We’re just popping out for a smoke... leaving an unpaid £572 dinner bill

A couple tucked into gourmet food and fine champagne worth £572 at a Michelin-starred restaurant, slipped outside for a cigarette — and vanished without paying the bill.

The man and his blonde companion ordered pudding at L'Autre Pied in Marylebone before going out to satisfy their craving for nicotine. But the plum tart and millefeuille went uneaten and the restaurant claims that when the waiter went to find the pair, there was no sign of them.

It appears not to have been a spur-of-the-moment decision: the couple had seemingly signalled their intent by booking their table in the name of Lupin, a possible reference to Arsène Lupin, the fictional French gentleman thief.

"I was just in shock," said David Moore, director of L'Autre Pied and its sister restaurant, the long-established Pied à Terre. "They were there from the outset to rip us off."

Scotland Yard is investigating last Wednesday evening's alleged incident and checking to see if similar frauds have been perpetrated elsewhere.

The couple, thought to be in their late twenties, arrived just after 9pm at the restaurant, just off Marylebone High Street. As well as a bottle of Larmandier pink champagne costing £124, they drank a £285 bottle of 1997 Bollinger. With starters of foie gras and mackerel and main courses of hare and venison, the food came to £86 in a total bill of £572, around three times the average.

The restaurant said the man was about 6ft tall with brown hair and a beard and wore blue jeans and a jumper. His companion wore a dark-coloured sleeveless dress with a scarf.

Mr Moore said both restaurants will now require customers to leave their credit cards behind the bar before going out to smoke. "No one will be happy about it. People think it doesn't matter if some fat cat restaurant is getting ripped off, but it affects everybody."

Leonora Popaj, the restaurant's general manager, said the policy would be similar to that operated by nightclubs and bars, which take customers' coats or have bodyguards outside to ensure nobody leaves without paying. "I never thought this crime was going to happen in this level of restaurant," said Ms Popaj. "You have to be very brave or very stupid to do it."

"It is an ever-present risk for restaurants and always has been," said Peter Harden, co-publisher of the Harden's London Restaurants guide. "Restaurants should be careful of knee-jerk reactions that may alienate people."

The Robin Hood-style character of Lupin starred in 20 mysteries written by Maurice Leblanc, a contemporary of Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Opened in 2007 as the more informal sister restaurant to two-starred Pied à Terre in
Fitzrovia, and designed to showcase chef Marcus Eaves, L'Autre Pied won its Michelin star in January last year.

Other awards include the Good Food Guide's upcoming chef of 2008 and the Time Out Eating and Drinking Awards' best new restaurant 2008.