Putty Man

That may be a positive aspect for some diners, but I doubt it is for restaurateurs. I'd like to think that we in the UK could sustain a system in which gastronomic skill was proportionally recognised and rewarded. The pressure is on chefs to conceive their proffer in terms of media exploitability rather than as a dining experience; think Meat Fruit, Bubbledogs etc. This tends to push gastronomy into a novelty-driven corner that has little to differentiate itself from Marmite chocolate type silliness.

Indeed, not an argument at all. But I will give you an argument: In France, once (and arguably still) the greatest culinary nation, Michelin exhaustively reviewed throughout the country. One may have had issues with the relative merits of some starred establishments, but overall it was a highly informative guide that was entirely unskewed by the insidious influence of restaurant PRs. This reputation for integrity and depth was what made Michelin respectable in other countries such as the UK. Michelin's initial work in the UK reproduced the M.O. of Michelin France, but came under increasing criticism for being a guide that awarded in proportion to French gastronomic criteria. At this point, unable to find a yardstick by which to evaluate the diversity of eating in the UK, Michelin ceased to encourage and be a proactive participant in setting and maintaining standards in the UK. Rather they respond to whoever makes waves, regardless of merit. In this sense, Michelin has become manipulable by the PRs, and it is now the PRs and not Michelin who wield the most culinary influence in the UK. Since PR is the privilege of those who can afford to pay for it, talent without access to sufficient capital falls by the wayside and merit is subordinated to gimmickry and cash. This is not to say that Michelin always gets it wrong, the two approaches outlined above are not mutually exclusive, but that Michelin UK goes with same flow as all the other guides, bloggers and critics in a gimcrack market that is created in the minds of PRs rather than on the plate. Hence, Michelin is a symptom of the malaise that it purports to cure. Yes, but it's a far better example of the latter than the former.

Well, first of all, I want to make vey clear that I'm referring to Michelin's operations the UK, which run reactively rather than proactively. Essentially, Michelin allow the press/net to shortlist for them; thus saving a fortune in research and they then apply an extremely idiosyncratic criteria. This encompasses the sure things: Dinner, Ducasse, Sketch which get their stars as soon as is possible. And 'surprises'. These surprises consist in a shed load of pubs being given 1* and the odd Sportsman and Hedone, which are usually run by fully paid up members of the middle-classes who have come late to the hospitality industry, and usually sound very eccentric and thus British. Unfortunately, guides and critics, Michelin included, are the principal symptom of the malaise that they purport to cure.

In the UK Michelin inspections are precipitated by prior media interest. They are not systematically trawling the length and breadth of the British Isles for new talent, they leave that to the press, bloggers, forums etc. Ironically, they now probably pay as much attention to Andy Hayler as Hayler previously did to them. If a place fits into their marketing scheme they'll inspect it and usually award it. Since elevating the Fat Duck, which got them as much publicity as it did the restaurant, they generally favour slightly off-centre novelty over solid technique.

Putting the rightly aside, the subtext here, as with most of Rayner's food writing, is that the only "real portrait of what's going on in Britain" is whatever he says it is. The problem with Michelin UK is that pays too much attention to what is going in the press, is hopelessly unsure about its own evaluative criteria, and does far too little inspecting these days. Essentially it is trading on a former reputation. Nevertheless, this is not to say that anyone else is doing the job any better either.

I'd question your use of the term 'perfect', but I agree that consensus is unusual. My intention, however, was to call attention to the paradoxical nature of the data and to solicit some kind of hypothesis as to why this might be so. As it stands, your comment doesn't really explain anything, but rather states an empirical fact and forwards a conclusion that does not obviously follow from this fact. Perhaps you could expand further?

I'm sorry. Have I upset you? Point taken. However, given that Rayner is so omnipresent these days I can forgive myself. Still, it's a shame though.

Yes. She has just been appointed restaurant critic at the Guardian. Result! Hopefully this means that Jay Rayner has been canned.

Interesting data in the latest Harden's guide: Dinner by Heston Blumenthal is both the Number 1 restaurant in London and the third most disappointing and one the most overpriced What the hell is going on? LINK

The decline in the popularity of food boards has much to with the question of who owns the content. If a blogger can earn revenue or status by placing his or her content on a blog, then why, if revenue or status is a principal concern, should they give it away to a food board? There is a typology amongst those on food boards; broadly divisible into two main categories: those that see food as instrumental to furthering their own self interest (e.g. bloggers), and those that value the intrinsic qualities of food in itself (e.g. the kind of person who is too busy eating to photograph their food) However, the exponential growth of food blogs means that the casual reader has to divide a fixed amount of time over a rapidly increasing amount of not very interesting instrumental content. It is telling that the posted responses on many of the blogs linked to here are by other bloggers who post/link here. In time, one or two fortunate bloggers will rise to have a significant status in the field and the rest will just give up or be given up on. Food boards are the best way of discussing food, I think we will see a return of their influence when enough people finally rumble the bloggers' game.

Okay, sure. But the poster boys for fine dining (for want of a better term) behave as if their mothers didn't pay them enough attention. I fail to see, and maybe it's just me, why something pulled out of a hedgerow or basted in liquid nitrogen is worthy of so much attention.

Lemongrass tastes of lemongrass too! So what? There is something sick about this. Not because it's an ant, but because, as with the whole foraging nonsense, this kind of foodstuff is freely available in hedgerows. The irony of braying cretins forking out a fortune to eat live ants because Rene says it's okay is priceless. Presumably they don't have gardens. I mean, seriously, is there any credibility in fine dining or has it just become a total circus of status anxiety?

In my experience punters who shell out a small fortune for a experience like this are loathe to criticise it lest they reduce its value in terms of social and cultural capital. In other words, the more desirable and rarified it is, the more people who are chasing a table, the more impossible the booking system; the more the punter has invested in the experience hence the diminishing probability of anyone slating it even if it is crap. For this reason, I suspect many of the negative reviewers may not have actually had the meal. This doesn't mean to say that it isn't bad; god knows, it sounds awful, but that the type of person who goes goes for the express purpose of showing off their acquisition and one can hardly show off about being fleeced.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't The Cube some kind of attempt at creating a viral buzz around Electrolux by comping bloggers?

I think it depends, precisely, on the field. Blind ambition is a necessary condition for a sprinter -- for a restaurant critic, far less so since their task is completely unproductive. The only ambition a restaurant critic should have is write well and fairly about restaurants, not use the blood sweat and tears of the restaurant industry as an instrumental foundation which to build a high-profile media career.

Far be it from to question such an illustrious consensus, but, to me, he comes across as transparently ambitious. He seems to want to corner the print/internet/TV/radio authoritative critic/pundit market across the UK, without having the talent or charisma to pull it off.

I'm not quite sure this works as an argument, but I suppose it depends on what you mean by 'genuine'. The problem, as I see it, is that there are too many sacred cows, special friendships and vendettas to make the London based newspaper critics trustworthy. If Gordon Ramsay opened a new place in the UK, it would be generally ill received regardless of the quality of the dining. Nowadays, the critics' relationship with restaurateurs is more about power and personalities than eating. However, the amateurs are even more starstruck and suck up to chefs like pre-adolescent girls with Justin Bieber. In order to be a good critic, you need to have some integrity and be a good writer. Having a blog or exchanging tweets with chefs is not enough. This is why I liked Meades, he liked eating, but he also has other fish to fry. This is why I don't like Rayner, he has far too much invested in being a food critic to be a good critic. This is why I trust O'Loughlin, since she doesn't appear to be exploiting the restaurant world for her own media self-aggrandizement.

I seem to be in a minority, but I can't stand Jay Rayner -- far too pompous, and completely out of control.

I liked Jonathan Meades many years ago. Nowadays, apart from Marina O'Loughlin, (the best imo) the current crop of critics seem to be marred by cronyism, and spend far too much time buddying up to the individuals they're supposed to be evaluating.

Good luck finding anyone who agrees with either of those statements! Well, I could make a start with the jury of the World's 50 Best!

If you're privileged to get a reservation, 'Dinner' by Heston Blumenthal, it's the 9th best restaurant in the world, and the best in the UK!