 and a very warm welcome to the British Library food season, which is generously supported by KitchenAid. My name is Angela Clutton. It is my complete joy and delight to be the guest director of the food season. Working with Polly Russell, who's the season's founder and the creator for the four years it's been running. You join us in a very busy week for the food season. Tonight we're going to be talking about restaurant writing. Tomorrow we bring you stories from inside the coffee cup. Thursday is Maddie Jeffery talking with Rinda Bogle about Maddie's, excuse me, about Maddie's life, career and food. And then Friday we have a lovely film at lunchtime with Olya Hercules and Elizabeth Leuard cooking and talking together. A little housekeeping before we get started tonight. You should be able to see some tabs on the screen where you can give your feedback on the tonight's event. You can read a little bit more about our speakers or perhaps make a donation to support the work of the British Library. We hope you might like to join in as a mid-question to our panel yourself. If you want to do that, there's a box under the video where you can type your question in and you'll also see the social media platforms where you can carry on the conversation there too. You will also see details about the food season competition, which we're running with KitchenAid where you could win a range of their quarter appliances, a place on the virtual cooking class and a signed copy of the pie room by Karen Franklin. Okay, so let's get to it tonight's event. Exploring different aspects of restaurant writing. A very timely conversation as restaurant industry starts to reopen itself up post lockdown. We have a cracking panel of restaurant writers tonight. Jimmy Famiwara, Nick Lander, Ligay Misham. Lisa Marquell, we're still in the conversation. I'll let her introduce the panel, but first of all, a few words on Lisa. Lisa Marquell has been a journalist for 30 years, winning awards as she was independent on Sunday and spending eight years as a restaurant critic for that paper. She took what she calls a gap year to do the chefs to come at least, documenting a progress on doing that in New York Column and graduating with distinction. Oh, sorry, I've got really something in my throat. It's making it hard. Sorry, right. Back to Lisa. Lisa is currently food editor at The Sunday Times and until very recently also editor at Code for Hospitality, Digital Bulletin and Print Magazine, the restaurant community. There can be no one better place to steer this discussion, so I'm going to go and clean my throat and hand over to you, Lisa. Thank you very much, Angela, and thanks very much everyone for joining us tonight for an introduction. I feel very ill-equipped to be the person chairing this because my three panellists are absolutely incredible and they range across everything to do with restaurant writing and criticism. So let me introduce them to you. First, we've got Ligay Misham. Ligay writes for The New York Times and Tea Magazine. Her writing, which is on food travel and much more, it encompasses things like gout, how to fix the food system and what they eat in the Arctic. She's been shortlisted from many awards for her writing. She is also doing criticism for The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books. She's currently co-authoring a book called Philippine X Heritage Recipes from the Diaspora and compiling her own essays. So that's incredibly exciting. Welcome, Ligaya. Next up, we've got Jimmy Famarowa. Jimmy writes for GQ, The Guardian and Wired in the UK. His main job, and it's a whopping one, is to be the restaurant critic for the evening standard. Jimmy took over when the doyen of restaurant critics, Faye Mashla, stepped down. He's also a guest judge on Masterchef UK and hosts a podcast for Waitrose called Life on a Plate. So Jimmy is all across everything that's happening and moving and shaking in the London restaurant scene. Next up, we've got Nick Lander. Nick has been the restaurant correspondent for the Financial Times for a whopping 33 years. Before he took over, doing that in 1988, he bought and then sold the fabled Soho restaurant Lescargo, so he knows about things from both sides. He wrote a seminal title called The Art of the Restaurateur in 2012, and he followed that up in 2016 with a book which he describes as being about the world's favourite bit of paper. Of course, it's on the menu. Nick is also a consultant to hospitality developers. He's worked on the hospitality part of all sorts of arts establishments, St. Pancras, King's Cross and more. So as I mentioned, they really are the best people to guide us through tonight. We will leave time at the end for questions, so please keep them coming in and we'll leave some time at the end. It's a huge subject. We'll do our best to cover a multitude of facets of restaurant writing and restaurant criticism. So let's get started. I think probably where to start with this huge subject is the word criticism. Criticism suggests negativity, but of course people who write about restaurants and review them love restaurants, it's nothing finer. So I want to ask each of the panellists, is the job of a critic to put the food that they're eating in a wider context for the readers, or is it to tell people where to go for their tea? Let's start with Nick. Well, I've never liked the phrase restaurant critic. I think it's negative, as you've said, and I just think it's quite narrowing. It means you're concentrating on just what's on the plate and you don't get a chance to explain anything else. And I think it's the everything else. It's the context of the restaurant. Of course, the food has to be good, but there's one other point I'd like to make. And that is, I can't remember the last time I had a bad meal. I think standards of cooking and standards of service have risen so high across the UK anyway, that actually you can't get away with anything subnormal. I don't know if it's the same in New York Ligaya, but in England, certainly in London, and most of the places outside London as well, the quality really is fantastic. And I think that's another reason for saying no to the term restaurant critic. Interesting. I think you're picking wisely because I know that not everywhere would people watching might be saying, I had a terrible meal last night, but maybe they're all over on TripAdvisor. But yes, chosen wisely. It's a rich subject with lots more than food. Jimmy, where do you stand? Is it telling people where to go or is it telling them about the whole ecosystem of restaurants? I think ideally you're hoping to do it both. You're hoping to inform people and arm them, give them a sense of what to order, a sense of what the experience is like. But then I do definitely think about the context and the wider framework. And I've been a critic in other mediums, I've written about film and TV and music and things like that. And it's strange, restaurant writing does feel distinct, but I think if I've ever thought about it, that word critic is an attempt to put writing about food on the same level as arts criticism. To write about, you know, to approach a restaurant the way you would kind of a new album or a new film in that you're trying to put it in the context of what it's trying to achieve, how successful it is and kind of evaluating it based on that. But you're also, I think, trying to, or I certainly am, and this is kind of what I've just kind of gleaned from being a fan of restaurant writing before I was actually writing about these places myself, is to just kind of give people a sense of what it's like, like a real atmospheric, you know, put them in the room as it were. And that's kind of always the thing that goes hand in hand. And I guess, based on that, people can make a judgment about whether it's a place for them or not. Cool. I mean, you're, you know, you're a critic, but you're also, you write on restaurants, you write on the food scene in a slightly different way. So how much of what you do is about telling people about the meal on the plate and how much of it is about everything around that experience. I think that, I think it's two really different kinds of writing. I tend to think about the restaurant reviews as service journalism to some extent, which is on even a very practical level, my very first editor in the field said, I have to know, do I get to, do I seat myself? Do I go and pick up the food at the counter? I need to know this information. It's not the stuff of poetry, but it's the practical details. So I feel like with each restaurant review, and I have a slightly different brief, because I don't review fancy places. I'm reviewing holes in the wall. I'm reviewing places where I'm not going, I don't ever need to be negative. If I go to a place and I had a bad meal, I wouldn't write about it. So I'm really lucky in that way. All of my writing in my restaurant views is essentially celebratory in that sense, because I'm writing about, you know, people, immigrants to our country who are struggling, and like, this is their dream and putting, this is how they're supporting their families. So it's always, it's always a great story to also know how they got there. And just to think about how New York City is just made up of all of these lives. And this is what makes our city great. But in the other kinds of writing, that's where I feel like I bring this more critical eye of thinking about what are the systems? You know, how did all these restaurants fit into this larger system and all these different issues of the issues of labor and then legacies of colonialism and who gets to cook what kinds of food or sell what kinds of food and who has access to the public relations to have their restaurants out in the public. So I do think those are really important questions, but I'm not sure that a restaurant review can bear all the weight of that thinking. Well, we'll definitely come back to that subject in more detail the end of what you were saying there. But I guess thinking about the first part of what you said and also about Jimmy and Nick, do you as critics feel a responsibility in your writing? And if so, who's that to? Is it to the reader? Is it to the audience? Is it to the person who might be going out to spend $25 or £145 on the meal? Do you have any responsibility to the restaurants? You know, do you feel if you write a review of someone say it's a shocker? Not to the restaurants, not to the reader. Oh, okay. But I was going to say, particularly in where we are right now, obviously restaurants weren't open to be critiqued for a long time. But in the post-pandemic scene, do you feel a responsibility to them? Nick, you've made your feelings clear. You don't think any responsibility to the restaurants. Jimmy, what about you? I'm just trying to think. Responsibility is an interesting one. I do think on a kind of really, almost like on a personal anecdotal level, like if I'm in a restaurant, the times that I've kind of been moved to be negative or be honest about an experience that wasn't pleasurable or wasn't good value, the thing that's kind of like prompted me has been the notion that people go out and they spend money and they get a babysitter and they do all these things and they're going to get an experience that subpar and that kind of idea of having to convince yourself that you're having a good time because there's almost too much riding on it. So that's probably less in terms of thinking of a specific target for people that I need to kind of keep in mind when I'm writing. It's more that honesty that I'm hopefully aiming for but then, as I've said before, it's interesting to hear a guy talk about that kind of celebratory approach and it feels like throughout this past year of the pandemic, it feels like a lot of food writing has kind of been more about that and restaurant writing especially has kind of pivoted as everything else has pivoted to being less about that grading and more kind of here's a really good experience or here's something exciting or interesting that's happening go here and then the things that that aren't good and I've definitely you know had things that are not good happened recently and throughout this last year you don't really write about them or you try to accentuate the positive. Yeah I mean look oh it's interesting you know you're saying your beat is is quite a lot about the unsung restaurants the lesser known ones but if you write about a little hole in the wall place and you publish that in the New York Times you know that can have such a I imagine an enormous effect and perhaps sometimes could be almost overwhelming for a small operation so do you you know are you conscious of that in where you choose to go and how you choose to write? I definitely think that I have a responsibility not to over praise so I really have tried to frame the column over the years as these are places where not everything is going to be perfect I don't I can have that expectation it's one thing to take down an incredibly expensive restaurant where yes you saved up all year and it's your anniversary and they ruined it but you know these little places there may be only one truly great dish and that's the dish I'm going to write about you know so I really think about it because in some cases there have been times when I've written about a place and then the landlord raises their rent because suddenly they're famous and they're getting business and then they've had to close so a lot of restaurants I've written about have closed over the years I hope that I have not contributed in every case that really breaks my heart I also know that there are times when I you know I always when I'm fact-checking and I call the chefs or the owners of the restaurants and talk to them when it means so much to them they're not expecting to be reviewed you know nobody has my picture on a wall nobody's looking out and it can change their lives for the better so I'm I'm also aware of that and I have had just as one little last night I have had once the son of a chef called me to say my mother is worried that you didn't really like this one dish I've written a very positive review but perhaps my wording on one of the dishes because I didn't want to oversell was a little bit less and she said she wants to make it again for you and I said no no no it's all fine it was great it was a Jewish restaurant it wasn't but uh it was um actually it was so interesting it was a it was a choreo saram restaurant which is a this Korean group in the far east of Russia or who just you know were were deported there during under Stalin I mean a fascinating story and yeah that's what I wrote about mostly and I was like no no this this this dish of bracken was beautiful I loved it the right to reply is something that uh is I think always a vexed question when I'm certainly when I was reviewing I had a few you know letters and emails saying you know come back and try it again you know or something possibly even less polite um it's it's definitely quite difficult because you do have to base a lot on on one meal I mean certainly in the UK I mean I know that um you know in the sort of healthy and days of restaurant criticism certainly in America people might go three four times um here we really you know you have one shot so yeah there's a lot of pressure um I want to move on to something we just touched on there about which restaurants we we you choose to review because you know there's a shift away and some would say we're not going far enough and some would say it's very overdue away from the PR led western centric cuisines the the kind of classic restaurants and and the ones that we get to hear about because there's a lot of money behind them that brings with it as a sort of another whole aspect of responsibility and that's understanding of a different way a new way um I'm really interested in how you each can tackle that because it's we all work for some legacy media you know which has a certain audience and perhaps that's you know one has to keep that in mind when you think about what you're writing what you're choosing to write about but to get away from from the the ones that are being spoon fed to us um requires a different mindset Jimmy perhaps you could come to that first and just just talk to that idea of how do you get away from how do you choose the places that are going to be different I mean for instance last weekend you reviewed a restaurant which last week which two other big critics reviewed on the same in the same week because it was a big you can't really help that but at the same time yeah can we get away from that that's a real talking point I think in the moment yeah completely and I guess it's even it's probably amplified by the situation with reopening and they're not being as many places and kind of you know it's all sort of concentrated in the same areas but um but yeah I think your point about um it being long overdue the kind of conversations and um the the changes and I feel like I am seeing a concerted effort from other critics as well to to try and and highlight those places that are off the that as you say it's so easy for everything to be modern British modern European French leaning and so so easy for that to be viewed as the default that you should always kind of everything should retract back to and anything else if you do a West African restaurant or a Singaporean place then that's a kind of little special treat there you know one a month or something so I do feel like things are improving whether they're improving sort of quickly enough is is up for the bait I'd say one thing that I would it's always something that I'm striving to do that I'm kind of you mentioned the restaurant this week that was obviously a big opening or last week was it there's a big opening that other critics covered but like you know I'm trying to you know a couple of weeks before that it was a Caribbean place on the South Bank that I was really sort of you know I it's been what's been really good particularly as you know a black food critic has been to have these conversations have had have happened and to be able to kind of you know have these conversations in the open a little bit more and kind of it feels it feels like things could still improve but we're in a somewhat healthier place in terms of being able to say I think we really need to cover this restaurant and you know it's kind of a bit more out in the open whereas I'd say you know a couple of years ago it was kind of um I don't know there's there's a there's a there's almost like a shutting out by stealth because just because of the presentation of the magazines quite often or newspapers and there's uh there's advertisers and there's a kind of um there's a gloss particularly in the UK that kind of goes hand in hand with food and restaurant coverage and I think one other point that I'd love to see one other thing that I'd love to see kind of almost introduced a little bit more is maybe just a little bit more variety and boldness in terms of how we're presenting this stuff because if it is all about you know beautiful shots and people that are PR savvy and social media presence and things like that then it's going to prioritize the same sorts of places and so um yes it's a difficult thing to to come up with an easy answer to but it's you know something that I do think is is improving and I'm you know always striving to to do better with it really. I mean I think that's absolutely a a really important point of of mainstream media or whatever you want to call it legacy media is that it has a perceived audience and who those people are and what demographic they are and everything but really you know it's it's our job to stay relevant and to draw in new people while not you know giving the established audience what they're familiar with but taking them a little a little you know a little in a new direction and staying relevant and building audience trust and building a new audience trust. I mean Nick with the Financial Times do you you know how do you decide what where you're going to write about and and how does that sit with what the perception of the Financial Times is? I rely on my younger daughter because you know she's 30 and they are the new restaurant goers you know there's absolutely no question about it and they're far more decisive far more opinionated than their boyfriends or fiancees or husbands and I just listen to what she has to say and follow her advice. I think the FT has changed significantly in the time I've been writing about it and I think its audience has changed and I think it's far more female orientated as it has to be you know the editor is now a woman the first female editor and until recently the magazine editor was a woman and I just think most of the restaurant goers today if you look around are women and that's fantastic and interesting yeah I think it I mean I was in Dishoom yesterday morning for breakfast and it was 15 women and three men in the section of the restaurant that I was sitting in. I was an ex-female newspaper editor myself I would say that you know that's a good thing because it might prove that more you know women have always been you know the people who make quite a lot of financial decisions in a relationship or in a business setting so I think that's a that's a good thing but I think everyone should be going to restaurants and to your point about your daughter actually I think what's really interesting for perhaps some well-established critics or section editors is that we sort of think about our audience but actually the people with the spending power quite often are the younger ones who you know we talk about this a lot with friends and colleagues that you know people under the age of 30 who perhaps aren't getting on to the property ladder you know those are the people with the income that they're spending on dining out when I was young you know we might go to wine bar and perhaps you know share a seasonal salad between three people and drink a lot now it's completely different so the audience is changing and where we write about and choose to write about has to change with that I think the guy you how do you find the places that you write about obviously they're not by the sounds of it mostly on the sort of PR circuit you know um sometimes it's just word of mouth I when I first started out my editor said just just go wander go wander the streets and you know I'd just given birth to my daughter and I said I can't really do that thank god for the internet which I which I wander and I would sort of I came across all these amazing blogs where people are this is this is what they love is going out and discovering restaurants I'm really grateful to all of them I I've never discovered a restaurant I don't I don't think I don't even know what the term means discover because there's always going to be someone for you in that neighborhood is the first one in um and uh and and it's just it's exciting when so many there's just so many different perspectives on what's what people are eating today um so I feel really lucky in that in that respect so and now people just come and tell me I get lots of messages and my friends are always looking out for me and sometimes I'll go to one restaurant and then oh you walk down the block and there's a new one so I am wandering the streets a little bit too which I I kind of think you just absolutely it's interesting that point about discovery because yes any restaurant which is in business obviously already has an audience you know otherwise it would have shut down very quickly and the the sort of the idea that the sort of grand restaurant critic sweeps in and discovers something which people have been happily going to for you know there's a Afghani place near me which I was like oh this is amazing of course it's been there for years and everybody loves it it was me that was the idiot um so there is definitely something to to understanding your place in in the ecosystem um just pausing for a moment to remind the audience please do send in your questions using the function at the bottom of the screen I think it is um because we'd love to hear what you think about how we choose where we review and um what we should be doing better or perhaps what we're doing amazingly um so please keep the questions coming but um Legard that was very interesting about wandering the streets and looking for places I I get asked a lot of questions about restaurants and something I think people wonder a lot about how restaurant critics live their lives um there's the idea that perhaps it's a little bit lonely um and you know you're out there I mean first world problems you know eating in places perhaps you might not necessarily want to um and if you have anonymity or you're going without broadcasting who you are it can be a sort of strange experience I mean Nick do you do you find that when you are eating out do you find that you're sort of plowing a lonely furrow or do you feel like you're part of a community uh I'm definitely plowing a lonely furrow but it's a furrow that I'm very happy with um and I wouldn't give up for the world uh so I'm you know but it is interesting how people look on restaurant correspondence or restaurant writers and they envy them and yet actually we're just as isolated as any journalist and possibly more than any other because in terms of you know wine fashion cinema at least they get a chance to meet whereas because we're all on our different agendas we never get a chance to meet you know this is the closest I've got to meeting Jimmy and as long as I've known of his name you know so I think that is an issue that could be discussed you know but I wouldn't swap it I have to say when I was reviewing I would dread walking into a restaurant and seeing another restaurant critic because you think damn it they're lead time shorter than mine you know Faye's going to get her review out before I get mine out so there's definitely a sort of blessing and a curse to fraternize with with other critics and let them know where you're going I mean Jimmy what you know you you you have been the person that reviews that quickest of everyone because you're in newsprint yes yeah I mean I think I think as Nick was saying there there is an element of maybe quite enjoying it but it is quite strange the the kind of mutual caginess and cloak and dagger side of it like that you that there is this kind of unspoken thing and everyone kind of goes into their little bunkers and there's not the same I feel like there is a community and there are kind of like you know critics talk to each other and there is some kind of back and forth and there is a kind of there is there is that but yeah as you say Nick like you know it's the first time we've come close to meeting and it does it does seem quite crazy but then I guess in some senses maybe maybe it is it is one of those things it's just kind of part of the job like that that there is a there is a slight solitary side to it that that we maybe sort of enjoy cultivate obviously I'm not anonymous but if you are that comes with it and it's not something that I mind it's not something that I'm I feel like I'm meeting more people and it is quite a strange world to come into like you know because you know these jobs don't really change hands that much it's like a weird sort of papal thing or like Masonic like you feel like you've entered the vault and so that is that is slightly odd but everyone's been really friendly everyone's been really welcoming every time I meet people it's lovely because you've got that shared thing but I don't know how you remove that element of kind of competitive edge almost where you are trying to you aren't sort of trying to show your cards too much and you are there's an element of all what did you think to that place all you've got that one wrong and there's there's that kind of side of it I must say I'm not kind of crying out for more off to be honest like I was a much of a food writing restaurant writing community in New York does that people talk to each other or do are you doing your own thing and not really seeing anyone else I just I don't think we have we don't have that many restaurant critics in the city and I I've met all of them I'm good friends with Pete Wells of course at the times and I guess I never think of us as competing again because I have my own little mission which is slightly different from everybody else's I do feel a sense of camaraderie through social media with writers across the country and so I don't feel so alone but partly also my experience of going out to eat at these restaurants this is the only time I get to be social I think I'm not a naturally social person so to have to go out to these restaurants to get my crew together and I'm always just saying oh bring a friend sometimes I need a really big group because we're going to go to you know restaurant where everybody has to share so you know let's make a group of six or eight and like this is my this is my social life so it is really fun also because of course I get to be the boss I do all the ordering I'm so bossy and now of course I don't go out with my husband to eat I'm trying to order everything because I'm so used to it it's just terrible I become very rude but um but yes so I I yeah it gives me I don't feel so isolated but I I guess it's also the sense that I feel like all the food critics in America are kind of on the same page right now and talking about how to do restaurant for us like we were having these discussions these kinds of conversations we're having now we're having them on social media and um and so that feels exciting I've never met some of them but I feel like I know them I think it's I it's very interesting what you say there because um you know getting to know about new places taking friends out the the food community one of the things I think is um it's quite difficult particularly in the age of the influencer is maintaining what is the maintained distance that you should have from the restaurants from the chefs from that side of things obviously influences it's I mean we'll probably come on to that a little bit more in a minute but you know that's a close relationship and sometimes that's a transactional relationship restaurant criticism isn't isn't like that how but you know I mean people like Marina O'Loughlin at the Sunday Times who I work with has maintained anonymity she never you know the restaurants don't know her um and she doesn't have anything to do with the sort of PR cycle or going to the new openings or things like that uh Jimmy you know do you how do you maintain that that separation particularly in your situation where you've written about restaurants not not always from the critics point of view but in interviews and so on yeah um yeah I I I suppose as you were talking there I was thinking that's probably with consciously or otherwise that's an element of why I probably maintain a little bit of an arms length kind of um you know you're not sort of barreling into the group and kind of being sort of really matey or friendly with people because I think there's a there's a there's just an awareness that you're gonna need to hopefully just try to be as honest as possible and you're trying to and you know this all comes back to the whole notion of anonymity and paying and not accepting freebies and kind of there's this code that that you know is not set down or it's or you know it is in some senses at various publications but you just kind of intuit it from like reading and speaking to other um critics and yeah so I I do feel like but it is a difficult thing because naturally you're doing the job for longer it it's it's useful to be friendly with people to know people to to be able to hear about things and it's nice you know to kind of to I think it's it's in your interest to be a you know an approachable figure or an approachable person but you need to kind of maintain that I don't know if you do but I would always think that I'd need to maintain like a degree of of that kind of distance um in some ways just because I think you know it's um it's probably just healthier or better for everyone that it doesn't get to kind of enmeshed because you're you're trying to write about yeah it all gets a bit tangled and messy I'd say I mean I don't know if you can stop it being that but you know it's yeah I mean it's definitely a vex it's definitely a vex questions I mean Nick your son is in the restaurant business and um and your wife is a very well known wine expert so you know it must be quite difficult for you to maintain a separation or do you just avoid going anywhere that has any connection to all the many people you know in the business uh no I I think because over the years it's knowing so many people that makes my job fascinating and makes it possible and adds credence to what I write uh I've never written about our son's restaurants and I've no need to tell anybody how wonderful my wife is so that's all right um I just think it's it's just they're just they're just giving me windows into a wonderful world of restaurants and I try and use those wonderful world those what those upper sews as a way of getting more information and background because I think that's what that's that's the hardest thing about our job is getting the right information because I think PRs have a job to do but they don't always give you the right information yeah I would just like I completely agree and I wonder if um I don't know how the guy feels about this but there is you definitely if you speak to a chef or you kind of um talk to someone that's in you know the world of food or interested in restaurants you always kind of come away with something from it and it is I think it does kind of you know obviously Lisa you worked on both sides um Nick you have and I think it is just I think maybe initially I was kind of like oh I quite like the idea of just being not too sort of embedded but it's really great to just learn and speak to people and it's been really valuable particularly throughout this past year when things have been so difficult for chefs and restaurants to you know I've done interviews with people where I've only ended up using like a couple of quotes but there's been real value in just hearing the things that people are going through the things they're dealing with you know the stress is involved and it just I think it improves your your appreciation of the context of what it takes to bring everything together and hopefully improves your ability to do the job yeah I agree I would agree with that I think it's it's really important to have a sense of what it's like on the other side of the path even if you're not getting the sort of extras and the glass of champagne on a rival stuff which one has to try and avoid um but let's get to it I guess let's get to to something which is on a lot of people's minds which is you know while we've got instagram and now tiktok and uh it's all about the visuals I mean do restaurant writers do restaurant critics have the power that they used to have the guy what in your opinion you know is is this a dying breed or is there still a real importance to what it what we do think I I think it still matters I would say I think for sure that uh when so during the pandemic um I have not been writing my column and um Pete Wells has not been he's been writing about restaurants he resumed after I don't know if it was a period of six months but he is not giving stars um and I never gave stars so I still think I mean we'll have to see uh as the world reopens but um I feel like the weight of of stars from the New York Times still means something um I I didn't I think that my column did have the capacity and I know that for example Hannah Goldfield's column at the New Yorker that that those that when we spot like these little restaurants that people do go I can I get all sorts of messages I remember writing about a restaurant and you know the the chef told me later he said oh my god he said we opened the doors there was a line we we sold out within two hours so that's amazing to hear now that won't happen if I'm writing about a restaurant that's really far away from the city center um so I know that there's a limit um but but I do still feel like it matters if only because an an Instagram picture often that that's valuable for a specific food item right like the gigantic milkshake the um the hamburger that's three feet tall so these are the kinds of things that that catch on or there are endless pizza accounts and donut accounts um but I still feel like the stories behind the restaurants are what matter like that's what draws me um that either there's incredible artistry in an incredible touch of a of a cook who's bringing something that no nobody else can or there's just the story of this food that maybe you've never tried and that will give you a glimpse of another world so I still feel like that restaurant critics as writers and as storytellers have have an important role to play I think that's a good point about the people who are who write on food and restaurants really well are writers who are writing about food rather than food people who are becoming writers you know there's a there's a distinction between those two things but I mean Jimmy in London you know that particularly I guess there's there's such a a sort of scene and there's it's it's so visual everyone's taking everyone standing on the chair and taking pictures everyone's you know doing all that stuff do you do you feel like you're you know I mean I hate to be negative about it but you know do you feel like eventually finished yeah that's it it's over leave at the bottom no do you think that that things are changing I guess the balance of of how people are being influenced with it yeah I is changing yeah yeah completely and I think the kind of influencer economy is like incredibly powerful and influential like I you know you kind of you see it constantly in that visual medium and the kind of long captions on Instagram the things that you can do with stories and TikTok but I just don't know if those things are a true kind of replacement for you know you know I read you know the guy's stuff and Pete Wells' stuff and you know and obviously you know Marino and like I read so many writers and obviously I'm kind of in the bag for this stuff because I'm a fan of it and I'm interested but I just don't know if it's the same thing or hits the same notes and getting that depth I feel like that is something that will always be a demand for like whether whether you could argue that you know legacy media as you mentioned needs to kind of do more in terms of trying different things you know you look at the the boom in food newsletters that's kind of coincided with the pandemic and people sharing those stories and that to me feels like something exciting because those are kind of you know they're almost like dead word heavy long reads but they're being you know shared in their hundreds and thousands and it's not a video it's not like you know a kind of you know a PR invite kind of I mean like picture it's kind of it's proper storytelling in depth and I think that that shows that hopefully there is still there is still a real market for for this and and it's and it's about kind of adapting it's about kind of you know yeah do it doing the job better really and just kind of trying to trying to kind of evolve maybe yeah I do think there is two things can coexist I know there was there was a panel of really interesting panel I think last week of the week before as part of this food season which talked about old media new media and and you know I can't help feeling that not least because you know newspapers and their audiences whether digital or print still exist and they still go to to those titles but other stories can be told and I wouldn't want to see one just for the other but Nick what what's your feeling about the the rise of the visual against against the words I mean you've written books so you I'm sure you I can tell which way you're going to go on this but tell us all I'd say is that actually having a camera and taking a picture of a dish is a much much easier way of remembering what it looks like and I'd also say that often the best photos of food I've ever taken are never the pristine dish but they're always the one that somebody started you know I just think and hope that both sets of new and old media will coexist because that would be fantastic and I'd hate to see a world without the written word I want to know Nick do you feel like it's improved your your writing the ability to to take photos and use technology in that way absolutely yeah yeah I kind of can't really imagine doing it without taking photos videos kind of constant you know easy access to notes that kind of quite discreet on a phone like it's um it's very much a part of the way that I've always done the job so I kind of I can't imagine how I'd have coached there was definitely a time when I would be sending a text message to the babysitter which was basically sort of hurriedly writing down the elements of a of a menu so I think that um yeah I think that that is absolutely right you know and again you know when I was trying to be anonymous as a critic and and all of us and and those who are probably watching but the other restaurant critics will know that everyone's taking pictures now so you know in the in there was a time at which you know you really drew attention to yourself and in you in danger of busting your anonymity if you've got a camera out or a notebook out but now everyone's doing it from the imprints as to you know it's my daughter so it's you know the kind of the cover is better than it ever was before perhaps but um it's we're coming to the end of time but one question that's come in which I think is really interesting is about the focus on new restaurants and it's sort of enthralled to the new this correspondent said that you know why we're doing that well actually I would say that we're most restaurant critics and and restaurant writing that I'm aware of does actually look at places that have been around for a long time um as well as the new but there is certainly something about being the first person in order certainly used to be do you think that's still relevant and and let's go to the guy first do you do you know do you ever go to somewhere thinking I must get there because it's new or is that completely irrelevant you know I think that that's coming from the whole thing when we write for a newspaper everything's supposed to have a hook like right it's supposed to be timely and newsy so if it didn't just open then why are we doing it um and so I just kind of push back against that because there are lots of little places in the city that have been around a long time that have never been written about um so I I I mean again I'm in a slightly different position because I'm looking for the places that people don't know about like that a lot of people don't know about yet that that are the the secrets in the neighborhoods um and so it used to be that I felt like it had to have opened within the previous three years for me to be able to write about it and then but then I would make a case for others um so but I mean I think again it's just coming from yes what what why are we doing this story now which is always the mindset that's editors for you having been one and having well I think you know yeah having been you know edited the food section as well and worked on a paper um it's kind of it's the engine isn't it it's kind of like why are we doing this why now what's the hook and like you know your benefit is being newsy so the the instinct is to play to that but yeah I definitely agree that there should be you know some of the favorite um some some great pieces of writing I think over the past year have been kind of slightly askew like not the the treadmill because it was also fractured and places weren't open and some were just open in one form and obviously it's been challenging throughout this period but I think I've quite enjoyed that like and and you can have an old place that's suddenly relevant for you know new reasons or there's a new there's a change of chef or whatever and I think I think it's a I think it's a fair point really that um that kind of uh muddling that a little bit is is not a bad way to go but I do also understand that from the point of view of you're trying to decide where to go to or where to write about and you're like you know I'm only looking at one city and it's like oh well it could be anywhere and so that engine of it being are the new places or the places at least with a kind of new sort of narrative that just kind of gives you something to to kind of channel it or that gives you a shape to like work with because I think it can just it can just you know it can just be anywhere basically can it like and yeah it sort of just gives it a drive and an engine so I can see both sides to it. Nick it feels to me um that you're not quite so sort of caught up in that that cycle of you know what's new but do you have that demand on you or do you make your own decisions? No I make my own decisions and occasionally I've written about new places like everybody else but more often than not I think you know there's two sides to the argument isn't there? A restaurant opens and it charges for whack therefore it's open for criticism and you can go in and you can be as critical as you like. My own feeling and my own experience from being a restaurateur is that it takes three or four possibly up to six months for restaurants to open and really find its feet and I think it's only fair if you're writing for something that's going to there's going to last and be around and be on the internet and so on to give a restaurant a chance to find its feet and the staff to bed in and and then go. Well that's very charitable of you one might say but you know that is that is that's going to be the eternal payoff but we've had a we've had a question in which I think is comes back to something that we touched on earlier and I think it is something that probably quite a lot of the audience and certainly people who are interested in restaurants want to know about which is this idea of getting away from the restaurants which are coming to our attention most easily and and perhaps going to restaurants outside what you might know and you're writing about a cuisine that you don't know very much about you you know you're eager to know about it you want to share that experience how do you take that on board how do you work with that and how do you represent that restaurant in a way that's meaningful and that is going to represent it correctly but also give something interesting for the readers you know that is I think that is something which is extremely relevant now and will only become more so as we all seek to to you know talk to a wider audience and to understand more about the restaurants that are out there that we it's just our fault that we hadn't seen yet. Jimmy let's come to you first. Yeah I think that it is the question isn't it and it's something that when I've had to do those kind of deep dives into a culture or a part of kind of food tradition that I'm not familiar with I've really I've really embraced it and enjoyed it and it's kind of been the times at which the job is most exciting I think in that you kind of particularly I think recently like a lot of chefs say of my generation that you know second generation immigrants as well are rediscovering their heritage through food so you're seeing a lot of these places that are kind of they've got this really interesting lens of yeah of like working their way through their culture and I it's it's such a um I again think it goes back to sometimes and it's interesting to hear the guy talking about um going to different restaurants getting people in her the boss that said just get out there and explore and sometimes it is just a question of like a boring question of like resources like and I think in the UK especially like you do have this this you know slight kind of churn of needing to get to places and needing to get those kind of news stories and things like that and it's kind of quite often you can only go once because of deadlines and I think if there was a way to to get more coverage or expand restaurant coverage in some way then that would open things up and maybe you could cover things in a different way maybe we don't oh this place hasn't got the best photos or the kind of presentation of it isn't great but maybe we can illustrate it maybe we can like I feel like those are the questions I feel like in a weird sort of way quite often the stumbling block is just logistical or it's just kind of um but I feel like if we can like work past that a little bit more and you know I'm constantly quite often I'm kind of reverse engineering you know I'll see that you know there's real I'm really noticing in South Southeast London where I live like you know the Brazilian community and like Brazilian butchers and Brazilian delis and stuff and so I'm really interested in that and how the Brazilian community is embedding itself in London and the food there and so that is a story and a review or a piece that I really want to write and I really want to explore and so I think sometimes it's about having that impetus and just keeping on pushing and trying to find that the correct vehicle for that basically. Absolutely and I think that observation is really important I suppose what I partly mean is like the real nitty gritty of perhaps describing something as being like right yeah yeah yeah or like really greasy and it's like yeah yeah yeah yeah that's how it's supposed to be yeah yeah and it's I think it is um I think it is a I think you've got to you've got to really really do the work in terms of like researching and trying to kind of try and know as much as you possibly can but like you know I guess this is the thing isn't it like you're sort of trying to and this gets into the the notion of who is the reader who are we writing for and it's something that a lot of people quite rightly kind of challenge like you know like what is the frame of reference that we're aiming for like why does that person know that dish and not that why do we have to explain that in you know in in parenthesis like it's um I don't know if there's any easy answers beyond just really really doing the work and and just trying to to just be honest about lack of knowledge I think sometimes there's something about um restaurant writing that does have this kind of omniscience doesn't it and it's kind of your you know everything about food and you're this expert and that kind of feels sometimes baked into it but I think I'm seeing more and more people saying this is new to me this is my understanding of it and I think that kind of honesty is something where you know yeah there's gonna be there's gonna be things that that go wrong but I feel like that's a much healthier better place to start from than just being dismissive of something which I think is is dying out and just isn't really you know just isn't really allowed these days where kind of previously people could just be kind of comically dismissive of tire cuisines and there's certainly there certainly has been some of that and and and rightly some criticism of that and I do think things are changing and I think you know you're right the honesty is is is a great idea I know a critic who if she's going somewhere where she doesn't know much about it she will seek someone out perhaps to go with her who who will know and who will be able to talk and will choose the menu and and so on I mean that's you know perhaps you could give us your perspective on that on immersing yourself or do you become do you attempt to become an expert in a cuisine if you're going somewhere that you haven't experienced before do you take it at face value and go from there so I I do so much research not that I ever am come even close to being an expert I also will try to bring somebody who might be more familiar with the cuisine and then I will look at cookbooks I will I will always look at what other people have written partly just because I don't want to describe something the exact same way someone else is done right we're always trying to make things new to ourselves but definitely when I started out like I still think of when I first was was writing restaurant views I really didn't know how to do it right this is a new form to me nobody I didn't go to school for it um and I still cringe when I think about one review I wrote where everybody we all sat down and we had ordered these very large lamb snails and it was just something that nobody at the table had had before and I I wrote about it from the perspective of it being new to us but I feel like I feel like by doing that I made it seem exotic and it wasn't exotic in that restaurant that was completely familiar food I mean why was it not and why didn't we just treat it as a large escargot you felt like what what where were we coming from I wasn't dismissive I was I was enthralled by it but I did approach it from this perspective of this is something different and I and so I I struggle with this because I agree like I'm I'm not an expert I should be honest about that um but I'm also and maybe this is a New York Times thing I'm not really allowed to bring in an I a first person into the piece so when I write I do have the strange omniscient and and I feel like I owe it to so I owe it to the restaurant to try to understand their food on their own terms um and I need to know that yes that is the texture it's supposed to be and it may not be a texture I I personally like but I need to show that they are doing it exactly the way it's supposed to be done um and I have to honor that so I'm really conscious of all of those things and um and I don't entirely know what the answer is beyond trying not to make things seem exotic if if they're not to another culture I think that's really absolutely the watchword that everyone perhaps should have but uh Nick let's let's just go to you and this is probably the last point because I know we've got to wrap up soon and we could I could carry on talking perhaps it's fascinating but um as you've you've been a critic for uh a restaurant correspondent and critic for 33 years I guess two two questions just to touch on one that one of if you're going into a restaurant where you're not familiar with the cuisine you know how over the years you know have you tackled that and and also how do you keep it fresh you know when you've how many different words are there for delicious you know how do you not have sort of raging and we after all this time um to answer the first question I always take a friend that's just the honest truth and you know we have a Nigerian son-in-law we have a Singaporean uh sister-in-law any kind of cuisine you will always find a native of that country somewhere in London and they're the they're the conduit they have to be uh second question I grow very bored uh of my language but I don't go go at all bored of the subject so I just spur myself on to find another word for delicious I think we obviously all need to really expand our families um to make sure that we've got people from every representing representing every cuisine but that's something that social media has been great for I think it's being able to find people and you know I've been out for dinner with people I don't know because you know taking someone you sometimes can give you as the critic a fresh perspective whether or not they're an expert but expertise is is definitely something to be valued yeah yeah I guess I just I think it's a really it's a really really good point as well but I sort of it's important that the person isn't kind of just brought along as this kind of protective shield or whatever that you can kind of like say whatever you like because I do think that um I I think there's real value in having those conversations watching this taste like is this what you'd normally expect oh here's my personal view on it but um but yeah that that would just be my my one sort of um my one point about that but I think it's I think it's far better than just like guessing and just being like you know um sort of yeah just dismissive of stuff but I think as as just trying to do as much research as possible and it feels like speaking to other people canvassing opinion is part of that research isn't it yeah we are out of time and I'm not sure whether we have allowed our audience the view that the job of the restaurant critic is is one to be admired and and decide which is generally how it's perceived or whether your insights have given people um a new view and a new perspective on on going out for free tea um which is it's a lot more than that um so thank you so much to all of you um I know Andrew's going to come on and and and wrap it up but Jimmy, Nick and Legaia thank you all it's been absolutely fascinating for me and I know for the audience too so um hugely appreciated and we'll have to just carry on the after party in a restaurant somewhere thanks Lisa thank you thank you all I'm going to massively reiterate Lisa's thanks and Lisa brilliant sharing Jimmy, Nick, Legaia what an absolutely fascinating conversation I feel like that hour has whizzed by and it was really interesting seeing questions come through and lots of the audience saying just how interesting it's like well they really found that so thank you so much um thank you to KitchenAid for supporting the work of the British Library food season plenty more to come we're here through the end of May we have something every day this week head to the British Library website you can see all there to book um if you'd like to support the work of the British Library there's a donate button on your screen but for now massive thanks again to our panel and goodbye from the British Library food season