Shrimply the best

Scampi evokes easy pasta dishes or deep-fried pub grub, but call them langoustines and you have a dish fit for a king–or, indeed, The King, says Tom Parker Bowles

- Tom Parker Bowles

WHAT a difference a name makes. On the one hand, there’s scampi, breaded and deep fried, yours for less than a tenner, preferably presented in a basket, with a fistful of proper chips and a couple of sachets of tartare sauce so sharp it strips the enamel from your teeth. The sort of pub grub that would accuse you of spilling his pint and challenge you to a fight in the car park, before planting a smacker on your cheeks and announcing that you’re his very best mate.

Langoustines, on the other hand, are served whole, with fresh mayonnaise, or hewn in half, chargrilled and anointed with a herb- and garlic-infused dressing. They cost north of £20 each, serious restaurant food, elegant, but understated, like a minor Italian aristocrat, clad head to toe in Loro Piana, who flirts with aged Contessas and is a total stranger to socks. Two ends, then, of the culinary spectrum, but both exactly the same beast. Nephrops norvegicus, to be precise, or the Norway lobster, found from Iceland down to Morocco and the Mediterranean, too.