JAN MOIR: Greggs is going all posh by launching a pop-up fine dining restaurant for the festive season… Jammie Doughnut cocktail anyone?

A waitress weaves her way across the restaurant, smart in her uniform of white apron, neat shirt and crisply knotted tie. She slips a silver cloche on to the elegant table, which is laid with a starched damask cloth, folded napkins and gleaming cutlery.

After bowing briefly, she lifts the lid with a flourish and a smile. ‘Madam,’ she says, ‘your Greggs Steak Bake is served.’

And there it is, nestling in the middle of the plate, the meat-based pride of the Greggs savoury pastry range, upgraded into a culinary experience like no other. Every day across the UK, nearly a million Steak Bakes are served to grateful customers, rammed into paper bags and sold as food on the go for hungry people in a hurry.

However, very few of them are served like this; on a china plate accompanied by a slab of truffled dauphinoise potatoes, a little thicket of green beans tied up with a ribbon of leek and garnished with a sprinkle of… excuse me, what are these?

‘Almonds, pet.’

Welcome to the brand new Bistro Greggs in Newcastle, on the opening day of the popular High Street bakery chain’s first ever venture into the gilded realms of fine dining.

Welcome to the brand new Bistro Greggs in Newcastle, on the opening day of the popular High Street bakery chain’s first ever venture into the gilded realms of fine dining

Sixteen pounds will buy you Yum Yum Bites – a fancy way of saying it has been sliced into three

It’s so darned posh here that formerly humble sausage rolls and hot bakes are served with herby garnishes and silver sauce boats brimming with gravy. ‘Jus,’ corrects my waitress. Well, pardonnez-moi.

There is a special dish called Greggs Benedict served at breakfast in this all-day operation, complete with cacklebean poached eggs and a – here we go – ‘velvety’ Hollandaise sauce. There is even a Greggs signature cocktail called a Pink Jammie Fizz, inspired by their best-selling Pink Jammie doughnut.

READ MORE: Greggs launches its first ‘fine dining experience’: Bistro offers ‘indulgent, Gallic-inspired menu’ and serves steak bake with dauphinoise potatoes, green beans and almonds

The Greggs Bistro `High Tea´. (Greggs/PA)

‘It smells and tastes just like a doughnut. I guarantee you will love it,’ says a manager called Steph who seems to have my measure straight away. The Jammie is served in a champagne glass which has been sprayed with vodka and rolled in icing sugar because – good grief, I really have no idea – because we are in Newcastle, so why not? ‘Lick it,’ says Steph, so I do.

It tastes like an alcoholic boiled sweet, but who said there was anything wrong with that?

For this crazy venture, Greggs has joined forces with Fenwick’s department store, a genius pairing between two northern powerhouse brands, to bring a touch of haute cuisine to the humble Yum Yum and the yeoman stottie. From now until New Year’s Eve, diners at this pop-up on the first floor of Fenwick’s flagship store on Northumberland Street will be able to feast on a special French-inspired menu of revamped Greggs treats, all of them given the oh-la-la treatment by Fenwick’s Executive Chef, Mark Reid.

His pimped-up versions of Greggs classics include a Festive Bake served with duck-fat roast potatoes, smoked pancetta, chestnuts and sprouts; vegan sausage rolls served with chicory and pear salads and even a Greggs Spicy Veg Curry Bake — an entire subcontinent enclosed in pastry – served with pilau rice scented with saffron and a lime-drenched kachumber salad.

Is there wine? Of course there is wine, although I might never recover from being asked: ‘Would you like a glass of wine to go with your Steak Bake, Miss Moir?’

The choices on offer include a cheeky El Coto Rioja Crianza (£29) that apparently is simply divine with a wee sausage roll and an Alpha Zeta Pinot Grigio (also £29) that ‘goes down a bloody bomb’ – as the wine waiter told me – with the Spicy Veg Curry Bake (8.50).

As you might imagine, Bistro Greggs is slightly tongue in cheek and also a bit of a scream. No one takes themselves too seriously here and, to be honest, it’s a savoury, refreshing refuge from harvested micro-greens, artisanal breads and hand-selected farm-fresh small plates nonsense.

Yes, there is a drizzle of honey-roasted chestnuts and a scatter of pea shoots on the Christmas Lunch Soup (£5.50), but forgive them, foodie lord, they know not what they do. The soup is also served with two hunks of stottie, a type of bread local to the region. Yes, but what kind of bread is it, I ask, in my annoying London way. ‘What? It’s just bread, love,’ says my waitress. And she is right.

There is a special dish called Greggs Benedict served at breakfast in this all-day operation, complete with cacklebean poached eggs and a – here we go – ‘velvety’ Hollandaise sauce

His pimped-up versions of Greggs classics include a Festive Bake served with duck-fat roast potatoes, smoked pancetta, chestnuts and sprouts

To enter the restaurant, diners must walk under a latticed archway, devised to echo Greggs’ signature design on its legendary bakes. Could this be any more marvellous? Progressing under the flaky portals I feel like a blushing bride floating into a holy place, ready to plight her troth with the love of her life; hot pastry.

According to a breathy press rel-ease from Fenwick, the 40-table restaurant ‘draws design inspiration from the traditional bistros of Saint Germain.’ That is quite a stretch for a corner of a department store near the ladies pyjama section, but let’s just go with the flow. It’s nearly Christmas, after all!

I like the green velvet banquette seating, the bentwood café chairs and the toile de Jouy-style wall panels, featuring iconic local landmarks; the Tyne Bridge, the Angel of the North, the Greggs Steak Bake.

The theme is continued in large paintings of sausage rolls dotted around the place and little golden call bells on every table with signs that say Press Here For Sausage Roll or Press Here For Steak Bake. This is in hilarious homage to London restaurant Bob Bob Ricard, which famously boasts champagne call bells.

Printed menus feature what Greggs call ‘enhanced interpretations’ of its iconic bakes and treats, while an Afternoon Tea section boasts an entirely new meal that no one has ever heard of before – the Sharing Brunch High Tea For Two.

There are also vegan sausage rolls served with chicory and pear salads and even a Greggs Spicy Veg Curry Bake

Sixteen pounds will buy you Yum Yum Bites – a fancy way of saying it has been sliced into three – and other treats including a bean bake thingy and, yes, yet another sausage roll which your waiter will serve with a choice of sauces, brown or red.

During the very first lunchtime service the place is packed, with trays of Pink Jammies disappearing faster than a vodka spray in a premier footballer’s nightclub booth and diners tucking into the unbelievable bargain of a nicely served Festive Bake platter with all the trimmings for £8.50.

Come on! If Bistro Greggs is not the greatest food concept since Mr Wimpy first dreamed of slapping a patty in a bun or the night Mrs Quaker finally got her old-fashioned oats, then I’ll eat my harissa scrambled tofu on the Full Vegan (£7).

And I really don’t want to do that, because my Steak Bake is waiting.

So what does it taste like? Exactly like the millions and millions of steak bakes sold in this country every year, and I can’t fault the nicely made potato dish, nor the crisp green beans. But sometimes it is not about the food, it is about the experience.

Hannah Squirrell, customer director at Greggs, would agree. ‘This is a watershed moment,’ she says. ‘We’ve created an accessible menu featuring eloquent dishes with a Parisian twist.’

Well, Greggs is certainly on to something, I think, as I eat my own Yum Yum Bite, elevated into the fine dining stratosphere with a little pot of caramel sauce and a sprinkling of Squirrell-approved macadamia nut brittle. Although I am not sure if eloquent is the quite the word that truly sums up this experience.

However let us hereby spread the word, along with the ever so posh pickled walnut ketchup it serves here with its vegan sausage rolls.

Let us sound the alarm bells at the Ritz and tell Gordon Ramsay he is no longer the biggest Cheese Melt in town. Greggs is in the fine dining business now and for these purveyors of prestige pastry, there is no going back.

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