LyfeStile: A Garnished Dish is a Tarnished Dish - By Style Editor Leonie Lyfe

Chuck out the flat-leaved parsley from your pantries; dig up the mint from your herb patch; because the latest food craze in town is ungarnished. Fashionable reastaurants in fashionable London's fashionable Soho are dropping the little green stalks in favour of...nothing. And charging us for the privilege. Since coriander leaves went AWOL from the dinner plates, prices have risen by 10%.

Leading restauranteur and part-time swearer, Gordon "Thu King" Ramsbottom explained that all the extra fuss on the plate simply detracts from the food and was incensed recently when food critic A A Gilne requested that his medallions of pork be graced by a few stalks of Purple Sage. Ramsbottom stormed out of his kitchen brandishing nothing but a plate of the vermillion leaves, slamming it down before the critic and shouting, "you want f***ing garnish, then you have f***ing garnish. I've fed the pork to the cat." Gilne was surprisingly happy and said, quietly, that he'd be dining out for a week on that. I have to say he does look awfully undernourished.

As for the price increase, top chef in the world, Heston Service-Station of the Fat Goose explained that there is a considerable amount of art involved in having no garnish. "It's not that there's no garnish, its that the dishes are garnished with air. But not just any air as it comes straight from the packet. The molecules all have to be arranged with molecular tweezers to ensure the right aesthetics. And too much stray Argon and the whole dish has to go in the bin."

I don't know. People have more money than sense.