This is Café St Honoré  a french restaurant North West Thistle Street Lane in the New Town area in Edinburgh. One of the characters in “44 Scotland Street” Matthew frequents it for two-hour lunches when business at The Something Special Gallery is slack. It is however, also the scene of an incident which has resonance throughout the series. Bruce bumps into his boss’s rather blowsy wife Sasha while looking at an expensive book in a bookshop. Sasha has just come into an unexpectedly large legacy:

“Let me get it for you as a present,” she said suddenly. And then she added: And then let me take you to lunch at the Café St Honoré. Do you know it? It’s just around the corner….Bruce hesitated for a moment, but only a moment. Women were always doing this sort of thing for him. They couldn’t help themselves.”

The meeting is quite innocent but during a conversation about tennis Sasha reaches out and examines his wrists. At which point her husband, Raeburn Todd, walks in, sees them ‘holding hands’… and sacks Bruce.