You know, recent restaurant openings seem to be chasing the champagne crowd like it's going out of fashion. Which, ahem, it is. No, seriously, we love suits, six figure salaries and expense accounts as much as the next gold digger, but the question is, do we want to spend an evening battling to be heard over a crowd of braying wankers?

Reports on quite-new late night haunt Carbon, with its mezzanine Champagne Room, are mostly positive, although the recent trend of unlimited champagne lunches - appealing for obvious reasons - reek of all you can eat.

Still the champagne bar juggernaut rampages on, like that pesky truck in the hoary old Spielberg movie. And, rather sweetly, each has its own USP. Dion in Canary Wharf not only boasts the longest champagne list in London, but an "exclusive" 100-seater Veuve Clicquot Terrace, designed to prolong the "City Summer"; whilst this week's high profile new opening, Texture, more temptingly goes for the opposite: an intimate champagne bar with cuvées from small, niche producers.