In these days of 24-hour digital communication, Agnes Stevenson asks if there is any value to breaking bread and making deals

IT is midday, and in the elegant interior of The Rogano, lunchtime trade is brisk. Glasgow's oldest and most distinguished restaurant has been serving up fine food to the city's business clientele for 80 years but in the post-recession era, when bonuses are thin on the ground and generous expense accounts have become the stuff of legend, is this still the place where the movers and shakers come to do deals?

General Manager, Ann Paterson says yes, and looking around at the proliferation of business suits spread across the bar, restaurant and café, it seems that, here at least, news of the demise of the business lunch is premature.

Inviting a client to a very smart restaurant, where the food is exquisite, the service is smooth and the staff are discreet, sends out a powerful message, especially if you are greeted as a regular by everyone from the cloakroom attendant to the maitre'd. Where you have a conversation can exert an influence on what is said and if you make it somewhere intimate and relaxed, such as the Rogano, then even if negotiations don't always run smoothly, at least you will have been well fed.

There may not be so many of the two-bottle lunches once beloved of journalists and politicians - Paterson says mineral water is the order of the day - but it seems clear that this is one business ritual that can't be easily replaced by email.

Times have certainly changed since President Gerald Ford declared what he described as "the three-Martini lunch" to be the epitome of efficiency, saying "Where else can you get an earful, a bellyful and a snootful at the same time?" These days a clear head and an even clearer agenda are what's required.

Julie Moulsdale, managing director of PR company, Perceptive Communicators, says: "There is definitely still a place for the business lunch. It is a good way to get to know people and even say thank you, but these days they seem to be more focused and less booze-fuelled.

"People have less time so when accepting an invitation to lunch they want to know that it will be useful as well as enjoyable."

Instead of taking clients to lunch, when they will have one eye on the clock, Moulsdale prefers to organise corporate dinners. "We regularly host clients at our Perceptive Directors' Clubs where we have a Q&A with a topical speaker. Our most recent event was a behind the scenes tour of The Scottish Parliament with MSP Tavish Scott who is a former MP and Government Minister.

"Our guests found the evening very interesting and entertaining and while we did have some wine, there wasn't a G&T in sight."

Whatever the occasion it is always wise to stick closely to etiquette: prompt timekeeping and dressing appropriately are basic good manners. As a rule, whoever issues the invite pays the bill, Scotland's business community has so far not strayed down the path of "going Dutch" and choosing something that is straightforward to consume is also common sense.

"Lemon sole is the favourite dish for business customers," says Paterson.

"No one wants to eat something messy such as lobster or oysters while they are trying to talk figures."

Discretion is also a key. One industry figure recently found himself seated next to a competitor who didn't recognise him, but who spilled all his paperwork, including figures and projections onto the floor when his lunch was served.

"I picked them up without looking at them and handed them back," he said.

Not everyone is so ethical and it isn't possible to know everyone in a crowded restaurant, so if privacy is an issue, ask when making the reservation to be seated in a table where you will not be overheard.

"It wouldn't be the first time that we've had to seat business rivals at the furthest corners of the restaurant," says Paterson.

Not everyone is convinced however that the business lunch has a future. Liz Taylor, director of Taylormade Marketing and vice-president of Scottish Women in Business believes its days are numbered.

"Most people don't have the time to wine and dine clients any more," she says.

"I think it is a cultural change. People are far more comfortable with technology and they can access each other 24 hours a day and besides that many businesses now only give staff half an hour for lunch."

In such a culture, making the case that a long, indulgent lunch with a client is beneficial for business may be difficult to sustain.

"The bottom line is that business is conducted in a different way these days. Now it is far less likely for deals to be done over lunch."

This change could be set to accelerate as a new generation of business leaders emerges who has grown up managing all aspects of their lives online and who are more likely to post an Instagram picture of the sandwich on their desk than they are to invite a business contact to share a meal in a restaurant.

Yet there's something about breaking bread together that's hotwired into our DNA and the business lunch may yet prove resilient.

It can be a statement of power, an act of seduction to tempt a staff member away from a rival organisation, a soft setting for hard talking or a reward for work well done.

The choice of restaurant can convey a dozen different messages, some subtle others more blatant, and for all their sophistication, Facebook, Gmail, LinkedIn and all the many online alternatives can offer nothing to rival an experience that feeds the body and the business at the same time.

Pact lunch

Some business lunches have gone down in history. The notorious deal between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown over who would be Prime Minister became known as the Granita Pact after the Islington restaurant where it was thrashed out and one lunch in Gordon Ramsay's Pétrus restaurant hit the headlines when six bankers ran up a booze bill of £44,000.

In the movie Jerry Maguire, his boss chose to fire the eponymous hero over lunch in a very fancy restaurant because he calculated correctly that in such refined surroundings the sports agent would be much less likely to make a scene.

The tense business lunch has featured in many Hollywood films, most frequently in Mafia movies when the Italian trattorias of New York have been the setting for countless mob killings, but when the stars and cinema bosses sit down to a quinoa salad and a wheat grass shot they choose Soho House on Sunset Boulevard, which frequently tops the annual poll of top power lunch restaurants compiled by The Hollywood Reporter. So what makes a great venue for a business lunch?

"It has got to be somewhere that will impress a client and one that makes customers feel that they are being looked after," says Ann Paterson of Rogano.

Decent space between tables is also essential to prevent conversations being overheard and staff who are attentive but unobtrusive are a definite plus point. Clients don't wish to be interrupted with the dessert menu just as negotiations reach a delicate stage and speed of service is also crucial. No one in business has time to spare.