Busy restaurants belie a tale of tightening belts in cost-of-living crisis

Paul Askew at his Art School restaurant in Liverpool: ‘People were feeling liberated this winter and came out in large numbers.’ Photograph: Joel Goodman/the Observer

Business has been better than expected this year for Paul Askew’s fine-dining restaurant in central Liverpool. He feared for its future amid the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation, but so far the punters have kept coming.

“January is usually the quietest month,” says the chef patron of the Art School restaurant, where menus start at £39 a head. “But people were feeling liberated and came out in large numbers. The start of the year was better than we could have hoped, and that has continued.”