 A MINOR quarrel about national anthems nearly spilled from the popular student haunt the Boot Inn into the glitz of La Brasserie. Fittingly my dining companion C believed that La Marseillaise was the most inspiring. Having being named after rugby great Barry John, I pitched for Wales - also C hasn't heard 60,000 Welshman sing Mae Hen Wlad fy Nhadau (Land of My Fathers) in The Millennium Stadium. In any case La Brasserie, the elegant Parisian visage of the majestic Grosvenor Hotel with its aristocratic connections seemed an unlikely setting in which to conjure a muttered volley of views on socialist hymns on gory rebellion and nationhood. At 8.30pm we shuffled into the reception of the Chester Grosvenor hotel. I was disappointed that the ushering doormen, the ones with the 'top hats and tails', were engaged elsewhere. A pianist played gaily, lacing the serene atmosphere with an anodyne melody; staff bustled past almost on tip toe looking painfully stiff and punctilious - it was a good omen. Within a few minutes we were seated in comfortable plush black leather upholstery surrounded by mirrors, brass furnishings, granite black tables and a hand painted, dimly lit skylight - in a flash, the opulent space reminded me of the cover of a book I had read when I was 22 and easily influenced. Outside the navy blue livery with golden embossed wheatsheaf looked a little jaded and not in keeping with the gleaming and vivid interior that reveals a tranquil restaurant bristling with sophistication. Gazing around, La Brasserie seemed sparsely populated but I wasn't complaining - the idle chatter seemed graceful and sublime, not a fever pitched melee of loud voices, clinking glasses and scraping cutlery. On another night I would have been wooed by the live theatre of a middlebrow restaurant with star chefs tossing trendy ingredients around in pans but it had been a hard week and I was in the mood to be pampered. If Scent of a Woman had ever been filmed in Chester, Al Pacino on his fabled tour of pleasures would have been cutting the head waiter down to size at that 'classy joint' La Brasserie - its reputation for quality and finesse is always by word of mouth, not on press releases. | 
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