It is one of those October days that thinks it is still early September, so I choose an outside table at London’s River Café with a view of Hammersmith Bridge. As Sir Jony Ive is a little late for lunch, I do the next-best thing to talking to Apple’s chief design officer and pull out his most famous creation to watch a recording of last month’s “Apple Special Event” at the tech giant’s new Norman Foster-designed campus in Cupertino.

It is a film of two parts. The first is a dramatised Mission: Impossible-type sequence showing a young woman dashing to the Steve Jobs Theater with a metal briefcase — a bit of high-production-value fun that allows us to take in the swish yet democratic 21st-century grandeur of the HQ of the world’s most valuable company. Things have come a long way since the early 1990s, when Ive joined the then struggling computer maker before the second coming of Jobs. I scrub through part two, an orgy of Californian self-congratulation that features a series of chronically upbeat senior Apple employees, dressed in varying shades of anthracite and olive and explaining, among other things, how the new model Apple Watch can now sense irregular heart rhythm, and call an ambulance if it detects that you’ve fallen down and not got up.

It sets me wondering what Apple consumers would make of the designer’s wardrobe as he makes his way along the outside tables at an amiable amble. The 51-year-old is wearing a suit tailored by Caraceni of Milan in a lightweight pied-de-poule, a white linen shirt and his signature Clarks Wallabees. He over-apologises for being 10 minutes late. He spots the architect Lord Rogers at the next table; there is an outbreak of mildly abashed mutual effusiveness; then he settles into his chair, picks up the menu and lets out a sigh of satisfaction.

Ive was last in London in the summer, in his role as chancellor of the Royal College of Art, to preside over a degree ceremony. But this visit of around 50 hours is in a more private capacity. “I’m in town for the wedding tomorrow,” he says — referring to the wedding of Princess Eugenie, younger daughter of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson. “Then, opportunistically,” he adds, “there’s always a number of Apple things for me to do.” He has to do one of those “Apple things” shortly after 3pm. So we order immediately.

Having seen the pot-bellied pizza oven in the restaurant, I choose to start with the pizzetta with figs, thyme and Gorgonzola and try and persuade him to do the same, but he opts virtuously for the carpaccio di branzino. We concur on a main course of scallops with chilli, marjoram, pumpkin and cannellini beans. The manager takes our order and the opportunity to thank Ive for his Apple watch, as well as to have a quick tutorial on its cardiac capabilities. Similarly, I ask advice on how to position my iPhone to record our conversation. (It does not matter — “the microphones are all the way around”.)

Ive first met the Duke of York “about 10 years ago”. The prince was, he insists, “interested in the contribution that technology makes to individuals and the implications for culture and society”. He gave Ive’s design team a tour of Buckingham Palace, which for those colleagues who hadn’t been to London before “was quite an extraordinary introduction to the city”. Prince Andrew also hosted a dinner for them . . . at the River Café. Ive is delivering a little paean to the restaurant when, on cue, and in pink gingham, owner Ruth Rogers appears at our table to say hello. She stays just long enough for Ive to share the anecdote about how they first met in Barack Obama’s White House. “Ruthie and I were both at a state dinner, but by ourselves, and we were both pretending to be browsing a library. I’d always heard Paul Smith talk with such high regard about Ruthie . . . We became firm friends very fast.”