Automat

With an upcoming trip to New York, I thought I would get into the spirit by enjoying an authentic diner experience so took my endangered arteries off to Automat in Dover Street. With the possible exception of Cipriani's, few restaurants can have had so many column inches devoted to the trend setting nature of it's celebrity visitors rather than it's food but it has been going strong for five years so deserves a visit.

The venue's first 15 covers are set in traincar style wooden booths whilst the rear is decked out in brushed steel. Business is brisk and the celebrity count low on a weekday lunchtime with local hedgies hovering over their shakes, fries and macaroni cheese. It is hard to say much about a hamburger. It is either dreadful or decent and Automat displays all of the technical skill required of the latter though TGI's will ask 50% less and Ed's easy diner half a mile away will do you a similar meal at half the price. Leases however do not come cheap in Mayfair and so what you are paying for is the postcode and the opportunity to eat a genre of food with only a modicum of Americana in your face.

The wine list is rather less traditional diner fare listing a hundred choices, around twenty percent of them American and bizarrely, a cru classe claret at £200 with no indication of vintage though given the likely markup, I would guess it needs a few years before it is ready for drinking.

Carlos Almada's joint still offers a dash of trend to a style of food that usually arrives with a generous side of neon or over friendly waiters. Think of this as buying a first class ticket on a train. What you get is ultimately not much different but where you get it is perhaps the point and there's not a plastic tray in sight.