Bustronome: On board London's double-decker restaurant bus

On paper, Bustronome sounds like an inspired concept. Take a double-decker bus, convert it into an upscale moving restaurant and offer a sightseeing tour of London's best-known landmarks. In fact, it seems such a glaringly good idea that you wonder why no one has done it before. And then you take a moment to consider the logistics. How do you safely serve food on a moving bus? How do you stop glasses from spilling? How do you stay on schedule in London's unpredictable traffic?

Thankfully, none of these factors deterred Bustronome's two founders, who perfected the concept in Paris before launching it in London in 2017. There are two dining tours – a two-hour, four-course lunch experience and a three-hour, six-course dinner. I sign up for the latter, boarding the sleek black bus at Victoria Embankment on a balmy summer's evening with a tall, leggy brunette (aka my brother).

We're ushered past the small galley kitchen and upstairs to the dining area, where there's seating for 38 people in a mixture of two, four and six-seat tables. Attempting to recreate the atmosphere of a Parisian bistro on the top deck of a bus is no easy task, but the designers have done an admirable job. If anything, it's a better experience – the gleaming wooden tables don't wobble, the seats are generously padded and we're not surrounded by people smoking enthusiastically between courses.

Our elegantly-attired server, Jay, welcomes us on board with a glass of Lombard champagne. Gentle piano music plays in the background and through an avenue of plane trees we can see Waterloo Bridge, the River Thames and the brutalist concrete monstrosity that is the Southbank Centre (thankfully there will be more agreeable sights to come).

It's a delightfully convivial atmosphere and one that would be ruined by an intrusive, loudspeaker-delivered commentary. Many tours solve this by providing earphones but Bustronome has gone one better, using an innovative Audio Pen that you point at a landmark on a printed route map and then hold up to your ear for the relevant explanation. It's such a discreet and inconspicuous system that I completely forget it exists (as do most of the people on our trip) so it might be worth staff offering occasional reminders.

For the next few hours we glide around Central London while a succession of excellent dishes emerges from the kitchen downstairs. The six-course menu changes seasonally but among the highlights are lobster ravioli in a rich lobster bisque, pan fried cod with squid ink sauce and a delicious Fraisier-inspired strawberry mousse. We've opted for matching wines (an extra £30), which are an eminently drinkable sauvignon blanc and a syrah/cab sav blend from French winemaker Terre d'Or. Not a drop of either is spilled thanks to an ingenious table-mounted plastic storage rack which provides a secure safe haven for glasses.

Of course, the real star of the show is London itself. It's easy to forget just how many extraordinarily beautiful buildings there are in the city, from the gothic splendour of Westminster Abbey to the baroque majesty of St Paul's Cathedral. Every time I glance up, there's another iconic attraction flashing by – the intricate Italianate exterior of the Royal Albert Hall; the elaborate terracotta shell of the Natural History Museum; the imposing Edwardian facade of Harrods. The bus's glass ceiling means passengers enjoy uninterrupted vistas of these iconic landmarks and I take more photos in one night than on any other London tour I've been on.