On-Trade / Fine wine in the city: City Bar-Ometer

City slickers are some of the only customers with pockets deep enough to develop a serious fine-wine habit. Katrina Alloway tots up their restaurant bills to assess the health of the economy

Commuters spilling out of City tube stations are treated to a free-sheet called City AM. On Monday mornings it runs a feature called Bill of the Week, where you’ll find a restaurant receipt. “What’s interesting about that?”, you may wonder. Well, these are not just the flotsam of yet another business lunch, they’re the product of City boys and girls flexing their expense accounts and enjoying the very best food and the finest wines. All show a spend of well over £1,000. Now that is interesting.

But it provokes another question: why is reading about other people’s gastronomic excesses so compelling? Voyeurism perhaps, or moral superiority, envy, vicarious greed… But this is the City, so is it stretching it to say these bills can be seen as an indication of stock-market confidence?

“It may just be a frivolous piece in the paper, but people do see a link between how buoyant the business community is feeling and how well the restaurants where they eat are doing,” explains City AM editor David Parsley. “For years we’ve read stories about bankers running up huge bills. The Bill of the Week takes the idea down to its nuts and bolts. But you must remember that for these people £1,000 is an everyday bill, it is not that exceptional.”

Of course, if you wish to project your pension- plan performance, you would be well advised to follow more conventional channels of financial wisdom rather than how quickly fine vintages and single malts slip down City throats. But for a more general financial-climate check, the restaurant cheque can reveal a lot. “In London there is a strong correlation between stock-market performance and food and drink,” says Chadwick W Chadwickson, a resident American banker. “It’s not as close in the States or Europe, but here, when business is good, people will go out to restaurants and bars – and, boy, do they spend.”

If this is the case, then the recent bullish market, since companies recovered post 9/11 around 2002/03, must surely mean that sales in City bars and restaurants are in similarly rude health. Ed Gardner, group development director for Corney & Barrow, which has 12 wine bars across the Square Mile, comments: “The City tends to be 18 months ahead of anything else. At the moment companies are making money, mergers and acquisitions are strong, plus recruitment is up. Corporate activity feeds the industries surrounding it. So we definitely feel a benefit.” Darren Cuff, deputy general manager at The Counting House on Cornhill, agrees: “Sales are very, very buoyant at the moment, and that is linked to the strong market. It doesn’t change on a day-to-day basis, but we do see trends.”

Changing trends
Over the last decade, perhaps the biggest change in City drinking culture hasn’t been related to the highs and lows of the stock market but to banks tightening their costs. Drinking at lunchtime, with its inherent dip in afternoon performance, is now more frowned upon. Just a few years ago, many banks had in-house bars, but most of these have now been closed. Pubs and restaurants have also witnessed a change. “Ten years ago lunchtime was a tremendous session. Only 5% of takings were from soft drinks, but now they can be as much as 80%. Although the die-hards might have something that doesn’t smell,” says Cuff.

Patrick Overman, a Bank of England employee, gives the insider’s view. “Drinking is not as central or as widespread as it used to be because almost everyone is working harder and for longer. Open-plan offices also make it more difficult for someone to come back tight and rest her/his head till home-time. Plus, expense claims are now examined, rather than approved as a matter of course.”

One enduring booze-and-bank tale is the one about the red-braced trader, stuck in a 1980s time warp, pouring vintage Champagne over his head while waving a wad of cash. Conspicuous consumption is still present, as the City AM bills prove, but the number of people wanting to develop real wine discernment is also growing. Wealthy bankers are some of the few people who can afford to drink fine wine regularly, and many are making an effort to really appreciate what’s in their glass. Corney & Barrow has recently employed a drinks training manager who will work with staff ensuring they know more about the product they are serving, but will also deliver tutored tastings to corporate clients. “They make a fun office get-together,” explains Gardner. “We’ve found that people have a real thirst to know more.”

Chadwick W Chadwickson recently attended a Champagne event. “It was a good team-building exercise and a helluva lot more fun than paint-balling! People were very respectful towards the guy delivering the talk and really listened. We had some great Champagnes. My only complaint was they served the Krug last, by which time we’d all drunk so much
I can’t remember what it tasted like. I’ve made a mental note to try it again when I am sober, so I can really appreciate it!”

A mirror of the economy
So while the stock-market/on-trade takings connection is fairly loose, and certainly a damned shaky foundation to build a share portfolio on, there is some truth in saying that if the bankers are drinking, then the economy is growing. After all, Babylon would really have to blaze to stop these boys from boozing. So perhaps the real reason why City workers like reading those restaurant bills every Monday in the City AM free-sheet is because, in a perverse way, it is reassuring; the City is spending, all must be well.

However, perhaps the final caveat to this tale should be the now-mythical adventure of the five investment bankers from Barclay’s Capital, whose fortunes were changed because of a visit to a restaurant. I am talking about the infamous bill for £44,000 rung up at Gordon Ramsay’s Pétrus restaurant in 2001 (incidentally a bear period), which found its way into the national press. The bill included three bottles of Pétrus – a 1945 for £11,600, a 1946 for £9,400 and a 1947 for £12,300 – rounded off with a Château d’Yquem for £9,200. Six months later, four of the five were sacked for bringing their employer into disrepute and no doubt experienced a serious change in their personal fortunes as a result.

© db September 2006