Is this the death of the posh lunch?
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When Restaurant Sat Bains, the two-Michelin-starred dining room by the banks of the Trent in Nottingham, reopens on 26 January, a full refurbishment will not be the only radical change. Any diners who wish to admire the new conservatory, reduced number of covers and more widely spaced tables by daylight will have to come for lunch on Saturday, for Bains has consigned the weekday lunch service to the compost heap of history.
By way of compromise, dinner sittings now begin at 5pm, no bad thing when the tasting menu extends to 10 courses. But while Bains himself is a fan of the long lunch, the decision to close for weekday lunches is, he says, likely to be a permanent one. “It’s an experiment, like everything we do, but it’s an experiment that we feel very positive about,” the chef says. “Covid and Brexit have nearly ruined our industry. Let’s look at 2022 as a fresh start and emphasise quality over quantity.”
Bains admits that the outskirts of Nottingham is not a natural market for fine dining in the middle of the day but the trend for closing at lunchtime is not restricted to the East Midlands. Lunch has not been served at Michel Roux Jr’s Le Gavroche since June last year because of staffing shortages; the loss of the restaurant’s famous three-course set lunch complete with coffee, wine and canapés has been felt as keenly by thrifty gourmets as if the restaurant had closed for good.
When The Ledbury reopens in Notting Hill at the end of February, its eight-course, £185 menu will be served for dinner Monday to Saturday, with the restaurant only opening for lunch on Friday and Saturday. Owner Brett Graham’s Michelin-starred Fulham gastropub The Harwood Arms likewise only opens for lunch at the weekend.
Still, one restaurant’s loss of lunch trade is another’s gain, says Diego Masciaga, the hospitality consultant and front-of-house guru who can often be seen charming the room as maître d’ of two-Michelin-starred Claude Bosi at Bibendum, which is open for lunch from Wednesday to Saturday. My recent enjoyment of the restaurant’s £350 white truffle menu was made all the more memorable by watching the afternoon light fading into evening through the iconic stained-glass windows – like the evanescent fragrance of the white truffle itself, a bittersweet reminder that nothing lasts forever, least of all lunch.
And yet lunch has not always been a mealtime with a definite end point. Masciaga recalls his time as general manager of the three-Michelin-starred Waterside Inn at Bray during the expense-account glory days of the 90s and noughties. “We had lunches when we would put customers in the lounge for 20 minutes, or they’d go for a walk along the Thames, while we re-set their table, and then they would stay for dinner. That is the beauty of lunch – you’re not looking at your watch and wanting to be home in bed.”
Still, time is money, Masciaga admits, and the stress of keeping one eye on a mobile phone chirruping with alerts has done much to remove the relaxation from a business lunch. Bibendum, however, is not the only dining room raging against the dying of the lunchtime light. At Otto’s, the heroically eccentric French restaurant between King’s Cross and Holborn, the signature three-course lunch of pressed duck or lobster takes at least three hours and has no shortage of takers: the restaurant gets through 24 whole ducks a week for an experience that costs £190.
“The demise of lunch is exaggerated,” owner Otto Tepasse says. “It’s true that there are fewer people going out but they are still coming together for meetings, whether that’s for business or friendship. I couldn’t imagine a restaurant without a lunch trade. Something would be missing.”
Tepasse points out that meeting a client face-to-face will always feel more personal than over Zoom. But while lunch may be good for doing business, surely the whole joy of setting time aside to eat fabulous food - and, let’s be honest, drink fabulous wine - in the middle of the working day is to assert our own freedom from corporate responsibility?
“Lunch in a good restaurant is fundamental to the joyful spirit of life”, says Trevor Gulliver, the co-owner of St John in Farringdon. “It is a social responsibility to protect that. The opportunity to commune over a meal is a basic human right.”
Gulliver points out that everyone’s perception of lunch is different, whether a simple salad or afternoon tea. But would you rather grab and go or sit down and soak up the atmosphere? The last time I was at St John, lunch meant the launch of Bollinger’s La Grande Année 2012. The fact that the fizz was washed down with big bowls of langoustines to share while Fergus Henderson sliced up a vast guinea fowl pie made from the finest pastry I have ever eaten elegantly demonstrated that lunch can be as informal or grand as you like, whereas dinner will always feel more of an occasion. What mattered was people coming together to celebrate good food and wine in good company, which if Sunday school taught me anything, is the very point of communion.
‘Why should I let the toad work squat on my life?’ Philip Larkin asked. If only Hull’s poet laureate of loneliness had hopped on a train to King’s Cross, he could have been sauntering down Gray’s Inn Road for frogs’ legs at Otto’s – an altogether more life-enhancing amphibian obsession. For if nothing else, lunch will cheer up even the grumpiest of souls.
“Friendships are formed over lunch,” Tepasse says. “It’s when you have time to talk. People are more relaxed and open up. I’ve looked after customers who came in for lunch and left at 10 o’clock the next morning.” Whether you would be feeling any less grumpy after a 24-hour bender is quite another matter. But at least there’s always lunch to look forward to.
