Food for thought

As Greece plummets, Lawrence Osborne sets out to discover the taste of economic disaster

Imagine if it was priced in drachma. The Chinese would be over in their thousands. Why eat Michelin food in Paris when you can eat it for an eighth of the price in Athens?

Two weeks ago, Athens neared the high noon of its dismal economic fate. The cafés in the suave enclaves of Caravel and Kolonaki were calm, the waiters were excessively nice, but there was a mood of expectant fear and fatalistic doom.