Is Rachel Reeves pricing out fine dining?

When I first started taking clients out to dinner, you could sit under the copper dome of Le Gavroche, order a bottle of the claret you’d never dared drink at home, and — after a few courses, a soufflé, and a few discreet nods from the waiter — leave only a little lighter in your wallet and your soul.

Today, on the same site, you can do almost the same thing in Matt Abbey’s new Bonheur project. Only now, a bill for two people will reach £250 before you even blink on the digestive list.

I’m not one for false nostalgia – restaurants have to evolve, chefs have to get paid, and if anyone’s earned the right to revive Mayfair’s temple of gastronomy it’s the Abbey. But there’s a creeping feeling that fine dining has made its price ridiculous. And for once, it’s not just greedy restaurateurs; It’s about the country we built around them.

Energy bills have gone up. Not just your restaurant or mine, but restaurant establishments that depend on gas ranges, endless refrigeration, and enough light to tempt every banker. Add to that the cost of labor in an industry already suffering from post-Brexit staff burnout, and suddenly this tasting menu looks more like a desperate act for financial survival.

Counselor Rachel Reeves would like us to believe that things are finally “settling down.” I saw more stability in the soufflé during the subway strike. Its Treasury may be trying to keep its business afloat, but when small restaurants see their energy costs double, the effect is like throwing a life jacket to a man who’s already underwater.

Fine dining, the shiny tip of the long hospitality iceberg, is the first to feel the cracks. It was never about volume or turnover; It was about art. A kitchen like Abby’s relies on precision, patience, and expensive ingredients that can’t be purchased in bulk. When butter alone costs more than most people’s rent, “value for money” ceases to be a meaningful phrase.

Once upon a time, £160 to £180 for two people was a generous way to celebrate a birthday or sign a contract. Now it’s just an admission fee to breathe the same air as the Michelin inspector. And before the chorus starts: Yes, I know what it’s about. I’ve sat in stainless steel kitchens long enough to appreciate the choreography of twenty cooks cooking thirty dishes in silence. I know rent in Mayfair. I know what happens to the menu when the price of olive oil triples.

But – and forgive me for being sentimental – I also know what the restaurant was all about. in Silver rooster Or Claridge or Marcus Wareing at Berkeley, you can justify the expense as part theatre, part negotiation. The work was done in a place that made everyone feel like someone. She wasn’t buying food. You’re buying atmosphere, attention and a little square of London’s self-confidence.

Today, those same dinners seem to be minor transactions. The food is great, the wine list is terrifyingly precise, and yet something human is missing. When you know that one appetizer costs as much as the average family’s weekly shop, the fun is diminished a little. The magic evaporates with the steam emanating from the consommé.

Reeves’ problem—indeed, the country’s problem—is that we’ve stopped treating restaurants as part of the cultural ecosystem. When energy prices rise, when VAT hovers at the same rate as fast food, and when landlords charge what they like, the effect is not just fewer Michelin stars; It’s fewer apprentices, fewer suppliers, and fewer reasons for tourists to bother crossing the canal for dinner.

You cannot build an “innovation economy” on an empty stomach. However, that seems to be what we are trying to do. The government talks endlessly about growth while allowing one of Britain’s most valuable export industries – the hospitality sector – to suffocate under the weight of its bills. Paris supports its small restaurants. Copenhagen practically worships its chefs. In London, we just raise the price of the tasting menu and pretend everything is fine.

Of course, there will always be those who consider the £250 figure to be a rounding error. The same audience that will be booking Bonheur’s upcoming weeks and posting filtered snapshots of their crumpets. They are not the problem. The problem is the continuing disappearance of the middle ground, diners who once treated top restaurants as an accessible luxury. These people are now in small restaurants, if they are out at all, calculating the cost of bread service.

When I took clients to Savoy or Claridge’s, it wasn’t just about having fun; It was diplomacy. Deals were signed over lamb cutlets and laughter. You can’t do that if your guest is nervously googling ‘how much should you tip for £500’. Fine dining is based on ambition, not intimidation.

Maybe we should stop pretending that good food is available to everyone. Let it be what it is now: haute couture, admired from afar. But if we do, we must also accept that Britain will lose something. Our restaurants have long been the quiet stages of our national life, where ambition meets art, where even a tax accountant can momentarily feel the magic.

Reeves can’t control every gas bill, but he can realize that hospitality is not a luxury to be tolerated; It is a craft that must be preserved. Energy relief for small restaurants, tax breaks for training, rethinking VAT for the sector – none of it will cost much compared to the cultural value at risk.

Because once a £250 dinner becomes the norm, it stops being a dinner. It has turned into a celebration for the few, conducted behind heavy curtains while the rest of us eat at home and wonder when exactly Britain forgot how to go out.