Elegant Dining Quotes

Musicals are to the theater what wines are to a substantial dinner.

When I'm in London, Claridge's is a great favourite. I'm a big fan of art deco architecture and the rooms are extraordinary.

But some of us are beginning to pull well away, in our irritation, from...the exquisite tasters, the vintage snobs, the three-star Michelin gourmets. There is, we feel, a decent area somewhere between boiled carrots and Beluga caviare, sour plonk and Chateau Lafitte, where we can take care of our gullets and bellies without worshipping them.

My notion of an elegant table is you don't leave the knife sticking out of the mayonnaise jar.

The odour of Burgundy, and the smell of French sauces, and the sight of clean napkins and long loaves, knocked as a very welcome visitor at the door of our inner man.

Tea at college was served on long tables with an urn at the end of each. Long baguettes of bread, three to a table, were set out with meagre portions of butter and jam; the china was coarse to withstand the schoolboy-clutch and the tea strong. At the Hôtel de Paris I was astonished at the fragility of the cups, the silver teapot, the little triangular savoury sandwiches, the éclairs stuffed with cream.

I like on the table, when we're speaking, the light of a bottle of intelligent wine.