Is lunch the new dinner? If you walk into the Michelin-starred Italian restaurant Luca in Clerkenwell, London, on a Wednesday afternoon you wouldn’t be a fool for thinking — for a moment — that the answer is yes.
Lunch is back. Not that it went too far, but with a cost of living crisis stopping Brits from eating out as often — restaurants experienced a spending decline of almost 7 per cent last year, according to research by Barclays — staff shortages and the working-from-home army no longer travelling in to cities, lunch has been under threat. Last year Pascal Aussignac, chef-patron of the Michelin-starred French restaurant Club Gascon in London, closed for lunch and reduced opening times by 30 minutes. Lunch was touch