They were talking yachts when I arrived. A man at the next table looked at me over his glasses as if he instinctively knew that my only private means of water transport was an inner tube.

The women beside him shot me the same sneer of withering contempt as if she suspected the Vaucluse asparagus and crushed black truffles would be wasted on me, as would the turbot and caramalised endives.

The Felix Hippolite Lucas ceiling fresco bore down on me. The tapestried walls pressed in. Haughty courtesans looked down at me from their gilded fin de siecle portrait frames, branding me a philistine in l'art de table and a child of McDonald's rather than Nignon, Careme or Escoffier.

Read more about the Alain Ducasse restaurant in Monaco at http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au.