Guardian Weekend

[Bapi]

... of the Evening Standard television column is to take over from Mathew Fort as of September, according to Restaurant Magazine.

[Gary Marshall]

yes, i saw that flicking through it in smith's today.

i await his anthony's review with interest

gary

[Suzi Edwards]

he's a tv reviewer and general agent provocateur as far as i can see. i don't think i've ever read a restaurant review by him before.

now, i'm not suggesting that you have to know anything about food to be a restaurant critic (see aa gill) but do you think they could have made a better choice? i can see writing about art and music would prepare you for writing about food...but slightly surreal reviews of tv programmes...maybe he'll be brilliant and i'll have to eat my words. but i wonder how well eaten he is and if he really was the best choice. am sure he'll write great copy but i don't know if i'd trust him right off the bat. bit like tobey smith in the standard. i just don't think he knows *anything* about food, but he's a great social commentator.

[Gary Marshall]

he's a tv reviewer and general agent provocateur as far as i can see. i don't think i've ever read a restaurant review by him before.

now, i'm not suggesting that you have to know anything about food to be a restaurant critic (see aa gill) but do you think they could have made a better choice? i can see writing about art and music would prepare you for writing about food...but slightly surreal reviews of tv programmes...maybe he'll be brilliant and i'll have to eat my words. but i wonder how well eaten he is and if he really was the best choice. am sure he'll write great copy but i don't know if i'd trust him right off the bat. bit like tobey smith in the standard. i just don't think he knows *anything* about food, but he's a great social commentator.

he used to write restaurant reviews for harper's and queen.

apparently his language got too much for them.

the latest H&Q reviewer was in anthony's last time we were there, didn't strike me as the most on-the-ball reviewer either.

our table: where can you eat like this in london?

her: well heston & john (campbell) are doing marvellous things...

our table: but not actually in london are they?

swift topic change ensues.

anyway as everyone knows people want to be entertained in their restaurant reviews not told about the minutae of the dishes, that's why sites like EG exist:biggrin:

cheers

gary

[Andy Lynes]

See this thread for my amazing powers of prediction.

BTW its Toby Young isn't it? He of "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People" or "isn't it hilarious how crap I was at my job and that everyone hated me." No Toby it isn't. Sad and embarrasing yes, hilarious, no.

[Spam]

but i wonder how well eaten he is and if he really was the best choice. am sure he'll write great copy but i don't know if i'd trust him right off the bat. bit like tobey smith in the standard. i just don't think he knows *anything* about food, but he's a great social commentator.

Restaurant reviewers should be a social commentators shouldn't they, on the basis that restaurants are social environments... A restaurant reviewer is effectively a travel writer, which entails much more skill than simply writing about music or theatre for example. You go to a gig to listen to music, and to the theatre to see a play, but there is so much more to a restaurant (decor, location, crowd, reputation, etc) that means that people don't just go to restaurants to eat food even if the likes of egullet view food as the essentail function of a restaurant. Thus there is a much more complex account to give.

I am sure that Matthew Fort's replacement will do a fine job at entertaining Guardian readers, but I doubt that he will give as accurate an account of the food on offer in such places. Do Guardian readers care about food? If they thought that their readership did, then they might offer a better cookery section, and some more interesting editorial rather than self righteous accounts of the innards of a bag of salad.

[Andy Lynes]

Two examples of the Guardian Weekend magazine's, intelligent, serious and well thought out food coverage:

Menus

Salads

[YKL]

did someone say that Matthew Fort was staying on a food editor? in which case - will he be Victor's boss?

[Dan Ryan]

Thanks Andy. Where on earth did you dig up that bilge from?

Actually, don't answer that. I don't need to waste more time looking at bits of the Guardian I don't want to read.