In the well-lit dining room of El Alazan, dollar bills are flying. Waiters whisk expensive cuts of meat and bottles of whisky between tables; a couple dances to a band playing in the corner.

This steakhouse in the affluent Altamira neighbourhood is busier than ever and the front desk juggle payments with wads of cash.

Juan, a nightclub owner in his sixties who sips a vodka and orange at the bar, says he has come here with his friends as “there is nowhere else in Caracas you can do this right now”.

Outside, the streets are deserted as night falls, a crippling nationwide blackout imposing a de facto curfew after another long day of searches for food, water, and fuel.

All but a tiny sliver of Venezuela is in chaos: schools and businesses are closed, water and petrol pumps have failed, communications, cashpoints and card-readers are down and most transport has ground to a halt. Food is running out, and patients are dying in hospitals.

The only refuges are a few upscale hotels and restaurants like El Alazan, those that have their own generators - though these too are beginning to fail.

For now, they are the preserve of the well-heeled few: a meal at El Alazan costs several times the minimum monthly wage of 18,000 bolivars ($5), the Caracas hotels now at full occupancy still more. Meanwhile many of these businesses, as well as the handful of open shops, are only accepting US banknotes - unobtainable for most Venezuelans.