Le Caprice is back, and with it the restaurant magic of an era

I REMEMBER the first time I ever went to Le Caprice. It was a Saturday night in 1985, there were four of us and we (quite rightly) were given the worst table in the restaurant — the one right by the door, so they could get rid of us as soon as possible.

I was wearing a double-breasted suit with such wide shoulder pads I looked as though I had two sofas stuffed into my jacket.

I think we were behaving quite badly, and when my rather louche friend Nick ostentatiously asked for a magnum of Moët (I think he also clicked his fingers), the waiter said, “If you wish, sir”, as though he’d just reluctantly stepped out of a Wodehouse novel. But even then I could see what all the fuss was about; with its beautiful black-and-white deco lines, its refined David Bailey prints, and its air of quiet superiority, you could immediately understand why it was the best restaurant in London.