Out to Lunch

Keith Waterhouse is very particular about what lunch is not: ‘It is not prawn cocktail, steak and Black Forest gateau with your bank manger.

It is not civic, commemorative, annual office or funeral. It is not when either party is on a diet, on the wagon or in a hurry.’ He is equally precise about what lunch is: ‘It is a mid-day meal taken at leisure by, ideally, two people. Three’s a crowd, four always split like a double amoeba into two pairs, six is a meeting, eight is a conference. A little light business may be touched upon but the occasion is firmly social. Whether they know it or not, for as long as they linger in the restaurant they are having an affair. The affair is lunch.’ The Theory and Practice of Lunch is an authoritative and delightfully witty manual on the art of taking the most agreeable meal of the day, written by a shrewd observer of the passing show who listed his sole hobby in Who’s Who as Lunch.”

In an article in The Oldie Joseph Connolly says that “he (Keith Waterhouse) never actually ate anything. He adored the ritual of meeting friends at restaurants, whereupon he would move his food around on the plate.” A better illustration for his book cover might have been a flight of glasses.

Last week I went out to dinner once and lunch thrice. Keith might disapprove of one lunch because it was with the boy broker. There again he might admire my stamina as it lasted for about eight hours and I didn’t eat much. Another was with a close relation. Conversation ranged hither and thither and only afterwards did I remember all the things I’d meant to ask about. We convened in a fashionable restaurant in Chelsea and thought we’d round off lunch with two large Armagnacs. The waitress wasn’t sure if they had any but then discreetly assured me they did – £32 for a single. We quickly switched to two large glasses of house wine. I like the restaurant even more for being sensible as I quite possibly might have noticed an extra £128 plus 12.5% service charge on the bill.

I am looking forward to another lunch with my close relation and members of his family under very different circumstances soon.