'Mile High' restaurant is perfect for a date - and cheaper than a dirty weekend away

Man About Town

The week after I write a column showing off about how I've been going to a fancy new gym, comes of course, the week that I eat and drink too much and don't do enough exercise.

I first got distracted from my clean-living lifestyle this week at Byron, where I was invited to try the new lamb burger (only I also tried the house beer, chips, and chocolate brownie with ice-cream).

The next morning there was a hearty breakfast with country music star Carrie Underwood. While the handful of hacks there pushed muffins into their mouths as though they were preparing for a famine, Carrie didn't eat. She told me that she is very careful about what she eats, not least because she's a vegan – the cream cheese and smoked salmon bagels were verboten.

I'm always impressed that vegans can hold down jobs: just finding anything to eat for them sounds like a career in itself.

That evening I was invited to something called "Mile High". At first I wondered if it was a suggestive spam email, but then I spotted that it was in fact an invitation to dinner at a new pop-up.

The phrase "pop-up" tends to make journalists bristle: most are temporary because they are not very good. But there are of course notable exceptions, and Mile High is one of them.

Held inside a disused Royal Mail sorting office (there are now at least two of these in the capital serving as party venues), the theme is "the golden age of air travel". Upon arrival, you check-in at the desk, stow your coats and bags and are presented with a passport and boarding pass to a destination, which changes each month. The "plane" itself is a room with two long tables, and staff dressed as air-hostesses and captains bring you food.

This time we were taken to Gothenburg, which meant a hearty meal of scallops, elk, lingonberry ice cream and a non-metaphorical smorgasbord of crayfish. Unusually, for modern dining "experiences" the theatre matched the food.

The next "flight" is to Beirut. Take a date – it's cheaper than a dirty weekend away, and a reminder that you should always have dinner together before you even consider "joining the mile high club".