Fig, goats’ cheese & honey salad

We used to make this salad with honey from Regent’s Park, which is 5 minutes’ walk from the restaurant. Toby, the beekeeper, would deliver it to us on his push bike. He once brought his bees – ‘the girls’ – with him, which caused more panic than joy, though they were perfectly well-behaved. Honey is one of those ingredients, like wine, that gives a flavour-snapshot of the place it comes from, and this honey tasted of mint and grass. Even though it was eye-wateringly expensive, we used it fo