Cashing in?

The British restaurant and hotel trade have never been slow at spotting an angle but one restaurant, in London (where else?) is really pushing its luck by offering a Valentine's Dunner for an astonishing £10,000 – plus service, natch – for a meal for two.

Two people will get an eight-course dinner featuring the restaurant world's most expensive delicacies including foie gras, truffles, wagyu beef, bluefin tuna, Beluga caviare – oh and the lucky lady, who had better not be either vegetarian or ethically minded, will also get a diamond ring worth £5,000.

Galvin at Windows, which is offering the meal to just one couple on 14 February, is confident that someone will jump at the chance of shelling out more than the cost of a hatchback car, despite the economic gloom hanging over the City of London.

Fred Sirieix, the general manager, said that just a month ago one table of four shelled out £13,000 on a meal. "It will be such a special treat; you could talk about it for years to come." But he expects any "I dos" to be given in Russian or Arabic, as Russians and Arabs make up the restaurant's core clientèle.