There's no such thing as a free lunch

"We use our dining rooms to entertain figures in the City, or perhaps in government or maybe a major customer," says the spokesman. "But our hospitality isn't like it used to be. A few years ago it was really over the top but now our lunches, while extremely convivial, are much shorter and the fare much simpler."

UBS Warburg operates on a grander scale, running 25 dining rooms staffed by more than 50 people and offering a total of 281 seats. The menu changes weekly, but a typical week offers a choice of six starters, six main courses and five desserts, followed by cheese. Pre-lunch drinks are always offered, as is wine with the meal.

Guests of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter are entertained on the 12th floor of the bank's building at Cabot Square, Canary Wharf, which offers breathtaking views over Docklands.

Depending on the nature of the lunch, hospitality is provided in private dining rooms or, if the occasion is less formal, in a larger dining room which is set out like a restaurant. The food, says a veteran of several Morgan Stanley lunches, is "breathtaking".

Coutts Bank in the Strand also enjoys a fine reputation both for its food, prepared by chef Owen Dixon, and its welcome from the chatelaine of the fourth floor dining room, the redoubtable Bonnie Bolton. Unlike some banks, Coutts does not offer a multiple choice of dishes, preferring to change the menu daily. Last Friday it was offering guests a starter of spiced scallops, poached egg and saffron risotto, followed by fillet of lamb on red peppers and pancetta with tarragon jus, cheese and biscuits and fresh fruit.

Wine comes from the directors' private cellar.

Coutts, unlike some corporates, does impose a time limit on long lunches. "If someone wants a long lunch, we'll put it on," says the bank's Julie Cooper. "We tend to do what the situation requires but the majority of our guests are professional people who want to talk business rather than have a long social lunch. So mostly they're in at 12.45 for 1pm and out by 2.30pm."

One of the most coveted invitations is to the penthouse conservatory of Unilever chairman Niall Fitzgerald, perched on the roof of the firm's office block next to the Thames at Blackfriars.

The conservatory offers one of the great river views of London and the food, three courses described by those who have sampled them as "light, nutritious and delicious", is served at a large circular table. Unilever has a refreshingly liberal attitude to alcohol (it even has a staff bar) and guests are offered serious gin and tonics and a choice of wines, described by experts as "thoughtful".

According to the catering grapevine, the most enthusiastic donors of corporate hospitality are now the leading law firms and the preferred choice among lunchers is Clifford Chance.

The firm employs four chefs in its kitchens on the seventh floor of 200 Aldersgate Street, serving a daily average of 80 covers in the eight private dining rooms on the eighth floor. Guests, greeted by the maitre d' Peter Fletcher, are offered a choice of pre-lunch drinks as they take in the view of the Barbican, St Paul's and the Old Bailey, and then a choice of four starters, five main courses and four or five desserts.

The food is said to be "a care-fully considered mixture of tradition and modern" and last week's starter menu included a smoked salmon and crab terrine, warm duck sausage and tarragon dressing and minestrone soup. For mains there were beef medallions with wild mushrooms and thyme sauce, a "pancake basket" filled with a ragout of roast baby vegetables or roast pheasant.

But all this, says Dick Turpin, is a far cry from the good old days 10 or so years ago when companies competed to out-do each other's corporate welcome. "In the end it got silly," he says. "One company would offer lobster, the next one would come in with lobster and caviar. It was excessive and unsubtle but they were in business and they were all entertaining the same people and were after the same bucks.

"Nowadays it is all much more tastefully done and much more restrained. And the standards just about everywhere are quite excellent."

More than 80 per cent of directors' dining rooms are run by contract caterers, says consultant Adrian Stokes. The big players are Granada Compass, Sodexho and Avenance which between them own such well-known firms as Leiths, Roux Fine Dining, Charters, Sutcliffe, Director's Table, Baxter and Platts, Catering and Allied, and Nelson Hind.

There are also, says Mr Stokes, a number of smaller, up and coming firms with growing contracts in the corporate sector. These include Charlton House Catering, Holroyd Howe, Baxter Smith, Wilson Storey, and the Halliday Group.

"The choice is consider-able," says Stokes. "And the quality of the food is very, very high indeed."