WITH Christmas approaching, the prospect of dining out with colleagues, friends and familiy is one of the traditional pieces in the annual jigsaw of celebration.

I certainly hope you will find a satisfactory choice of venue and menu. But have you noticed how so many of our once favourite and well established restaurants are disappearing from the map? It can’t just be a thirst by their proprietors to sell out to property developers, put their feet up and head for Dubai.

There has been the smoking ban, which has lessened the pleasure of patrons to indulge in a pre- or post-prandial drag, and there are the tighter curbs on alcohol, rendering driving to an out-of-town establishment unwise, and therefore making the meal more expensive.

There was a time when dining out was a big thing undertaken only occasionally, on special treats. We were pampered at the table, didn’t have to do the cooking, could choose a menu and, best of all, didn’t have to do the washing up. There was a definite discipleship in this Island of the cult of the Sunday lunch, when Sunday was a ‘special’ day – except, of course for those involved in serving up the set menu. It was probably a generational thing, an after-church ritual of family lunch. Now both activities are in serious decline.

But there is something else afoot: our increasing desire to take it all home. TV chefs like Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson thrive on telling us that we can do it all ourselves. Furthermore, Delia Smith has convinced us that we can cheat rotten and still be successful.

We effectively set up our own home restaurants, with all the trimmings, and give ourselves time to indulge – yes, both cigarettes and alcohol. You don’t get wet on the way there, or flagged down by the breathaliser police on the way back, and you can choose your own entertainment. You can glory in your creative skills, be admired by your guests and the dishwasher will cope with the irksome dirty plates. And, since May, you’ve not been stung an extra three per cent service charge on top of the GST you’ve already paid on the meals’ ingredients.

The upshot is that many restaurants which used to cater for relaxed dining find themselves converted by necessity into daytime fast-bite, take-out quick-munch establishments, with equally hasty names. Maybe we’ve also become indifferent to the performance art that goes with institutional eating, from the ritualistic hand-behind-the-back pouring of even the most mundane bottle of overpriced non-vintage, to the lurid scrolls and assorted sprigs of desiccated herbage that go for restaurant ‘plate art’ these days.

How often have you observed the quizzical, even horrified, glances of fellow diners when presented with unrecognisable delicacies? It’s only food, after all! I have become inured to reading florid approximations of French menu items begging a simple translation into plain English. So may the outward shows be at least themselves – it’s the inner man that’s being indulged. Don’t put him off before he gets the stuff to his mouth, even before he sees the prices!

A decade or so ago there was a mere sprinkling of ‘celebrity’ cooks urging us to home culinary excellence. On the apron strings of Philip Harben and Fanny Craddock came master chef Andrew Mossiman. Now they have proliferated and you can’t get away from their culinary frolics, their loud and tortuous proclamations disconnected from the English language, their tantrums, private-life exposures and publishing empires.

By the same token, I blame the mild-mannered Barry Bucknell for lighting the DIY fuse which has spawned the myriad of home makeover, get-rich-on-the-property-market programmes which has spurred a reckless band of home-bound ‘Bob the Builders’ to undertake a rainbow of dodgy repairs to sell to the gullible, mortgaged to the speculators. It provides fodder for the microwave, stay-at-home telly addicts who revel in the ritual mock humiliation meted out by the likes of such self-appointed property gurus as Sarah Beeny or Kevin Macleod.

The glue sticks further. Even if we didn’t actually participate, we might have ventured out to watch football and other sporting events. But now, with digital TV channels pumping the stuff out 24/7, you can watch at home with no exposure to inclement weather, queuing up at the turnstiles or being bopped on the nose by opposing supporters.

The cinema, too, has come indoors with huge surround-sound plasma screens adorning living rooms, movies you can stop and rewind to see again the action, romantic or spicy bits at will. The home gym treadmill will provide a substitute if you did ever feel the inclination to step out for exercise.

Just now the credit crunch is bearing universal blame for every slowdown, restriction or disappointment, including confining us to our homes when we could be out there enjoying ourselves. But the doors of some of our most popular establishments began closing well before Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were forced to send out for sandwich lunches.

The east of the Island has lost, La Tourelle – which boasted views to dine for across to France – Bistro Frère and Le Couperon at Rozel; soon Borsalino Rocqe is about to disappear, all turned into apartments and housing. After Hotel de la Plage and Petit Château de la Mer succumbed, a similar fate is befalling a huge raft of well-known traditional hotels and restaurants in the Havre des Pas area. The Carlton is razed, Fort d’Auvergne and Normandie await the developers, even before our very own Drax B blots out the sun from La Collette.

So if you feel starved of choice when choosing your Christmas outing, maybe home’s the place to be after all. Bon appétit.