Paper Palate

I thought that for my first post on the topic of UK newspaper coverage on food, I had better set the scene - explain a bit about which are the key papers and who are the most influential writers. Unlike my future posts, I won’t be reviewing what’s been written this week (although if you follow the links you can find out). Think of this as background that will set us up nicely for the future.

In the UK, food coverage, whether recipes or restaurant reviews, are generally saved for the weekend papers. There are exceptions, Fay Maschler in the Evening Standard (a nightly London paper), is widely regarded as one of the most influential critics and her articles come out on a Wednesday. There are other exceptions, but basically, us UK based food worshippers wait for the weekend for our visual fressing.

With the exception of the Evening Standard, the newspapers I’m going to refer to are all nationals - they can, in theory, be bought at any newsagent, anywhere in the UK. The papers are The Financial Times, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, The Evening Standard, The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph, The Independent on Sunday and The Observer.

The majority of food writing falls into two categories: restaurant reviews and recipes/food porn. As I mentioned above, Fay Maschler is the Evening Standard’s reviewer. She has a reputation as the doyen of the London food scene, her reviews can by all accounts kill a restaurant. I’ve not known a restaurant to wither in the light of an onslaught by her, but according to ‘them’ it does happen.

Toby Young, has a weekly review slot in the Evening Standard’s Friday night magazine ES.

Nicholas Lander (Jancis Robinson’s - she of the vine - husband) is the Financial Times’ restaurant critic. In his Saturday dispatches he often takes a curve-ball approach to restaurant reviews. His articles tend toward the sociological and historical rather than critiques. Recently he’s looked at the trend of decent restaurants having decent beers on their decent wine lists, or the Starbucksisation (my neologism, not his) of Nobu.

Giles Coren at The Times is the joker of the pack. He takes a light-hearted approach to the review itself, although is clearly obsessed with food (he co-hosts the F-Word with Gordon Ramsay). Coren rates restaurants according to the provenance of their meat and fish, the quality of cooking and ‘other’ - which includes service and the cleanliness of the loos.

The Sunday Times’ critic is AA Gill. He is infamous for his double page reviews, two-thirds of which are taken up by any topic other than the restaurant he’s reviewing.

Jay Rayner at the Observer is often seen as a reviewer’s reviewer. He writes detailed pieces focusing largely on the quality of the cooking, rather than bitching about the trouble he had at the dentist last week.

Matthew Fort at The Guardian is also held in high esteem for his similarly sensible reviews.

Jan Moir struts her stuff at The Daily Telegraph and Terry Durack covers off The Independent.

As with the reviews, the best recipe sections can be found in the weekend papers. Old-school Rowley Leigh is a regular in the Financial Times; Heston Blumenthal is pimping his wares at The Sunday Times; Nigel Slater can be found at The Observer and editing the Observer Food Monthly, Gordon Ramsay does a weekly slot in The Times and Mark Hix is responsible for fressing at The Independent.

I appreciate this is only a fleeting glance and there are names that I have omitted (intentionally and unintentionally) but I shall address them over the coming weeks. Part of my brief here is to also look at food coverage in other European countries. My foreign-language skills are not the finest, so I shall be relying largely on translations or English-speaking papers. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.