13 NOVEMBER 1993, Page 26

The Caz canteen

AN UNSCHEDULED entr'acte in the Savoy opera has delayed the climactic moment when the directors pick a chair- man — patricians v. plebeians, like the great council-chamber scene in Simon Bac- canegra. I had been looking forward to the choice of John Kemp-Welch, senior partner of Cazenove, the brokers whose five-star room service has cossetted the Savoy for so long. A Savoy chairman must be able to say: Le patron mange id That would pre- sent no problem, for as another Caz senior partner, Geoffrey Akroyd, put it: 'The Savoy is a jolly nice little place for lunch, and nice and handy, because you can get to it on a number 11 bus.'