When I look back on the economic boom years of the early 2000s – the sunshine in which we apparently failed to make any hay – I feel bitter that no one told me we were having a boom at the time. I might have enjoyed it more. But, like Sid James, the media only want to talk about busts.

Obviously, there were signs of prosperity – bankers coining it and stock markets rising – but no one was saying: "Hooray, what a lovely boom! Let's be happy! Merry boom everyone!" At least we'd have known to have fun while it lasted. And it might have reduced the subsequent slump if more commentators had said: "Guys, this is a boom, right? As in 'boom and bust'? So no prizes for guessing what's going to happen next." Unless you're into short selling, that is, in which case the prizes were astronomical.

I expect one of the reasons the good years were played down is that so many people were still poor during them. When an actor says he's out of work, it's professional courtesy for his peers to commiserate: "Oh, but it's so quiet at the moment. I heard that Michael Caine's going up for Holby City." They don't crow about how busy they are. Maybe the boom was politely ignored to save the feelings of those not benefiting from it, when it would have been more honest to have said: "What, you're poor now? You're out of work at the moment? You're really screwed!"

The boom only got expressed in terms of warning signs: house prices and consumer debt spiralling out of control. We disregarded these gathering clouds – and pretended that a period we retrospectively dub opulent and irresponsible was normal – when we might at least have been enjoying their silver linings. Loads of people were making a theoretical fortune on their houses and, by borrowing heavily against them, got to buy designer shoes and go to fancy restaurants. Whoopee!

And what a lot of fancy restaurants popped up! There was a revolution in British food, people said. We'd finally got the idea of cuisine and had the Michelin stars and whelk ice cream to prove it. And, with the restaurants, came the celebrity chefs and the proliferation of talking, writing and broadcasting about different ways of cooking. Books, newspapers and television bombarded us with recipes.

I think it made many of us proud. We'd had a national epiphany. For too long, we'd been shameful eaters of crap, too busy with vulgar commerce to savour our meals. From the Cornish pasty to the M&S sandwich, we were pioneers of the working lunch – a people too obedient, stressed and joyless to take time over the really important things: good food, good wine, good company.

But that had all changed – we'd finally got a national grip and now we were among the finest diners in Europe, while even French resistance to fast food was beginning to look like a cultural Maginot Line. For once, it seemed, we British had got our priorities right.

But we hadn't – we were just affluent. We didn't really prioritise food. Like drunks at a urinal, we were splashing out because we were loaded. The award-winning eateries, the bestselling cookery books, the distended Ramsay chain and London's sainted Borough Market itself were just exceptions to the rule of microwave meals and an obesity epidemic. Most of us were still eating Pot Noodle in front of the telly while looking at Nigella Lawson's tits. And failing to spot the economically prophetic visual pun.

Now that times are hard, our real priorities have re-emerged. As most of us settle back into the old habits of Scotch eggs nervously munched over keyboards full of bits of crisp, the posh restaurants are in crisis. So much so that they've launched a previously unthinkable scheme: they're letting customers bring their own bottles.

Suddenly, it's not just curry houses run by devout Muslims or kebab joints which lost their licences for serving paint-stripper that are welcoming customers who clink as they arrive. Some very chichi places have signed up to a BYO club, where diners pay £99 a year in exchange for little or no corkage if they arrive via Oddbins.

This sounds like another great opportunity for fans of overusing the word "democratisation" and good news for customers – everyone knows that restaurants fleece you on the drinks. But if that's true in the good times, what happens when they're struggling? Is the food reduced to a loss leader? If so, these establishments are drumming up custom by eliminating the only profitable part of their trade. Maybe they're hoping that customers will drain their own bottles and get stuck into the expensive digestifs?

But it's difficult to feel sorry for restaurateurs when the scheme is couched in terms like these: "We expect certain things from people bringing in their own wine. We expect them to buy something from us and to be generous to staff… it is really there for people who have fine wine with some bottle age. It is not going to be worth bringing a bottle of supermarket rioja." Those are the words of Rowley Leigh, owner and head of cookery at Le Café Anglais in Whiteley's shopping centre, and it took me several minutes of wall-punching, teeth-grinding and incoherent wailing before I could formulate a reasoned response.

Fuck off, Rowley Leigh. If, for a fee, you're letting people bring their own bottles, you will open and pour, and chill if requested, whatever they arrive with, be it Piat d'Or, pre-mixed buck's fizz or a four-pack of Special Brew. If you think some wines are too poor to accompany your food, then don't drink them with it. But the food you serve in your restaurant is your customers' food which you have sold to them and if they want to wash it down with a 50-50 mix of lambrusco and Guinness and chew gum while they do it, then you should take their money with a smile and keep your opinions to yourself.

There was no British food revolution. It was just another way of being snobbish and judgmental during a boom. No one will turn up at Le Café Anglais with a bottle of plonk – they'll nervously bring expensive wine and try to fit in with an environment that is fashion-led, not food-led, where the taste of the dishes is secondary to that exhibited by the customers. I really hope more such places close than schools.