Over the past few months enough restaurants with cabaret — perhaps better more loosely described as entertainment — have opened for that to be declared a trend.

Proud Cabaret in the City, Supperclub London under the Westway, and now Circus in Covent Garden are seizing the zeitgeist — or dismally just presupposing that food, drink and conversation don’t add up to a good time.

Sitting at a wobbling table in Circus where a DJ and miserable acoustics preclude hearing any bons mots from dining companions, peering around structural columns that obscure the view, watching a woman in a tiger-skin leotard that looks rescued from the bottom of the laundry basket writhing on a suspended hoop in a manner that suggested she failed the entrance exam for Cirque du Soleil while nibbling on a glazed chicken wing, I wondered what it is all about.

Are we so used to eating a ready-meal in front of the telly that it is thought we won’t happily consume dinner without visual distraction?

Is some sanitised version of stripping and burlesque believed to be appropriate in the elf’n’safety times we live in? Who knows?

What I do know is that frisson and frolics are not easily imposed — even with the ministrations of waitresses in vertiginously high heels who sympathetically pat your shoulder.

The interior of Circus, previously Octave, has been designed by Tom Dixon. Smoke and mirrors would describe it quite well if only smoke was allowed these days.

In pride of place in front of an open kitchen where chefs work dressed all in black is a long, wide, white catwalk with steps at each end which doubles as a communal dining table.

This only works for singletons or a couple sitting side by side as the width of the platform precludes communicating with anyone placed opposite.

Three of us move towards one of the metal-topped tables that have legs modelled on those of a lofty bird. Flamingo? Ostrich?

This conceit — reminiscent of the lamps designed by Martin Brudnizki for Corrigan’s Mayfair — however pert and hilarious, lacks function. Like a gang of Goldilocks we try other tables but they are all unsteady.

It’s January and a Tuesday evening; none of us is up for a fancy cocktail, not even one created by Henry Besant, founder of the Worldwide Cocktail Club.

But he who has forsworn alcohol for the month praises the citron pressé for its inclusion of lime as well as lemon juice.

The menu overseen by chef Nik Biok, previously at a Gaucho Grill, is American-inspired and goes a bit further down that line than most with side dishes of corn hush puppies, smoked tomato stew, mac’n’cheese and the offer of Louisiana hot sauce or red gravy accompaniments.

A first course of cornbread with marinated plum tomatoes, butter beans, feta and basil delivers what it says it will.

Fried baby squid in a coconut glaze has vivacious spicing.

The smoked chicken wings seem to have flapped through a bath of all-purpose BBQ sauce but the menu description singles out chipotle chillies and tamarind.

The Trade Descriptions Act could be invoked over the 24-hour slow-roasted beef short ribs as only one rib is served.

The best use for the garnish of “Haitian pickled slaw” would be to inspire customers to send some multiple of the cost of the dish — £17.95 — to the earthquake disaster fund.

Josper beef fillet steak refers not to old Farmer Josper but to the oven — similar to an enclosed charcoal grill — in which it is cooked.

The steak and curly kale, fried shallots, thyme Béarnaise and jalapeño jelly, which come with it, are liked.

My cornbread-crusted wiener schnitzel and the deep-fried onion rings served on the side are both too greasy to be enjoyable.

Our waitress announces that the dessert of the day of cheesecake with Bourbon-soaked raisins is “to die for” and since Reg announced tactlessly that it seemed a quite welcome alternative, we ordered it plus plum tarte Tatin with vanilla ice cream.

There was a wait — quite rightly — for the tarte, and blow me if the woman in the tiger-skin leotard who had done her saucy gymnastics quite soon after we arrived at 8.30pm didn’t reappear to do the splits on the hoop and shake out her yellow hair again.

The success of a cabaret restaurant to some quite great extent depends on the calibre of the performers.

I’m sure — I know — that Friday and Saturday nights at Circus have a parade of fire-eaters, drag queens, stripteases and so forth, but if they can’t manage better on a Tuesday, then it seems hardly worth while opening at all.

Maybe Tuesdays should be reserved for private gatherings such as hen parties.

In terms of thrill, the highlight of our evening was two female customers rushing out of the place along the long white table, their coats flapping.

For lovers of “living theatre”, a phrase that makes my heart sink, how about Flash Sushi (flash-sushi.com)?

This outfit organises monthly Nyotaimori evenings when raw fish and rice is presented on the body of a naked woman.

The founder Nigel Carlos has been quoted as saying: “It’s for people who might be bored with a usual night out.”