‘Only an omelette.’ Bernard Levin had arrived, in a cape. He peered blinkingly around the room, at its crowded tables without tablecloths, at the staff rushing from kitchen to table, took in the ambience of raucous clamour and looked disdainfully at the menu. He spurned the scallops and the foie gras, ignored the turbot and the pheasant, and contemptuously murmured that he would ‘just have an omelette’.
At the time Bernard was probably our finest living journalist (who can forget the first words of his Times column after an absence of one year: ‘And another thing…’), the scourge of public utility companies and a noted Wagnerian; he was also rumoured to be a great gourmet. I was delighted to see him, at last, in our restaurant but was upset by his attitude. He might have had more respect for the menu, and he certainly should have had more respect for our omelettes.
