At Mario's Caprice Restaurant in London's fashionable West End, a guest last week could choose from a menu of caviar, turtle soup, sole bonne femme, roast duck with wine sauce and pineapple, whole baby chickens fried in butter with mushrooms, asparagus in butter sauce, feathery soufflés aflame with brandy, strawberries, peaches in kirsch, crêpes suzette en liqueurs, petits fours. "And," said Mario, "you can have it all if you like." To encourage the dollar tourist trade, Britain's government had lifted the wartime limit of five shillings (70¢ U.S.) per meal.
But few Londoners gorged themselves.
Restaurants reported that their customers would...
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