A Soirée at the Riviera

I recently left my job and was met with an unexpected influx of generosity from regulars. One is a food journalist and she invited me along to a PR all-expenses-paid dinner at a new Mayfair restaurant.

I park my malfunctioning bike, wipe the most visible and offensive layer of sweat off my brow and stagger weak-legged through a revolving glass door. A woman lurches up from her reception stand to ascertain whether I'm in need of first aid or might actually have a booking. She scans the bike oil smeared over my previously white shorts, shirt and left calf. I tell her I'm with someone. I give a sheepish smile and slouch off to exert damage control.

Turns out the toilets are in the basement. The only way to get there is by taking a lift. I ascend to the restaurant level accidentally, where a door perpendicular to the one I’d entered opens, and a man swaps places with me, before I realise I'm on the wrong floor and jump back in again. We descend awkwardly, side-by-side. I reminisce with him over using staircases.

Once I've scrubbed my oily leg in the sink and my Benefactor has meanwhile downed a martini in the bar, we head giddily over to the escalator that is the primary choice of transport up to the restaurant floor. As we rise I hear a frantic “two for Table Five” hissed into a walkie talkie.

When we sit down I throw an unintentional bombshell: vegetarianism. But our waiter (clad in a three piece suit) bats no eyelid and suggests the ratatouille brioche, buratta and endive salad sans le canard. It transpires that this is just a starter. A rotation of NPCs keep appearing behind my right elbow to refill my water glass.

“She looks shy,” the serveur says of me, proffering my Benefactor a splash of Sancerre with a flourish. They had picked it out conspiratorially and the Benefactor mouths at me that she doubts it costs any less than £45. I swallow some wine, trying my hardest to look relaxed.

The cocktail menu contains so many ingredients I don’t recognise that I request a recommendation. So I can't complain when I subsequently find myself sucking absinthe out of a plastic tiki cup. We are served bread and butter to start, which my taste — and perhaps philosophy — dictate will be the best part of the meal. No offence... the truffle gnocchi wasn't exactly objectionable.

Due to the inundation of starters, I only manage half of it, but in the name of Experience force myself to taste Benefactor's octopus. Regrettably, she shares this information with the waiter. The absinthe means I am slightly shrill in reassuring him that I’m a "relaxed vegetarian" but he struggles to totally iron the annoyance out of his expression. TBF, he was French.

Monsieur tells us he’s taken the liberty of ordering our desserts. My dining partner and I protest, saying we don’t have sweet tooths, before demolishing a crème brûlée, tarte tintin and chocolate cake (“vegan and gluten free”, cue pained, long-suffering smile at me). Our conversation takes an abrupt and uncomfortable turn into transgenderism so we rapidly pack up and evacuate into the muggy night.

On our way out, my friend and the Monsieur enthuse about the lift system – "after a few glasses of wine you don't want to be tottering down the stairs" – while I smile and nod while worrying that my confusion r.e. the labrynthine lift situation when I was stone cold sober didn't bear well for a post-absinthe trip to the Ladies.

My Benefactor's review