In the fat-cat 1980s, when greed was still good, the power lunch was where the kings of the jungle roared about their own success. But in the lean, mean 1990s that all changed. Champagne gave way to mineral water. The gym became the only place where successful executives spent quality time away from their desks. Only failures had time for lunch.
Now it's all change again. In New York, global capital of power chic, the executive lunch is back on the menu. Only, this being New York, the new fashion is for rapid mealing and dealing. So rapid, in fact, that it gives time not for one power lunch, but for two - even three - a trend that has given a whole new meaning to the concept of fast food.
Twenty minutes, half an hour at most, is all today's heavy hitters can spare on their crammed "to do" lists. The 1997 Manhattan power lunch is not a lingering three-martini affair, said the New York Times recently. It's a 0.3 martini moment. Even better, forget the martini.
The fashionably fast lunch suits everyone. Restaurants like it because they can serve more than one sitting and make more money. It took Kal Ruttenstein, the fashion director at Bloomingdale's department store, just 20 minutes to do business over lunch at 44, one of Manhattan's premier power restaurants, the other day. He ordered tuna - rare.
"I couldn't have done it if I'd asked for it well done," he said.
One restaurant, Le Bernardin on West 51st Street, in Manhattan's midtown district, now offers "a timely lunch" for hard-pressed serial lunchers. The timely lunch offers a two-course, four-star meal, plus coffee, "for when your time is too precious". One recent offering included a choice of five appetisers: mussels, oysters, shrimp salad, calamari or baby green salad. A choice of grilled salmon, pan-fried grouper fish, sauteed cod, poached skate or vegetarian ravioli followed. All for $32 per person, in and out in less than 30 minutes.
But the truly power-hungry like the new brevity because if they can eat lunch in half the time, they can also do it twice. The more powerful they are, the more lunches they have.
"You have one lunch at 12.15," public relations agent Marcy Posner said. "You make your next lunch at 1.30. It's not hard to do. Some people like to eat early, some late."
Ms Posner has her back-to-back lunches at her usual table at Michael's. The restaurant resets the table between guests, which could be embarrassing for slow eaters or early arrivals. As Ms Posner confesses: "It's a finely timed thing."
Another alternative is to hop between restaurants. Advertising executive Jerry Della Femina sat down to his first lunch last Friday at the Four Seasons, and his second a hour later at Fresco, a block away.
"You're basically trying to make a phone call with a meal," said Mr Della Femina, a man whose digestion rarely gets a day off. In his spare time he runs a restaurant.