The chic of Araby

WHAT is one to make of Beirut? There is barely a glowing detail about the place that does not start to rankle even before the accolade has been breathed yet each and every tiny irritant is rectified with such panache complaints must soon be withdrawn.

Take the dining room itself: warm (full quota of brownie points), stylish and intimate.

Tables are arranged in two long rows in the narrow room. Walls are daubed in apricot, Tiffany-style lamps and blood-red candle jars provide light; cushions on the chairs score not just for comfort but also detail. It is not hard to imagine oneself in a billowy silk caravan under some starry Middle Eastern sky. But this cosy intimacy is soon shattered: tables are within elbow distance of each other and diners need not be connoisseurs of Jean-Paul Sartre to know hell is other people.

Then there is the service: luckily a neighbouring diner took pity on us and passed us his menu, or else we might still be waiting. Bread took an age to arrive. Our requests for water put us so low down on their list of priorities that we might well have been in the Gobi Desert.

Most unimpressive of all was the wine: clearly ordered by my companion, but given to myself to taste. There are a few men this goes down well with: dyed-in-the-wool Englishmen past 30 seldom qualify.

And then all at once - maybe the genie lurking in the brassware heard our plea - all changed. Waiters and waitresses paraded down the length of the room anticipating our every request: iced water flowed, heavenly billowy pads of Lebanese bread appeared like magic below our noses every time one piece was finished.