel came abundantly stuffed with fennel, sage and thyme, accompanied by oyster mushrooms and perfectly caramelised roasted parsnips, and resting on a creamy saffron sauce; you won’t even get close to imagining how good this dish was. And while Medad wasn’t as impressed with his carrot, coriander and cannelloni pate as I was (“it’s all a bit too heavy for me, dear”), he found much to wax lyrical about when it came to his cheese soufflé main, which thrummed to the addictive tang of smoked cheddar and came with a classic combination of sautéed kale, red onions and pinenuts, all topped with a sticky red onion relish. The cumin infused celery root and potato puree confused things a bit, but not so much as to distract me from wishing I’d ordered what he had. Because on my side of the table, there was something a little bit too student dinner party-ish about my Mexican mole (oh of course I'm not talking about those cute, furry, mammals! That would be a really pathetic joke to make. In food world, mole comes from the Aztec word ‘molli’, meaning, in this instance, sauce. And it’s got chocolate in it. Lecture over). But it has to be said that any disappointment was more my fault than a blunder to blame on the chef. Did I honestly expect a combination of spicy vegetables, coriander beans and rice served with tortilla, salsa and sour cream (the chocolate got a bit lost along the way) to offer anything other than a return to the halls of residence days I never had? If I’d chosen the Revitalising Salad instead, I bet I’d be raving by now. As it is, I’m feeling a bit ho-hum and more than a tad bloated. Hindsight, eh?

But despite the fact that I was starting to resemble a puffa fish, pudding was on the near horizon: a huuuge portion of honey and ginger ice cream - rich, creamy and just sweet enough – and a deconstructed redefinition of baklava for Medad: loosely layered pistachio and fig filo sheets interspersed with baked pear, all drizzled with star anise-tinged orange syrup and served with vegan-friendly vanilla ice cream; satisfying posh food with a heart. Just do it.