Sir – Your restaurant critic, Christopher Gray and his companion recently spent £69 each on their three-course dinner (wine not included) at an elegant hotel in the Cotswolds: a meal which he described (Weekend, August 15) as “luxury you can afford”.

To whom, I wonder, was this comment addressed? Certainly not to the many families who struggle to feed their entire families for a week on less than £69. The increasing number of people who rely on charity-run food banks to help them through the week would surely find Mr Gray’s effusions grossly offensive.

I am not a killjoy, so I won’t propose that you discontinue his weekly column. Instead, I challenge him to devote it for the next 12 months to pubs and restaurants in the city and the county where a well-cooked, two-course meal can be enjoyed for £10 per head or less.

Catherine Robinson, Oxford