By Jaime Ee

AT the rate the phones are ringing in Forlino, you'd think that all is well in fine dining land in Singapore, where the well-heeled continue to wine and dine in this swish Italian eatery at One Fullerton as if the word 'recession' had never once escaped their lips.

'They're just calling to find out what promotions we're having,' says owner Beppe De Vito, drily. 'We get so many calls I might have to get someone to do nothing but answer the phone full-time!'

Welcome to the new reality of gourmet dining - where 'set lunch' is the new catch phrase and 1-for-1 is the new romantic dinner for two. Gone is the assumption that if you offer top quality produce, people will pay a premium for it. Truffles and caviar are almost a distant memory, at best making a guest appearance in the menu of a visiting three-star Michelin chef - at prices sensibly adjusted to reflect current sentiments, of course.

'People are very much more aware of how they are spending,' says Mr De Vito, who also owns Il Lido in Sentosa. 'They want to appear to be saving money.'

He adds: 'We get a lot of companies calling for quotations and then we never hear from them again. When we try to find out why, it turns out they have decided to go to 'cheaper-sounding' places (even though the prices quoted are similar). They don't want to be seen as entertaining at places like Forlino, which they perceive to be expensive. It's cool to be thrifty - it's the new trend,' he shrugs.

His top priority now is to bring bodies into his restaurants, which are earning half as much as they used to. That means outright 20 per cent discounts for people on his mailing list, 1-for-1 set menus with certain credit cards, and any other promotions he can think of.

Such deals have also brought out the ugly side of diners who know they are in a strong position to squeeze the best deal possible. 'Two out of three calls we get are about promotions. They want to combine them or pay for the 1-for-1 deals with a different credit card. But what can we do? We don't have a choice.'

Dining patterns have changed too, he adds. 'At lunch, only 20 per cent order from the a la carte menu. The rest go for set lunches. Dinner is pretty quiet - half of what we normally get.'

His assessment of current spending trends is borne out by the example of Christophe Oudin, managing director of Zwiesel Asia Pacific Pte Ltd. 'We are definitely looking at set lunches when entertaining, with very few dinners now,' he says. 'My dinner budget for four people used to be $600 but now it's $300. For lunch, the budget is around $120 to $180.'

This kind of budget allows him to entertain at top restaurants like 'Les Amis, Gunther's, Julien Bompard and Garibaldi, but only at lunch because it would be more difficult to accommodate our new expense budgets in the evenings'. For dinner, 'we go to more casual restaurants like Oso, Absinthe, Jing, New Majestic, Jim Thompson or PS Cafe'. And when it comes to his own personal expenditure, Mr Oudin replies, 'I entertain much more at home now.'

Indeed, the celebratory dinner of fine cuisine and wine at a fancy restaurant seems to be going out of fashion, as noticed by Au Jardin Les Amis.

'Mid-level guests who used to come with their girlfriends on special occasions have disappeared,' says restaurant manager Royston So. 'Referrals from hotels have dropped too. But we still have the high net worth guests who are willing to spend.'

Even with that welcome support, dinner business is down by 30 per cent, adds Mr So. But lunch business is up by 20 per cent, although the restaurant only opens for lunch on Fridays. Sunday brunches are full.

'We have two dinner set menus costing $200 for eight courses or $150 for four courses,' says Mr So. 'Before, all our guests would choose either of these menus. Now, only half pick the sets while the rest order from the a la carte menu. They'll choose two courses, but we've also had some diners who only order one course. Their spending power has been cut, but they still want the experience of dining at the restaurant.'

At sister restaurant Les Amis, the one-main-course diner exists too, but restaurant manager Timothy Goh sees a clearer trend of people ordering two courses and either sharing one dessert or skipping it. There's been an understandably drastic drop in 'bankers and brokers' and a 35 to 50 per cent decline in wine expenditure, but he is banking on its good value $60 set lunches - 'we offer pasta with black Perigord truffles as the main course which costs $65 on the a la carte menu' - and $150 set dinners to woo diners.

Minimum expenditure for booking the whole restaurant or private dining rooms has been cut, but the restaurant stops short of waiving corkage completely - 'we maintain a 1-for-1 or corkage fee policy'.

Interestingly, a different scene is played out in Hong Kong where Cepage, Les Amis' first overseas restaurant venture, opened in February. 'We've been full all this while,' says group operations director Randy See. 'It may be a honeymoon period but we're still benefiting from it.' He attributes it to the Hong Kong dining out culture - 'they don't cook or entertain at home, they're not used to it' - and residents' willingness to spend even if they are not going all out. 'It's a much more encouraging scene than Singapore.'