Eat out with the in crowd

As urbane and hip-London-scene literate as most of us believe we are, there's still one enclave of cool metropolitan society that feels somewhat out of our league: securing a reservation at one of the capital's hottest restaurants. There's something about restaurants with the most cachet that whispers certain humiliation lurks within. You are not quite good enough. There is no table for you. Join the waiting list. Beg for a cancellation. Or book a spontaneous romantic dinner six months in advance, pleb. Restaurant-going pond life.

Enough. We are well-heeled grown-ups with wardrobes full of hire-purchase Prada and a working knowledge of what it is to be fashionable. It's time we learned how to work this scene.

Know this: the competition for table space at these joints is stiff. The most intimidating and alluring thing about The Ivy, Spoon+, Nobu and Le Caprice is that, most of the time, they play host to a far more glittering crowd than yours. - ie to visiting Hollywood dignitary, the passing Natural Nyloner, Tom and Nicole, Gwyneth and Matt, Elton, La Hurley and Posh. With received wisdom proclaiming that each restaurant holds back three or four of its best tables in breathless anticipation of just such a starry visit, we are mocked by the knowledge that the very Ivy seat we would have given up our children to claim will remain empty all night, simply because the A-lister of the moment has failed to show.

The establishments themselves are not entirely forthcoming when it comes to owning up to the practice of pre-emptive table reservations. 'Because of the nature of our restaurants, we really can't comment,' said Helen Smith, spokeswoman for Le Caprice and The Ivy. Elizabeth Crompton-Batt, PR for Nobu and Spoon+, was more informative: 'We look after our regulars. And we're lucky that Robert De Niro is a co-owner [of Nobu], and many of his Hollywood friends support it.' The socially ubiquitous Fran Cutler of party planners 2Active is more direct. ' Of course they keep tables back. That's business. It'd be stupid not to.' And Lee Chapman, ex-footballing husband of Leslie Ash and co-owner of B-list mecca Teatro, agrees: 'There's a two-tier system at work which favours celebs. Anyone who says it isn't the case is lying.'

It's tricky to calibrate the precise value of a restaurant's celebrity count. Crompton-Batt, who has spotted Prince Andrew at Nobu and Madonna at Spoon+ within the past week, says: 'You could say they are an essential part of a restaurant's identity. But we'd never actually publicise their visits. Our discretion is part of the reason they come to us in the first place.'

Cutler is more cynical. 'Celebs are essential. You need celebs to get a pic in the papers, and that will get more of the public in.' She believes the celebrity-presence-for-fee-paying-punters dynamic has become more overt recently. 'Titanic started it. It was the first place to have a VIP area on full show, and the bridge-and-tunnel brigade would come on a Saturday night for a look.' Chapman just likes meeting famous people. 'Michael Stipe was here last week, and the Coronation Street people go to the Leeds Teatro. It's good to meet people you admire.'

Yet there are, presumably, some D-list depths that no self-respecting restaurateur will plumb. Isla Fisher, Dane Bowers and his Atomic Kitten, Michael Barrymore - that kind of thing. Crompton-Batt treads carefully on that issue: 'Different restaurants attract different celebrities. Soap stars seek out glitzier places than Spoon+ or Nobu, like...' Teatro? 'Yes. Precisely.' But Cutler is less restrained. 'If Big Brothers are there, I won't go. If Big Brothers turn up while I'm there, I'd leave.' Chapman feels the same. 'I wouldn't encourage the instant-fame lot, no. I like people who have earned their celebrity.'

Therefore, tip one for those trying to permeate the fashionable restaurant circuit: remember, as a punter, your stock is greater than Nick Bateman's. Cutler, who began wangling her way onto guest lists of the moment at 14, has other wisdom. 'Find out the ma?tre d's name, phone them up, and be really nice. Flatter them. Say: "It would be so great if you could find a table for me in your marvellous restaurant at any time over the next fortnight." And they will.' After that, build on that relationship until you become a regular in your own right.

The Ivy was tight-lipped on what, precisely, it takes to charm your way into an 8pm slot that evening if your surname isn't Paltrow, but Chapman says it's about introducing yourself and being friendly. 'We look after our regulars as well as we look after celebs,' he maintains.

Alison Lewis, head booker at toptables.com, a website which can wangle a booking at pretty much any given London restaurant, agrees that it's about charm. 'I did this recently, and I can't tell you where it was but it's a three-letter word, The Something, work it out. I said: "I know you've got your best table there just crying out for David Beckham, but he's not in town so can I have it instead?" They laughed and said yes.' Lewis also recommends polite bartering. 'Say: "OK, if you can't do me eight o'clock, how about 7.30pm? 7.45pm?"'