It betrays a lack of class to diss our taste for nostalgia

Earlier this week, a solicitor found herself at the centre of a minor internet firestorm after hosting what she described on social media as a “council estate dinner”.

- Hannah Twiggs

The menu, shared proudly online, featured turkey dinosaurs, potato smiley faces, crispy pancakes, oven chips and Viennetta and ginger cake for pudding. All washed down with SunnyD and bucks fizz.

The backlash was swift. Commenters accused her of being tone deaf, insensitive and out of touch. The post was deleted. Knives were duly sharpened.

On the surface, it looked like another familiar skirmish in Britain’s endless culture wars: class, language, offence, intent versus impact. But look a little closer and the whole thing becomes rather more ironic - not least because the food Sophie Murgatroyd was apparently mocking is enjoying something of a comeback.

What was actually served is a lineup of dishes many of us grew up loving, regardless of postcode, income bracket or what your parents did for a living. Nuggets, smiley faces, freezer puddings, baked beans and prawn cocktails are not fringe foods, nor have they ever been. They are childhood food - comforting, predictable, deeply ingrained. And, crucially, they’re having a moment again.

In restaurants, on pub menus and in hotel dining rooms, dishes once dismissed as naff or old-fashioned are being polished up and put back into circulation. Pies are back in serious dining rooms, from Quo Vadis to Bistro Freddie. Bob Bob Ricard has effectively built a cult following around chicken kyiv, a dish long treated as a retro punchline, admittedly bolstered by caviar, champagne and plush seating.

Elsewhere, nostalgia is being played straight. Wiltons serves potted shrimp without irony. Dovetale offers baked alaska. Manteca has a neapolitan ice cream sandwich on the menu. And at one of London’s most talked-about pubs, The Devonshire, prawn cocktail appears on its hugely popular sub-£30 set menu, sitting comfortably alongside pea and ham soup and sticky toffee pudding.