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In a restaurant at lunchtime recently, I couldn't work out why the other diners were glancing across at one table. The two men there were middle-aged and distinguished-looking but not immediately famous. So why were they attracting so much attention?
It was the second bottle. The time was coming up to two o'clock and they wanted the wine waiter. It's rare enough these days to see anyone drinking one bottle, let alone two — hence the raised eyebrows. For most people in the City now, conspicuous consumption is well and truly out.
Ever since the influx of American banks into London, drinking alcohol at lunchtimes has been on the wane. It's not something the more disciplined, health-conscious US executives do. The transatlantic influence, too, has seen the decline in the City of the long, albeit drier, lunch. Now, everyone wants to get back to their desks for 2.30pm and the opening of the New York Stock Exchange.
Breakfast and dinner are still popular but again in a more discreet, focused manner. Breakfast is 45 minutes, dinner is longer but chief executives won't stay much beyond 9.30pm: in this recession, they are starting ever earlier, so anxious are they to remain on top of their operation. Even then, work is an ever-present, the flashing BlackBerry at their side a constant reminder of the office.
We've moved from an era of ostentation to one that is altogether more careful. It's the set menu, not à la carte; the cheaper wine, not the most expensive; preferably a private dining room rather than a public window (the George Club in Mayfair is packed for breakfast, precisely because it is a private club); one or two courses but not three.
Some, like Martha Lane Fox, go further still. Business lunches, she said this week, “are a complete waste of time and I try to avoid them at all costs. I would much rather have a meeting or a cup of tea”.
This new austerity has spilled over into other areas. Corporate hospitality is surviving, at Wimbledon, the Ashes and the opera, but on a less in-your-face basis than before. “In some quarters, it's increasingly seen as unseemly to offer it and to be seen accepting it,” says one senior City PR. The drawn-out banquet with champagne prior to the beginning of the match or concert, in full view of the remainder of the audience, is consigned to the past, he says.
Hearing that, you have to give thanks to the credit crunch, to the row about bonuses and the scandal over MPs' expenses. There may be plenty of downsides to the crisis we're in but some things have changed for the better.
Unfortunately, it would be foolish to suppose that swathes of the economy, especially the one in the South-East, are not built on the back of corporate largesse, on entertainment and luxury. That culture, now waning, trickled down across society. Having a £4 sandwich from Pret may be more acceptable than splashing out £100 a head in a Mayfair restaurant but more people's jobs may be dependent upon the £100; it doesn't take many bankers to cut back and the restaurant could close. Not to mention the taxis that take you to and from there and all the other accoutrements, from dry cleaning bills to the school fees, that were all regarded as standard fare in the boom years.
The new sense of pragmatism is provoking dismay elsewhere too. One of the features of the brash, fin-de-siècle period prior to the crash was the black-tie charity auction. Seeing high rollers vying with each other in some testosterone-fuelled competition to display which one of them had the biggest wallet was a nightly occurrence in London. The beneficiaries of this public willy-waving were, of course, the charities. While the rest of us gasped and applauded because someone was prepared to pay £500,000 for David Beckham's shirt, the organisers were rubbing their hands at the prospect of a cheque that dwarfed any of their other fund-raising efforts.
For them, alas, those heady days are gone. Auction takings are dropping and the events are losing their lustre. Bidding has slowed and diners are sitting on their hands rather than be observed flashing their cash.
This has provoked a major rethink in the charity sector. Their budgets are shot to pieces and they are having to rethink how best they can secure donations.
But they're not without optimism. For what is emerging from this belt-tightening is a renewed emphasis on relationship-building, on getting to know potential donors personally and winning their trust. Funnily enough, the City PR adviser who warns about accepting freebies says something identical: “What every banker wants, what every adviser wants, is face time with chief executives. They don't want to do that in a setting that may be deemed over the top. They are devoting enormous amounts of consideration to how do they get better access, how do they develop closer relationships — but how they can do it in private, quietly.”
One of the criticisms rightly levelled at bankers is they forgot client and customer relationships and went hell for leather after mega-deals and profits. Having brought the financial system to its knees, to the point where they risk mass opprobrium if they're witnessed lording it over the rest of society, they are retrenching — and they are suddenly putting great store by client and customer relationships again.
They are also reappraising their own spending. They want to be seen to be behaving morally, to be more involved in and more supportive of the community around them. For many in the City and business, this is both revelatory and revolutionary. Even at Goldman Sachs they're agonising as to how they bolster their public image, which has taken a severe pounding after yet another set of bumper profits and massive bonuses (answer: begin giving back to the economies that boost your profits, in London and New York, and show yourselves to be doing it).
How long this altered state continues is a moot point. Most City insiders have no doubt that eventually the former ways will return. Until then, though, we should enjoy the altered mood. Yes, we're in a recession and we've been close to a market wipe-out — but the City is behaving in slightly more responsible fashion as a result.
Reader views (2)
Am sure there is less obvious excess around but sitting in the Mound Stand at Lord's on the 1st day of the Test Match 16 July I watched 4 men consume 2 jeroboams of Veuve Clicquot rose. No credit crunch hitting them!
- Julie Gubbins, london, 27/07/2009 10:31
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Hmmm... there are still a number of great corporate days that thankfully are ultra discrete and do not include the Press or the public. These are private events, away from the public gaze and offer best bang for the buck.
- James Macleod Ritchie, Oyster Bay Cove, 25/07/2009 01:37
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