"Save yourself!"

Food I know it's lazy linking to yet another evisceration of a restaurant from Jay Raynor but this one's particularly poetic. If only my Torchwood reviews could be as creative as:

"People don't go to the Lyttelton Restaurant of the Stafford Hotel in London's St James's for dinner. They go there to be interred. It is a deathly place of over-stuffed cushions and over-varnished woodwork – the sort of joint that would feature in a Le Carré novel as the meeting point for dodgy oligarchs and London's investment bankers looking to asset-strip a small nation. As we were led through the restaurant space, little more than a gussied-up lounge, I imagined the glassy-eyed diners muttering "Save yourself!" under their breath. Our table was located up a flight of steps in a small wood-lined box of a side room. Hurrah. Our very own coffin. Quite so, for the Stafford is also where bank accounts go to die."

The tussling over the wine menu is particularly special. Personally, this is my method for selecting a fine wine and its never let me down. Not that I drink wine. But the present recipients have always been more than happy.