Next door to me – actually on the same workbench, practically on top of each other – Brett Graham, the absurdly gifted and young chef from The Ledbury in Notting Hill, London, was preparing a shoulder of baby lamb.

He didn’t have much to do because he had done most of it already: he had cooked the meat in a vacuum-sealed bag in a water bath for some 24 hours. He then removed the bones and pressed the joints into thick paving stones and then chilled them. His preparations produced perfect squares of the most tender meat imaginable with texture somewhere between the finest foie gras terrine and a slab of unsalted butter.