The doyenne of restaurant critics on working incognito, cooking as seduction and being vegetarian in Surrey in 1955
I always used another name to book a table – often the name of the person I was eating with, or a similar name to mine, like Miller. But I once made an effort with a disguise too. To go incognito to Harvey’s, Marco Pierre White’s restaurant, I bought a wig and thought I looked like [50s singer] Alma Cogan. But Marco came into the dining room and said: “Oh, hello Fay – you’ve cut your hair. So have I.” That was very Marco – always bringing things back to himself.
When I got my job in 1972 [at the London Evening Standard where she worked until 2020], by writing “English As She Is Eaten” in a competition, I had a two-year-old child and a baby. We ate together at home and I think they picked up the rudiments of behaviour that way. Then they’d eat out with us and they loved and love restaurants probably as a result – Chinese restaurants in particular. I found their reactions interesting. In a posh place they’d behave more. They picked up on the vibes.
It’s much easier to leave food in a restaurant than somebody’s house, where you’re trying to be polite
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