Celeb restaurant bans smoking

Celebrity restaurant Zuma is to ban smoking. Favoured by actors, pop stars and footballers - and where Russell Crowe famously had a brawl with an Australian millionaire - Zuma is to introduce the ban next week.

The restaurant took the decision after taking soundings from regular patrons who include Kylie Minogue, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jodie Kidd, Sir Elton John, Westlife, Freddie Ljungberg and Guy Ritchie.

"My personal opinion is we won't lose customers but you never know what will happen,"-said Rainer Becker, chef and co-owner of the Knightsbridge restaurant. "If you are eating sushi or sashimi and someone is smoking at the next table it will destroy your dining experience. Nuances of taste and aroma are far more noticeable when the air, and your taste buds, are clear of smoke."

This summer, New York authorities introduced an almost total ban on smoking in any indoor public place. Richard Harden, co-editor of respected guidebook Harden's London Restaurants, now believes London will follow suit. "There's probably a bandwagon which is going to be unstoppable," he predicted.

"If Le Gavroche banned smoking, yawn. But the fact that a mainly young person's restaurant is doing so is extremely interesting. There are very few quality restaurants in London with bans, so this will be watched very closely by everyone else. Zuma's initiative is very brave." Harden's surveys have found smoke is one of diners' biggest gripes - despite the fact that only about one per cent of restaurants, including Rules in Covent Garden, Burnt Chair in Richmond and Marylebone's the Providores, are smoke-free.

Mr Harden added: "In New York the evidence is the smoking ban has not been a disaster."

A survey to gauge Londoners' appetite for a ban on smoking was launched this week, at www. thebigsmokedebate.com. It runs until the end of the year when the Mayor will decide how to proceed.