Dining in a good cause

MARTIN BELL tucks into goat's cheese beignets with tapenade and vegetable nicoise (he had hesitated briefly over the smoked salmon with cockle butter, but his wife Fiona eventually plumped for that one). Then comes the main dish, including a choice between Dover sole with cucumber, brown shrimp and dill, and roasted scallops with bouillabaisse and green olives. Another glass of chardonnay? That would be nice. Dessert wine, to round off the evening? Nicer still. At Richard Corrigan's quietly fashionable Lindsay House restaurant in Soho, central London (where the Prime Minister was a recent guest), we are enjoying a gastronomic treat with the former BBC correspondent and current Independent MP for Tatton. And it is all in a good cause.

For this is where the borderlines between pleasure and charity are irrevocably blurred. This week's dinner was the first of a series of money-making eat-ins organised by the charity War Child. "Feast for Peace" events, officially launched tomorrow, will take place at more than 100 restaurants across the country in the next few days.

The idea is to bleed customers of their money while they have a good meal. Participating restaurants, in turn, agree to give 25 per cent of their takings to charity. The more you eat, the more they'll give. What better reason to order another bottle of wine? It's all for charity.

John Carmichael of War Child explains the simple idea: "To do good while having a good time." Those who have signed up for the honorary committee of the Feast for Peace include chefs Jean-Christophe Novelli, Aldo Zilli and the Nosh Brothers.

War Child came into existence in Bosnia in 1993, where film-makers Bill Leeson and David Wilson wanted to do something - anything - to help the children they had seen. The two-men-and-a-phone project quickly snowballed, however, and the charity now has offices in six countries. It has successfully persuaded big names from showbiz and the arts to get involved - from David Bowie to Tom Stoppard to the Spice Girls. Its best known project is the new Pavarotti music centre in the city of Mostar, launched with an opening concert by Big Luciano himself. But the charity has now broadened well beyond its original base, with projects in Guatemala, Chechnya, and across Africa. Carmichael sums up the organisation's aims: "To give hope to the lives of children who have been through war."

But is there not something odd about this sense of gorging oneself to raise money for those who have nothing? Bell admits that he might draw the line at "feasting for famine - that would be too much". In this case, however, he argues that the end justifies the pleasurable means. His own experience as a war correspondent influenced his support for War Child. "What struck me is the extent to which, in modern warfare, kids are targeted. Children are very much in the line of fire."

To which end, your conscience can allow you a gastronomic splurge. Each restaurant has come up with its own "theme night". Maison Novelli in London's Clerkenwell is offering a free children's menu for children who agree to become pen-pals with children from War Child projects across the world; at Zilli Fish, Stephen Fry and Natalie from All Saints will be among the celebrities who will serve customers during the day; and so on. Aldo Zilli himself says: "I've never been enthusiastic about giving money away. This is the first time. It came from the reactions of people I spoke to. If we can help by enjoying ourselves, why not?"

For a full list of participating restaurants, ring the Feast for Peace hotline on 0171-916 6000