Is eating out in London still an option for cash-stretched Thamensians?

ACCORDING to ex Thame, now London-based food and wine fanatic, Eddie Francis, its essential! Here’s Eddie’s take on where and how to make the most of your eating experience in London, in the first of a series of regular features.

IF one is to believe the press, the end of the world is just around the corner. A financial meltdown is pending and there?s nothing any of us can do to stop it from crashing down all around us: causing untold chaos and destruction throughout the land. Providing you have not fallen victim of your own success – or the success of the institutions whose coffers you have been callously filling in the hope of a fat bonus in time for that last minute blow out skiing trip to the slopes ? the chances are that a little belt tightening, a pinch of restraint and a large dollop of patience will see you through. Staying positive ? I have concluded ? is the key to survival.

Wrapping yourself up at home; turning off the heating and switching off the lights; shivering over stale bread and water will not do you ? or anyone else – any favours. Life is still for living, Army?s are made for fighting, and these are fighting times. If you believe Napoleon when he said ?An Army marches on its stomach? then what you eat has never mattered more.

For one reason or another, you will probably find yourself making the journey up to London once in a while, and whilst there you will no doubt spend some of your hard earned cash on something to eat. As a resident of this fine city, and avid ‘foodie’, my column ? that will be appearing sporadically on this fine local site ? will give you the heads up and the low down, on the best places to eat, drink and be merry in ‘the smoke’ (and occasionally other outposts of culinary greatness!)

From a recession proof