The credit lunch with stars on

Michelin-starred restaurants across London are slashing prices in a bid to entice credit crunch-hit diners, with lunches for as little as £12.

Top chefs have been forced to offer huge discounts after admitting the credit crisis has caused a sharp decline in customers willing to pay for expensive meals.

Renowned restaurants including two-starred L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon and single-starred Arbutus offer lunches for less than £20 per head. The Glasshouse, in Kew, sister restaurant of Chez Bruce, has an £11.75 lunch.

Robuchon said of the lunchtime trade: "I have noticed a number of three-starred Michelin restaurants are more and more empty. People want to eat simple food quickly. They want one main course, one dessert, then they go and that's it.

"This is the most important economic crisis I've faced in my career. Restaurants will close if they don't adapt. London is the gastronomic capital of Europe. It's the most modern, most innovative, city where new things are happening. Paris has gone to sleep."

His restaurant, in West Street, Covent Garden, was awarded two stars last week and brings his lifetime tally to 25. The dining room offers unprecedented value with a £19 two-course lunchtime setmenu or three courses for £25.

Arbutus in Soho offers one of the cheapest Michelin-starred menus in London, with a three-course pre-theatre dinner costing £17.50 and a three-course lunch at £15.50. Assistant manager Matt Pope said: "It would be very difficult to find food of this quality so cheap anywhere else in London. The pre-theatre menu gives us a big push and entices more people in."

The Glasshouse in Kew has been offering half-price meal vouchers for customers who have dined at its sister restaurants, Chez Bruce and La Trompette. The vouchers allow diners to eat a three-course dinner for £18.75 or a three-course lunch for £11.75. Assistant manager Paul Halliwell said: "The offer started because of the credit crunch. People were worried about the numbers we would get in January, but we're getting twice as many people in because of this."

At the two-starred Square in Bruton Street, Mayfair, £30 buys two lunch courses with another course at £5. Chez Bruce, in Wandsworth Common, charges £25 for a three-course lunch or £40 for dinner. Co-owner Bruce Pool said: "I'd rather charge as little as I can and have a fuller restaurant with happy customers. A lot of restaurants used to think they could charge what they want and get away with it. But people's needs and tastes are changing."