When I first started taking clients to dinner, you could sit under the copper dome of Le Gavroche, order a bottle of red wine that you would never dare drink at home, and – after a few courses, a soufflé and a few discreet nods from the maître d’ – just a little lighter in your wallet and drinking alcohol.
Today, you can do much the same thing at Matt Abé’s new company, Bonheur, on the same website. But now the bill for two people comes to £250 before you’ve even glanced at the digestif list.
I’m not a fan of false nostalgia – restaurants need to evolve, chefs need to be paid, and if anyone has earned the right to revive a Mayfair food temple, it’s Abé. But there’s a creeping feeling that fine dining has priced in the price of absurdity. And for once it’s not just about greedy restaurateurs; It’s about the country we built around them.
Energy bills have skyrocketed. Not just yours or mine, but those of restaurants that rely on gas stoves, endless refrigeration and enough light to flatter any banker’s cheeks. Add to that the cost of labor in an industry already experiencing staff losses post-Brexit, and this tasting menu suddenly seems less like a treat and more like a desperate act of financial survival.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves would like us to believe that the situation is finally “stabilising”. I’ve seen more stability in a soufflé with a tube hit. Your Treasury Department may be trying to keep business afloat, but when small restaurants see energy costs double, it’s like throwing a life jacket to a man who’s already underwater.
Fine dining, long the glittering tip of the hospitality iceberg, is the first to feel the cracks. It was never about volume or sales; it was about art. A cuisine like Abé’s relies on precision, patience, and incredibly expensive ingredients that cannot be purchased in bulk. When your butter alone costs more than most people’s rent, “value for money” is no longer a meaningful statement.
Back in the day, £160 to £180 for two was a generous way to celebrate a birthday or sign a contract. Now it’s just the entry fee for breathing the same air as a Michelin inspector. And before the chorus begins: Yes, I know what’s in it. I’ve sat in enough stainless steel kitchens to enjoy the choreography of twenty chefs silently plating thirty dishes. I know the rent in Mayfair. I know what happens to a menu when the price of olive oil triples.
But – and forgive the sentimentality – I also know what a restaurant used to mean. At Le Coq d’Argent or Claridge’s or Marcus Wareing’s in Berkeley, the cost could be justified as part theater, part bargaining. It was a business done in a place where everyone felt like someone else. You didn’t buy food; They bought atmosphere, attention and a little bit of London confidence.
Today, that same dinner feels slightly transactional. The food is exquisite, the wine list shockingly precise and yet something human has been lost. When you know that a single starter costs as much as the average family’s weekly shopping, the pleasure diminishes somewhat. The magic evaporates with the steam from the broth.
Reeves’ problem—indeed, the country’s problem—is that we have stopped thinking of restaurants as part of the cultural ecosystem. When energy prices rise, when VAT is at the same level as fast food and when landlords charge what they want, it doesn’t just lead to fewer Michelin stars; There are fewer apprentices, fewer suppliers, fewer reasons for tourists to bother crossing the Channel for dinner.
You cannot build an “innovation economy” on an empty stomach. But that’s exactly what we seem to be trying to do. The government talks endlessly about growth while allowing one of Britain’s best export industries – hospitality – to suffocate under the weight of its own bills. Paris subsidizes its bistros. Copenhagen practically sanctifies its chefs. In London we just increase the price of the tasting menu and pretend everything is fine.
Of course, there will always be those for whom £250 is a rounding error. The same crowd that books Bonheur weeks in advance and posts filtered shots of their langoustine tarts. You are not the problem. The problem is the steady disappearance of the middle ground – the diners who once viewed a large restaurant as an attainable luxury. These people are now in bistros when they’re not there at all, charging for the bread service.
When I took customers to Savoy or Claridge’s it wasn’t just about indulgence; it was diplomacy. Contracts were signed over lamb chops and laughter. You can’t do that if your guest is nervously Googling “how much to tip for £500”. Good food was based on entitlement, not intimidation.
Maybe we should stop claiming that good food is for everyone. Let it be what it is now: haute couture, widely admired. But if we do that, we must also accept that Britain will lose something. Our restaurants have long been the quiet stages of our national life – places where ambition meets artistry and where even an accountant can feel momentarily glamorous.
Reeves can’t control every gas bill, but she recognizes that hospitality isn’t a luxury that can be tolerated; It is a craft that needs to be preserved. Energy relief for small restaurants, tax breaks for training, a rethink of VAT for the sector – none of this would cost much compared to the cultural value at stake.
Because once the 250-pound dinner becomes the norm, it’s no longer dinner. It becomes a ceremony for the few, conducted behind heavy curtains while the rest of us eat at home and wonder when exactly Britain forgot how to go out.
