REMEMBER when it was hot, really hot?

Yes, you do, it wasn’t long ago. I know it’s sheeting down outside as I write this, and it’s (checks BBC Weather app) pretty certain to be raining, ooh look at that, thunder and lightning as well, when you read it, but you must remember. Heat. Loads of it, cloudless blue sky, feeling bothered and sweaty and listless. Last week.

Well, where would you go if you had to do a restaurant review?

Somewhere where they made food from a hot climate, would be good. But not too huge portions. So maybe a Moroccan tapas restaurant?

Like Fez, which is precisely that, in Wood Street.

That’s what we thought, so after a hard day at the typeface, we loosened our ties, unbuttoned the waistcoat on our cream linen suits, put our Panamas to a jaunty angle and set out to Old Town.

Inside Fez it’s cool (coo-lish anyway, it’s one of those days where the oxygen has been baked out of the air by about 2pm and even the sun starting to think about maybe setting, in a bit, doesn’t do anything to make it any fresher) and dark, with lots of wood and mirrors.

We get to sit at a booth facing the bar and are brought water immediately, which was very nice.

The menu starts with mezze selections, and then moves on to tapas dishes, and at first sight, could have been confusing. But there’s a masterstroke.

There’s a platter menu - £24 for the two of us and a whole bunch of things – and there’s a vegetarian option or one for meat eaters.

We have one of each please.

The first course is dips and bread – a mixture of bread – the best of which is the flatbread (If I had my way the normal fluffy stuff would be entirely replaced by that).

The dips are an olive tapenade, something vaguely creamy with harissa in it, tzatziki and houmous.

The harissa is the best one (and, by the way? Sriracha? Do me a favour. Harissa. That’s the way forward.) We have, in the Adver office, a French colleague of North African descent. And I suspect he might have raised an eyebrow at both hummus and tzatziki being thought Moroccan.

And I suppose it might not pass muster in Rabat, but I think it’s fine. It’s a restaurant in Wood Street in Swindon, catering for British customers with British tastes. And by now I suspect most of us, when going for anything vaguely eastern or southern Mediterranean just expect these sorts of things on the menus.

And they were good, particularly the tzatziki, which was just the thing on a boiling evening.

Then in succession the main dishes of the tasting menu.

In one dish little spicy merguez sausages, a sort of beef patty and ‘devils on horseback’ – which turns out to be dates wrapped in ham.

And they are warm. Oh, that’s weir.. actually it’s really good. Who’d have thought that a warm date could be so unctuous and chewy and soft and melting and complemented by the meat wrapped round it?

In the other vegetarian dish where halloumi fries, which weren’t as I’d naively imagined cheesy chips, but wedges of halloumi cut into very fat chops, jenga block size, and fried to a crispy cover. Again, probably not massively authentic, but very tasty.

There are vine leaves stuffed with a herby rice, a big cake of mashed potato in a crispy mash and a bowl of giant couscous.

Oh, and a beef stew and a chicken one. We were meant to choose, but couldn’t so added the other on.

The beef was dark and rich while we spent our time discussing what the flavouring in the chicken dish was. Afterwards the bill said dates, which may well have been in there, but apricots seems to feature there as well. It was great. I’m a big fan of meat and fruit – my companion less so – but we both agreed this was a winner.

For dessert was a small platter of baklava, which both featured chocolate, while I’d have preferred it without and a couple of pieces each of Turkish (Moroccan?) delight – two lemon and two rose.

My companion said, approvingly how the lemon didn’t, as lemon-flavoured food often does, remind him of proprietary brands of lavatory cleaner.

With there being no Moroccan coffee (maybe it’s not a thing in Morocco, but if I’m having houmous and halloumi, I’d really like some of that stuff) and not wanting an ordinary machine coffee, we went for the Moroccan tea – black tea with mint in it.

There’s an interesting ritual where the tea is made in a pot, then poured into glasses, then poured into the pot again, rinse repeat a couple of times before it comes to the table.

It was a perfect end to a very enjoyable meal.

And the fezes lining the room? Yes, if you ask very nicely, the staff will let you put them on and take selfies.

The bill, including three non-alcoholic beers and a soft drink, £45.60 Recommended. Especially for, ahem, date night.