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Now in its nineteenth year, critics disdain its homely detail and catholic coverage. Just how good is the Good Food Guide?
The rise of the consumer group as a needling force in the market place is a post-war phenomenon. Its classic success story is the Good Food Club which grew from Raymond Postgate's passionately held belief that if you shouted loud enough, the standard of eating out in Britain could and would be raised. In the past fourteen months the Good Food Guide (now in its nineteenth year) has sold 97,000 copies - astonishing for a country which is supposed not to care about food.
"No good new restaurant can open," the Guide's chief inspector told me, "without our hearing about it." Although the Guide, which steadfastly spurns all advertising, only just breaks even, it is a powerful financial voice in the land. John Ardagh, the new managing editor who is shortly to take over from Postgate, claims that inclusion in the guide has saved hundreds of restaurants from bankruptcy.
Later this year the 1,624 eating places which it currently recommends will be reassessed along with 300 new places to see whether they merit inclusion in the 1969-70 Guide. In the process perhaps 20 per cent of the chosen may be thrown out because they have fallen below the standards which gained them entry.
The success of this whole operation depends on individual reports from users of the guide who are encouraged to comment in as much detail as possible on the merits and demerits of the meals they eat. The majority who buy the Guide never bother to report but there's a small minority of 500 or so who have consistently over the years sent in objective and informed reports. From this minority the club has selected a panzer group of 180 voluntary inspectors who can be called on to investigate, at their own expense, either a restaurant which has been newly nominated, or a place on which opinion differs wildly. A few of these inspectors are elderly and every morning their chief turns to the obituary columns to see which one of them has died from over-eating.
As a further safeguard there is an elite of part-time experts, who are dispatched at intervals on culinary forays at the Guide's expense. Unbribable, incognito, they eat and observe and then prepare lengthy reports not only on the meal but on the service and reception, the cleanliness, the wine list, right down to such details as whether the napkins were linen or paper.
One charge that can be levelled against the Guide is its inconsistency. What may be a "superbly cooked dish" for one member could be "far too overcooked" for another. "Hopelessly gormless service" might be more kindly described in another report as "very friendly and helpful waitresses." The team that sifts the 20,000 reports that flood in every year is almost clairvoyant in its ability to read between the lines. But even so many members feel standards should be higher, that there are too many "best of a poor bunch" entries. There are those who compare it unfavourably with Michelin. "Maybe they're right," the chief inspector admitted, "but on the other hand one of our functions is to tell you where you can eat in Halifax without being actually poisoned."
Recently a "gourmet writer," launching a tirade against the Guide, asked me: "Who wants to know that at Little-Piddling-in-the-Marsh Mrs Gummidge does half portions for kiddies?" But it's homely detail like this and its catholic coverage of the eating scene, from the Savoy down to a small pub serving cheap simple food, that brings in thank-you letters by every post and is encouraging an increasing number of motorists to plan tours based on the Guide.
If you run an eating place, how do you ensure that you get into the next edition of the Guide? - a question I put to John Ardagh: "No restaurant can buy or bribe its way in and there's no proven formula for success. But on the whole we find that the best restaurants are those which use fresh rather than frozen or processed food and which have a short rather than an extensive menu. We find, too, that most of the best restaurants are run individually, often with the patron himself as chef."
Eating out is still a gamble, but thanks to the Guide it is no longer a journey without maps.