If you like snails then don’t be slow to head to Café Rouge . encouraged by the reception given to Heston Blumentahl’s Gothic Feast and now a record 50,000 Burgundy molluscs have been shipped in by Café Rouge for this month alone, as the nation celebrates National Escargot Day today 24 May.

Don’t worry if you can’t handle snails at the start of the week because they stay on the Café Rouge menu all year round, but until May 30 there is a real feast of escargots in store.

We tried the special dishes for ourselves and even the snail squeamish couldn’t fail to enjoy what’s on offer. Classic snails in butter and garlic, of course, but also snails with ham, with Rebluchon cheese and even with tomato and garlic and at £4.95 a plate they are very affordable.

Snails are slightly chewy, all the better to release the flavours, and not at all offputting to look at, at least not in their cooked state. Burgundy snails are the one the connoisseurs crave, you can’t go cooking up your garden variety, and the French go potty for them, scouring the countryside after rainfall to fill their buckets.

You don’t have to go to such lengths because there are Café Rouges all over the place, all offering snails as well as their usual well-priced, no nonsense French food.

See the snails really move here