Is my phobia of upmarket restaurants misplaced?

Scotching my bright idea of a stiff gin for Dutch courage in the bar across the road, Catriona bounded straight for the door of the Colombe d’Or. My restaurant phobia was fast upon me and I followed her into the bourgeois holy of holies more slowly than a nudist climbing through a barbed wire fence.

We were half an hour early and directed to the bar. Here my plea for strong spirits was again denied and I had to make do with champagne. Speechless with ecstasy — this was her birthday treat — Catriona toddled off with her flute to cast her eye over the Miros, Matisses and Chagalls in the dining room. I sat alone on the windowsill in the bar where Picasso and Yves Montand and James Baldwin had once parked their famous arses and I mourned.

A northern English couple came in and swapped serene platitudes over their champagne flutes.