Diners urged to put on a pound

Diners at hundreds of restaurants can tuck into the festive menus this year safe in the knowledge that while they're helping themselves, they're helping others, too.

StreetSmart, a charity dedicated to helping the homeless, has recruited 214 restaurants around the country including more than 130 in London, to raise money over the Christmas period.

Throughout this month and next, diners at participating restaurants - which include top names The Ivy , the Oxo Tower , Mezzo and Kensington Place - will have an additional £1 added to their bill. Customers will have the option to remove it but if they don't, it will go directly towards London homeless charities.

The campaign is supported by the Evening Standard and sponsored by Barclays. Launching it at Incognico restaurant on Shaftesbury Avenue with Evening Standard food critic Fay Maschler, writer and comic Stephen Fry said: "We may not be able to solve the problems of homelessness but at least by doing something, we in some way diminish its tyranny."

The StreetSmart Christmas campaign has been going for four years and last year raised nearly £250,000. More than 12 London charities benefited, including The Passage and Crisis. StreetSmart director Nick Emley, who thought up the campaign, said: "Less than one per cent of people in the past have actually removed the £1 from their bills. If four people are eating out, who in their right mind would refuse to pay their 25p, if it is going towards charity?"