How to cut your restaurant bill

One of the few upsides of the recession is that there seem to be an unprecedented number of good deals in restaurants at the moment - provided, of course, you can afford to eat out.

Arbutus, which is one of London's most appealing restaurants, for example has a fixed price pre-theatre dinner for £17.50 for 3 courses - basically the price of a main course in a mid-price restaurant. And the food is terrific. My daughter and I kicked off with porchetta with pecorino (finely sliced, carpaccio style, served with a few leaves and a delicious dressing). She had Welsh lamb breast, pressed into a neat rectangle and served with mash and summer vegetables - just like a posh Sunday roast and I had smoked eel and tarragon risotto as a main course.

I finished with a couple of generous slices of Tomme de Savoie (to their credit as most restaurants charge an arm and a leg for cheese these days) while she had a truly classy dessert of strawberry sorbet (above right) with sliced strawberries and meringue. I honestly don't know how they do it for the price but I suppose it means they can squeeze in an extra sitting. (The restaurant opens for dinner at 5pm) Their lunchtime deal, which my son Will told me about, is even keener at £15.50

There are other tactics. Having two starters or a starter and a pud instead of a main course is a well-established ruse but I've noticed that restaurants have latched on to that and the price of starters is creeping up. Or just go for a main course. Yesterday I met with a couple of friends at another London favourite Racine and just had the steak tartare and chips (both awesome). Not having a starter, dessert or coffee probably cut our bill in half.

If you're prepared to eat vegetarian that's almost always cheaper than eating meat or fish as well.

Is this fair to restaurants while they're struggling? I'd emphatically say yes. I'm sure most restaurants would prefer to see customers who spent slightly less than not see them at all.

Has the recession affected how often you eat out and do you have any other good tips for keeping the bill down?

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My credit crunch lunch

The one upside of the credit crunch is that there are some amazing lunchtime bargains around currently. I've just had a two course lunch for a fiver at a Bristol fish restaurant called Fishers which was predictably packed.

The first course (above) was a simple but clever salad of mixed leaves and fresh anchovies with a pesto dressing. The second a salmon fishcake with a lemon butter sauce (half eaten before I remembered to take a pic, below). Neither portion was huge but then you don't want a vast lunch if you need to work in the afternoon. I'd say the accompanying 175ml glass of Muscadet while perfectly decent was overpriced at £4.90 but there were cheaper wines by the glass. And they have to make their money somehow.

It used to be the case that we all envied the French their fantastically cheap prix fixe menus but I can't think of anywhere in France where you could get a 2 course meal for 5.56 euros (today's exchange rate).

Have you come across any great lunch - or dinner - bargains lately?

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An incredibly annoying restaurant practice

One of the most irritating things about eating out - apart from being endlessly pressed to order mineral water - is the habit of leaving a gap on the bill for a tip when you've already been charged for service. (Usually 12 1/2% these days)

In the case of Sofra restaurants they don't even go through the pretence of saying the service is 'optional', they charge it and then charge service on the service charge.

There was a lot of adverse publicity a while ago about this and restaurants stopped doing it for a while but in these credit-crunched times they're obviously up to their old tricks again.

So look out for it, don't pay it and let's name and shame the restaurants who do it!

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Treat a friend for a fiver

I don’t know if you ever get the Financial Times but for some years now at this time of year they’ve run a great cut price restaurant promotion. It started some years ago as 'Lunch for a fiver' then the price crept up and for a few years, at the height of the boom, the idea seemed to be running out of steam. Now it’s been revived with a clever twist that benefits all parties - the customer, the restaurant and the FT.

This is the deal. You take a friend to lunch (and in some cases dinner) at one of the restaurants that is taking part in the promotion. They take 50% off your total food bill then you pay £5 for the friend (or obviously split the bill between you). You also have to present 3 tokens from the FT - there are two in the Weekend Edition which costs £2.30 and one in the daily edition which costs rather less which makes your second meal around £8 plus drinks.

Obviously the better the meal the more the deal is worth and the advantage of the FT promotion, unlike those run by other newspapers, is that some seriously good restaurants take part thanks to the clout wielded by the founder of the scheme, the FT’s restaurant critic, Nicholas Lander. Ones I would single out include Bibendum, Chez Bruce, L’Anima, Le Café Anglais, Moro, Quo Vadis and Ransome’s Dock in London, Bordeaux Quay in Bristol, The Vineyard at Stockcross, Anthony’s in Leeds and the wonderful Walnut Tree just outside Abergavenny. You can find the full list here. The promotion starts next Monday and runs till February 13th so if you want to take advantage I’d pick up a copy of the paper this weekend for your first two tokens.

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2 for 1 pizza deals

I was going to title this post Pizza the action, but thought it was just too painfully bad a pun. But it slipped out anyhow . . .

Anyway, for those of you who don't subscribe to Martin Lewis's excellent moneysavingexpert.com newsletter (and if you don't, you should) Pizza Express and Zizzi are both offering 2 for 1 deals on main courses this month. In Pizza Express's case you get the most expensive pizza free which is really good.

I go back a long way with Pizza Express. I loved it when it first opened then went off it in a big way as the pizzas seemed to shrink and shrink but it's back on form currently. Zizzi I'm not mad about but a deal's a deal.

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