The Independent from London, Greater London, England • 130

EATING OUT Recruited by a Japanese cult BY HELEN FIELDING IF THEY TELL us once more that what we want is nrt what we want this is all going to end very badly," said Tracey as, having ordered a beer and warm sake, we found ourselves persuaded that what we really wanted was a different beer and cold sake. Tb say the waiters are very hands-on in Nobu the Japanese restaurant in the astonishing new Metropolitan Hotel on lark Lane is like saying you think the public could be beginning to suspect that Fatsy Kensit and Liam Gallagher might be about to start an affair. We began the evening convinced a good-looking man at the entrance wanted to have a relationship with us, only to discover he was a greeter, followed by an almost identical experi-ence with a middle-aged man at reception who turned out to be a manager. On arrival in the first-floor Japanese restaurant the entire waiting staff delightedly chorused something unintelligible and as we sat down our waiter asked if we wanted to start a family. It turned out he was asking if we wanted to share each others' food, in a lovely positive way which suggested it wasn't so much a suggestion as an order The Metropolitan Hotel (owned by Guistina Ong who also has the designery Haridn hotel) is astonishing because it is on Park Lane but modern: the first hotel to open there for two decades.

Instead of a glitter of mirrors, gilt and bulbous oriental lamps, the foyer is wrote and airy with strange-shaped sofas and chunky white shelves dotted with coloured objects like the Conran Shop vase department Upstairs, the Nobu restaurant and sushi bar is a big white space with halogen lighting, tiled floor, buff-coloured banquettes, and bits of etched glass but, apart from the surprise of its moderness, the real surprise is that ifs surprisingly unsurprising. What Nobu does have is a bloody amazing chef, Nobuyuki Matsuhisa, also of LA and New York, who specialises in "new style" Japanese cuisine. If also massively name-droppy. Opened inapartneiship with Robert DeNiro three days before we arrived, it was riddled with raddled commercials directors sporting breathtakingly beautiful giant girls in head-to-toe Frada. Here and there a rogue Luckybitch (orange-faced, lip-linered and dripping with fake gold) was at large and at the table next to ours was an international convention of The meal, though, was absolutely fantastic.

Japanese food tends to be delicious in a samey sort of way and ifs a joy to taste some which has so many exquisite and complicated flavours apart from soy sauce and fish. Favourites were mussels with Matsuhisa sauce, and black cod with miso so rich and warm that it seemed more like a delicious pudding than a fish. It would have been nkx, though, to eat it all in peace. "So we are standing at the entrance and the woman said. re-began Shazzer, oiuy to be interrupted by the waiter explaining: "Now I'm going to leave you alone for a white to give you some time to chat" We had almost got to the key anecdote moment while tucking into a truly great sushi selection with our chopsticks (sometimes its nice not to eat your sushi until after the main courses because the rice soaks up the digestive juices or some such gobbledegook) when he was back.

"Sometimes if nice to pick up the sushi with your fingers. "Look," Tracey exploded, "We're suffering from an overload of information," at which, instead of going away, he began to explain why he was giving us so many explanations. "I think what it is there's a lot of enthusiasm, everyone's been toU what the origm of aQtiSe courses are, Nobu's history, and sometimes if nice. Desperate, we paid the bill (140 for three including drinks and service) and headed down to the bar which was taken over by a private party of uriimaginable coolness, so we sat outside in the foyer (next to famous actress Miranda Richardson), and gaped at everyone coming and going from the toilets. As we were leaving a divine whippersnapper approached and asked if we'd like to take him home and let him chase us round the bedroom.

We assumed it was another aspect of Japanese culture we had to learn about: "Sometimes ifs nice for foyer greeters to pretend to pick up guests." Then, halfway home, we realised that he was too drunk to be staff and started furiously kicking ourselves. "Nobu is my favourite said Tracey wistfully and we all agreed it was the New-Swinging-London-Ifcnify-ftir-Fatsy-and-Liam place to go, if only the waiters would stop behaving like Japanese-culture Moonies who were about to offer you a free personality test on Tottenham Court Road. NOBU The Metropolitan Hotel, 19 Old fork Larw, London W1Y 4LB. Tel: 0171 447 4747. Open Monday to Saturday 6 to 10.15pm and from 1 April noon to 3pm.

Chtf choice menu from 50 par parson. Average a la carte price, 40. Credit cards accepted interrupting with more suggestions: in particular OmoibiK-u chef's selection -which started at 50 a head but could go up to any price (especially if you had gold sprinkled on it which is very good for the digestion) but which we rejected because it would have meant discussing our allergies with him. restarted Shaz reaching for her drink, but he was bade "When you pour sake ifs sometimes nice to raise your glasses to each other with a warming toast" "He'll be telling us what to talk about Shazzer muttered, "He's like a tour guide who makes you look out the coach window whenever you start enjoying yourself" Luckybitches, including a resplendent Japanese version swathed in a magenta cape festooned with black butterflies, and a Japanese Spice Girl hairdo. Tracey grew frankly overexcited by the presence of someone called Bunty Matthias who Sharon and I had never heard of and kept mixing up name-wise with Betty Boothroyd who is quite a different tiling.

Sharon and Tracey had just returned from a mini-break in Iceland and Sharon hadavery interesting anecdote atxt seven pairs of trousers for two days and almost getting banned from a bar for being underage, but she couldn't get to the punch line because the waiter kept beverage REPORT Smoke signals from New York one block away (329 Columbus) has its own cigar area. Senor Swanky's is even closer, and its pretension-free cigar menu offers suggested pairings of smoke and liquid. Which combinations work best? My enquiries suggested that people stick to their favourite drinks, whether from grain or grape. Red wine is popular, but so are whiskies, Cognacs and Armagnacs. Vintage port is booming in New York at the moment (driving up prices worldwide), and I can imagine that a good specimen would coat the tobacco-furred tongue nicely.

The Swanky's list includes a number of superior aged tequilas, and these too make sense. As a non-cigarist, I am in no position to judge, but expert informants say that a good drink brings out the flavour in the cigar. Whether the cigar does any favours for the drink must be a matter of opinion. Cigars may be booming now, but New Yorkers get through crazes like a baby through toys. Eventually they'll move on, and Holley can't wait.

"Cigar bars are the shoulder pads of the food business, some day we're all going to be very embarrassed about them." "HE PRESSED his face to her hair, breathing in the intoxicating scent of stale smoke from a DavidofT Double 'R. As their lips met her mouth yielded to his and she tasted heady traces of Fuente Opus in his mucous membranes. Their clothes dropped to the floor. Let me explain that the excerpt above comes from Cigars on Fire. This best-selling yuppie novel is set in and around cigar bars, the current craze in Manhattan.

Cigars are big in New York. And they're getting bigger. Once upon a time, cigars were seriously un-cool. Remember James Caan chomping on a stogey in The Godfather? Now they're a fashion accessory for the Chardonnay generation arid Demi Moore fills the cover of Cigar Aficionado magazine, stogey in hand and wreathed in art-directed smoke. Demand is so great that the best cigars are rationed by producers.

Manhattan'rtes adore the warm, self-congratulatory feeling that comes from ingesting the best in public Freud may have admitted that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but in New York ifs a symbol of discernment and wealth. Thus; according to Brandon Holley, choices ($4.50 to $30 for a rare Partagas 150). By 6 on a Friday evening, half the people at the bar were puffing away. Most were guys in suits, brandishing hefty brown tubes (with varying degrees of assurance) and talking guy talk. Overheard: "did I tell you I'm going stag-hunting in Scotland?" Freud would like that one.

It's not only in bars that New Yorkers go cigar-crazy. Wine merchant Nancy Maniscalco, of Nancy's "Wines for Food" (313 Columbus Avenue), reports that tobacco takes top billing on some customers' menus. "They want a good wine to go with cigars and some ask where they can go to buy them." They need hardly bother, since the highly-rated Ansonia restaurant Books (889 First Avenue). is one of a trio (soon to be quartet) of upscale bars decked out to look like a clubby library never mind that the books seem to have been bought by the yard. The effect is refined and worldly, especially in the Cigar Bar itself, a small room at the back with a $25 minimum per puffer.

That sounds like a lot, but not if you order a Limited Edition Dunhill Chairman's Reserve ($50) and Remy Martin Louis XIII 1 25 a glass). While I didn't get to see that place when it was smokin', I did spend time at a new joint called City Wine and Ggar Company, in TriBeCa (62 Laight Street). This a a serious restaurant-bar where the cigar room has a resident expert to guide you through the food and drink editor of Time Out New York, "every bar or restaurant opening now has a space'set aside for cigars." There are now around 200 such bars; two years ago there W6T8 four. And Sal Perillo of Senor Swanky's (287 Columbus Avenue) says 10 open every day. The trend has two tasty ironies.

First, it's illegal for Americans to buy Cuban cigars; the fight against world communism must go on. Second, cigars and strong drink seem at odds with the American obsession with health. They console themselves by pointing out that cigars don't cause lung cancer, but they do cause others, so the daim doesn't hold much mineral water. It matters not a bit for patrons of The Cigar Bar at Bookman Bar 46 INDEPENDENT ON Sl-NDAY i MARCH! W7.