The chef gets that eating out should be about pleasure. This is rarer than you think
In an interview with BBC Good Food magazine, I said that the element of my job I liked least was the thought of savaging mom’n’pop outfits, restaurants that are the life’s blood of individuals, rather than those designed by corporations or backed by dead-eyed moneymen. Restaurants owned by ghost-written “celebrity” chefs, or anything with gurning greengrocer Gregg Wallace attached to them, are fair game.
It prompted one particularly arsey chef to have a pop at me on Twitter – unsurprisingly, one supported by oceans of hedge-fundy loot. As I patiently explained, sure: there are exceptions and outliers – I’m not some kind of critical Robin Hood – but for someone who likes to deliver good news, and support the good guys, it usually works.
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