Jay Rayner, Marina O’Loughlin, Tim Hayward and Jancis Robinson have strong opinions. But can they handle feedback from 19 food-world stars?
Today, FT Weekend Magazine is launching a line-up that has been described by some very wise and totally impartial commentators as an “Avengers assemble” moment for food media. Jay Rayner joins as weekly restaurant critic, and Marina O’Loughlin will advise us on how to eat, drink and travel well on a monthly basis.
Jancis Robinson’s peerless wine column now comes with beginner-friendly annotation, and Tim Hayward has a new home-cooking beat. To mark this happy occasion, we asked our experts to share some pearls of wisdom shucked from their collective century-plus as professional diners. They responded with a set of rules about how to make the most of eating out in 2025. We read those rules, stroked our chins in admiration, pinned them to poster boards, booked tattoo appointments etc. And then? Then we sent them for comment to a panel of the world’s most esteemed food connoisseurs, who ripped them to shreds. The words that follow reveal collegiate disagreement on almost every facet of modern dining, expressed with all the passion and poetry you’d expect. The panellists clash with the columnists on the correct number of courses for a tasting menu, the ethics of lying to waiters; the righteousness of caviar on scrambled eggs and more. They are divided by small plates, at odds over influencers and fractured by “fusion”. Only Ozempic etiquette united them . Everyone polled is a star in their own right, whose biography has been ruthlessly truncated above . And we thank our critics for having the style and conviction to go against the grain. Perhaps you will find reassurance here. If even the world’s most sophisticated diners can’t agree on whether it’s OK to describe a food intolerance as an allergy, it certainly takes the pressure off the rest of us. But if you crave certainty, rest assured that it will reassert itself. A good critic earns the right to present their opinions as fact, and the phenomenal four who now make up the magazine’s food and drink pantheon have earned the right to carve those opinions in stone — starting next week. — Harriet Fitch Little, food and drink editor And even then, one of those seven courses had better be bread. Sure, tasting menus work for the chefs. Only offering a tasting menu means they know in advance exactly how much food to buy. They can employ fewer cooks to prepare it. But for the diner it becomes an assault course from which there is simply no escape. You are committed, and at a high cost. Plus, multi-course tasting menus demand that everything is tiny. Happily, this means that if you get something you don’t like, it’s gone quickly. But by the same token, if something you do like turns up, it will also be gone in three forkfuls. A tasting menu restricted to a sensible number of courses allows for a little more largesse, and it won’t go on for so long that you end up praying for the bill or death, whichever comes sooner. The panel says • I’d say this range is about right. It really does turn into a hostage situation after 10 courses. Jimi Famurewa • Agree. Only because after sitting for 2.5 hours I’m ready for a walk! Brooklyn Peltz Beckham • It’s all the foodie talk that is annoying. I don’t go to restaurants to talk about food. And, frankly, I don’t want to go to restaurants with anyone who does! Prue Leith • Three courses plus bread is generally where the fun peaks. Alice Lascelles • This is more a matter of palate fatigue than culinary execution. Helen Rosner • Ynyshir served me the best meal I’ve ever had, over 31 courses. Jesse Burgess • This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Ruth Reichl There used to be very simple rules about conversations at dinner. You don’t talk about sex, religion or politics. Today, things are, thankfully, very different. The only conversational topic that should remain taboo is weight loss. You can discuss allergies, intolerances, superstitions and prejudices around food or exercise but, for the love of God, don’t let any skinny-ass guest express an opinion on the moral turpitude of using semaglutide drugs. Do the maths. If there are more than six middle-class people around a metropolitan dinner table, it’s a statistical certainty that another skinny-ass guest will storm out in tears. • Yes, I think some cautiousness is probably to be advised. GLP-1 usage is becoming a little like political beliefs, so best to not go on some wine-loosened Mounjaro rant without the benefit of the full picture. Jimi Famurewa • Never talk about weight loss medication. Or Zoe tests and newfound sobriety. Dan Keeling • As a general rule for life — as much as restaurant reviewing — don’t be mean. Chitra Ramaswamy • Or let’s not have the Ozempic discussion at all. We all know what everyone is going to say. Prue Leith • If you know people who talk about weight loss over dinner, it might be time to find new friends. Leyla Kazim “Can we explain our concept to you?” If it’s anything other than “I choose food, you bring food, I pay for food,” then please don’t. But rudeness is never cool and unless it’s something truly unprecedented — “We age our fish for a fortnight and chef likes to bone it by moonlight”; “All our baked goods are made by monks and they pray over our livestock pre-in-house butchery” — there’s an easy avoidance tactic. And that is: “Thank you, no need. We’ve been before and loved it.” Service amour propre retained, diner sang-froid too. An aside: when it comes to explaining every dish on a lengthy tasting menu in painful detail, I find myself pining for the restaurant equivalent of Uber’s “quiet mode”. • Agree. It’s like listening to the safety instructions on a plane — you just doze off. Diana Henry • Understandable given the “concept” primer is almost always a means to get you to order three more dishes than you need. Jimi Famurewa • Not something I would do, but if you’re that afraid of communication then fundamentally you can crack on with this approach. Jesse Burgess • Or a revelatory alternative — you could just tell the truth and say you don’t need the concept explained? Chitra Ramaswamy • NO, LET THEM EXPLAIN AND GO INTO A ZEN MEDITATION TRANCE IF YOU ARE BORED. David Gelb • One of the best parts of trying a new chef is hearing about their process and influence. It’s great to hear the story oftentimes! Brooklyn Peltz Beckham • I live for having concepts explained to me. Ajesh Patalay A menu is not an opening gambit in a negotiation. A trained chef came up with the list of dishes the restaurant is ready to serve you after much thought. You were almost certainly able to read a version of that list online. You’ve come here because the idea of those dishes appealed. So yes, you can ask for certain elements to be left off a dish. But asking for additions to be made is a demand too far. If you don’t want to eat this food, what are you doing in this restaurant? Go somewhere else and leave the kitchen in peace. • Yes — unless you’re in Kansas. Dan Keeling • Unless it’s due to an allergy, best to leave a dish as the chef intended. Brooklyn Peltz Beckham • PLAY IT AS IT LAY, UNLESS THEY ARE PUTTING SCARY, VEINY CHEESE ON A SALAD OR SOMETHING. David Gelb • Disagree. This is your chance to avoid things you hate; pounce on it! Ruth Reichl • If something comes with mashed potatoes but I know they do chips and I would prefer the chips, I think it’s fine to politely ask if I could possibly have the chips instead, please. Leyla Kazim • Why not? You can always ask. Prue Leith Perhaps unsurprisingly, I have no problem with luxury ingredients. Caviar, foie gras, lobster, langoustines, top-notch smoked salmon, tuna belly, Wagyu and unspeakably rare jamón. And if you like these things, I’m very happy for you. But what we need to look out for is restaurants that use a smear of a premium ingredient, when there’s no real purpose except justifying a higher price. Everybody squealed in righteous indignation when Salt Bae pimped an average steak with gold leaf, but that’s no more ridiculous than a 14-course fine-dining menu where every dish has a premium ingredient dotted on it like a homeopathic garnish. Actually, scrambled eggs taste great with caviar. But they also taste brilliant without. So be aware that the main reason is the price hike. • RANDOM CAVIAR IS NOT A GOOD SIGN THE SAME IS TRUE FOR TRUFFLE ON EVERYTHING. Andi Oliver • Obviously I don’t want to eat anywhere that is trying to fleece me. But if it’s sincere, then I will try anything once. Alice Lascelles • Some might say caviar on scrambled eggs is a good meal. Ajesh Patalay • I’m saying “no” to this solely on the basis that I have never seen scrambled eggs and caviar on a menu outside of The Ritz hotel’s breakfast. Jonathan Nunn • I could give you dozens of examples of great chefs serving caviar with eggs. Robuchon, Ripert and Vongerichten. Ruth Reichl • Maybe check Jean-Georges’ eggs and caviar as the way to do it. Angela Hartnett • Caviar is great on scrambled eggs. This rule is crazy. J Kenji López-Alt • Et pourquoi pas? François Simon An eclectic menu is fine. We can all appreciate wide-ranging tastes. But there must be limits and, when the list of dishes reads like the head chef has just returned from a dope-addled gap year, you should be very afraid. Rare is the cook who understands the basics of French country cooking, the principles of Indian spice roasting and the key dishes of South-East Asia. Or, to put it another way, they might be able to char hispi cabbage or make Korean fried chicken, but the chances they can do both well are vanishingly small. Plus it suggests they came up with their dishes by scrolling through glossy food porn on Instagram, in search of the latest apparently popular, sweaty-palmed trend. If the menu reads like that, the kitchen is either filled with chancers and delusional lost causes or is restocked on a weekly basis by a refrigerated van from one of the food service companies. • Add to these sweetcorn ribs and you have the holy trinity of a trend follower. While this might mean innovation is lacking, it doesn’t necessarily equate to the food being poor. Leyla Kazim • No, if restaurants are following trends, it’s because those items sell. And they sell because we like them. So fine, let’s have hispi cabbage and Korean fried chicken. Prue Leith • There are times when you have to surrender hopefully. Nigella Lawson • NO, I LOVE KOREAN FRIED CHICKEN, EVERYBODY SHOULD PUT ON MENU. David Gelb • This is such a critic comment. Angela Hartnett • If everybody’s talking about it, why not try it? Brooklyn Peltz Beckham The number of times I’ve been told about gluten-free diners “making an exception for dessert”. The lactose-intolerant who refuse the burrata but order cacio e pepe. No restaurant on the planet wants to recreate that gibber-inducing scene in Boiling Point, and restaurants genuinely do their best to avoid any allergic reactions, as the now mandatory introductory question indicates. If you answer “yes”, you trigger certain important but time-consuming protocols. Don’t unnecessarily add to their already stressful workloads. • No argument with this. Nigella Lawson • This is a kindness to the kitchen. Though I think accommodating preferences is a kindness to the customer. Ajesh Patalay • Don’t lie about allergies, but I do think it’s fine to use this prompt to bring up any significant aversions. Helen Rosner • Je n’ai qu’une allergie: les menus dégustation. François Simon The quality of the ingredients used by restaurants matters, but we go out to eat for the cooking, not the shopping. Don’t start by telling us that your buffalo mozzarella came from Laverstoke Farm and your morels from Fine & Wild. Start by telling us what you want to serve. Tell us where you got it all later, or we might fairly conclude you’re trying to sell what you’re offering on something other than talent and good taste. And while we’re at it, enough with the localism. It is not an inherent virtue. If it were, a Pot Noodle would be better simply because you lived close to the Pot Noodle factory. Localism tells a nice story. It shows your support for your community. But it doesn’t mean your food is necessarily better for the environment, because the transportation of ingredients is a tiny part of its carbon footprint. What matters is how your food was produced, not where. • Disagree. Having good suppliers is a demonstration of values. I dig it. Chitra Ramaswamy • It’s a nice encouragement to the public to buy suppliers’ bread, butter, honey or whatever. It’s not a guarantee of good cooking, but it shows some concern for quality. Prue Leith • Where your food was produced is every bit as important as how, especially for folks who value regional specialities or environmentalism. J Kenji López-Alt • Rather, beware restaurants that name and valorise large, mass-production farms and brands as if they’re small and precious. Helen Rosner • You’re overthinking this. Restaurants want to be proud of their supply chain. Angela Hartnett I don’t mean they should order for you, or force you to eat something you wouldn’t enjoy, but dining etiquette has changed. There are small plates, more sharing. More congenial swapping of forkfuls and happy conversation about the merits of every dish. To aggressively defend your own bhuna is the act of an oaf. Selection in 2025 should be a happy negotiation. “Hmmm. OK, if you’re having the hake, I’ll do the lamb, but then we’ll need to rethink the charcuterie.” “Let’s get a salad for the table, a selection of sides and we can reassess when the dessert menu arrives.” The whole table orders for the whole table. Enjoy. This also solves the age-old bill-splitting debate. As well as the food, you shared the conversation, the ambience, the whole event. So you share the bill. • A collective strategy can be useful, but it’s never required. Helen Rosner • Every dish these days costs an arm and a leg, and I want to be in control of my supper. Prue Leith • I DO NOT WANT to split a saliva-laced gazpacho! Dan Keeling • This misses that half the fun of a restaurant meal is the competitive game of “winning” the meal via a particularly shrewd, envy-inducing menu choice. Jimi Famurewa • Over my cold dead body. Jonathan Nunn • NO, I AM THE DECIDER. David Gelb Tipping culture is a mess. In the UK, the system is opaque. In other countries, it’s culturally complex. But unless and until it’s reformed it remains a vital part of staff wages. The imperative for the people looking after you to be paid a decent wage for doing so trumps any irritation you might feel with how the system works. And that includes a surcharge for paying via an app or using a tablet proffered by the staff. Unless your waiter has literally poured soup down your neck, or dropped your dinner in your lap and refused to do anything to make amends, always tip. • Well, I’d have thought that’s less annoying than hanging around desperate for a bill so that you can just leave but, in any event, inexcusable to use it as an excuse not to tip. Nigella Lawson • Can’t argue with this. Hospitality staff are hostage to the same impersonal efficiencies as diners. Jimi Famurewa • Yes, you should always reward good service, even if the restaurant owner insists on cheapening the experience with this most soulless bit of dumbing down. Dan Keeling • There’s never an excuse not to tip! J Kenji López-Alt • There is NEVER an excuse not to tip . Ruth Reichl Why? Because once you’ve ordered the three to four dishes per person that they’ve recommended, there won’t be any space on the table. Plus splitting the dishes between more than two people will become a nightmarish negotiation worthy of the UN Security Council. Dinner will stop being fun. It will be tiresome. Don’t do it. • Agree. Small plates just about work with one other diner — and even then you’re focused on how much the other person is eating. Diana Henry • The perfect number of people for a small plates restaurant is three. This is especially true for the ultimate small-plates restaurants, dim sum parlours, which require odd-numbered tables. Jonathan Nunn • Three is an underrated number at a table. Jimi Famurewa • Disagree. Just order correctly. Jesse Burgess • THE MORE THE MERRIER. JUST ORDER MORE THAN ONE OF EVERYTHING! Andi Oliver • Tout dépend de l’humeur et de l’appétit: no rules. François Simon The proliferation of the online “ram food into faces” trend is remarkable. Previously sedate cooking or restaurant social media accounts now feel they have to end on the culinary equivalent of the money shot. Boke. Algorithms are no doubt to blame and influencers gotta eat, one way or another. But if this is accompanied by any mouth-full variation on “nailed! legends! off the scaaaale” or any of the above, we owe it to ourselves to avoid the establishment in question and its FOMO-generated queues. Out of nosiness, I joined a TikTok-influenced queue in Spitalfields Market only to be rewarded with a tub of fruity gloop with a crumble-ish substance on top. You get what you deserve. • It seems a bit unfair to blame a restaurant for the style of a write-up, but there may nevertheless be some truth to this! Nigella Lawson • Yes. Ditto “influencers” using a restaurant’s Michelin status as an adjective in lieu of real insight. “This is Britain’s only two-star burger mayyyyte!!” Dan Keeling • This is only a good rule of thumb until @eatingwithtod comes to your favourite restaurant. Jonathan Nunn • Note to self: do not allow curmudgeonly prejudices and blind spots to prevent you from paying attention to what folk — even, and perhaps especially if they’re not your folk — are recommending online. Chitra Ramaswamy • IT'S NOT THE RESTAURANT’S FAULT THAT SOMEONE ELSE IS AN IDIOT. Andi Oliver • Aren’t we all online gob-stuffers in some respect? Leyla Kazim • WHAT IS A GOB STUFFER? David Gelb If you have a genuine complaint — the dish is not as billed, the meat isn’t cooked to your request, the food isn’t prepared properly, service has been rude or unprofessional — and you speak up politely at the time, respect. If it’s then handled properly, respect too to the restaurant. Under these circumstances, never, ever weasel off to online review apps to air your grievance again. The job was done, you no longer have an axe to grind, get over it. If the restaurant doesn’t respond as it should — I’ve had “that’s the way we do it here” regarding an inedible clag of a carbonara — fill your Tripadvisor boots. • Everyone makes mistakes. A good recovery is worth praising, not punishing! Helen Rosner • This is absolutely true. I would also add that the single most important thing Google could do would be to add comments under reviews to give right of reply not only to the restaurant, but allow the complaint to be judged by society. Jonathan Nunn • We could all be better at gently raising issues in the moment, rather than meekly holding on to them so we’ve got something to righteously complain about later. Jimi Famurewa • British people are so bad at complaining. Diana Henry • Agree. Unless, of course, the sous chef has run off with your partner, in which case fire up the Russian bot factory. Dan Keeling A pub serving good food is not a violation of a sacred space. It is not an attack on the very essence of British culture. It’s a huge, bell-ringing improvement to it. We need to celebrate the way these institutions have moved from being sticky-carpeted redoubts for gloomy beer drinkers, lost in the froth on their pint, to open and inclusive spaces where the cost of running a great kitchen is underwritten by those bar sales. Since they boomed in the 1990s, gastropubs have vastly improved the quality of life. Don’t complain because you can now get a garlic-drenched lobster with your pint of Murphy’s, or a fabulous tandoori mixed grill, or some serious tapas that would make a Catalan jealous. Applaud. • 100 per cent. Also, resist big ticket rip-offs of The Devonshire that are just fancy restaurants cynically cosplaying as pubs, and bang the drum for pub residencies as a useful entry point for talented, novice restaurateurs. Jimi Famurewa • Gastropubs have been one of the most important developments in hospitality. They democratised eating out — many people are a bit scared of restaurants but nobody is frightened of a pub, they are our bistros. Diana Henry • This is the best rule. Angela Hartnett • The last time I said “gastropub” was in about 2006. Alice Lascelles We Brits are mad to have become hung up on authenticity in food. We thrill to a new opening of a place that offers the pure dishes of a microscopic sub-province of Northern Laos and, invariably, discover it’s been set up by two nerd posh boys who spent their gap year there. If you want authenticity, travel. Travel and find yourself somewhere like Italy, where every restaurant in town will have the same dish on the menu and stab each other in the neck over whose mother makes it best. Obsessive “authenticity” is most often born out of reactionary protectionism, xenophobia and aversion to change. Here in Britain, we spent centuries with no food patrimony to protect, and ruthlessly co-opted everyone else’s. We thought the French were better than us, the Spanish and Italians more exotic, and we just nicked the good stuff from everyone we colonised or who came here to live. As a result, we have a healthy, diverse creativity that attracts chefs from all over the world to train or to be inspired. We should be insanely proud of our cuisine. And our cuisine is fusion. • Agree. The word is dirty, the concept is universal. Helen Rosner • If the food’s good, it doesn’t matter what it calls itself. Nigella Lawson • Some food is just delicious! Brooklyn Peltz Beckham • Very few restaurants don’t have some elements of fusion in their menu or ingredients. What’s the problem? Jesse Burgess • There’s fusion food and fusion food. Food cultures end up being entwined — that has always happened — but if you create a bold and deliberate fusion, like Japanese with Mexican — it needs to be really good. Diana Henry • There’s no way fusion allows for Japanese /Italian. Angela Hartnett • FRENCH AND ASIAN COMBOS ARE MY JAM. David Gelb • Il n’y a pas de règles. François Simon The restaurateur in me doesn’t want to write this, but it’s the truth. Diners never asked for online booking engines. They suit restaurants who don’t have to do things with pen, paper, phone and personality. In handing the booking process over to intermediators, they’ve made their lives easier, but they’ve lost vital contact with customers. There’s only one slim advantage that the poor diner can extract from this mess and that’s the ability to book a few places at once, to “hold” while sorting out where they’ll eventually go. It seems sneaky, but it’s a function, however unintended, of the system. But please, please, cancel the unused booking properly and as soon as possible. If you don’t, you’ll have to pay a fee — and you won’t have any moral grounds on which to whinge. • This is neither acceptable nor, frankly, normal behaviour. Nigella Lawson • Absolutely not. Alice Lascelles • Absolutely not! Diana Henry • This is not just a bad rule, it’s an act of terrorism. Jonathan Nunn • Very much the commitment-averse dining approach of an ethical non‑monogamist in a doomed polycule. Jimi Famurewa • Have confidence and commit. Helen Rosner • Le cynisme des multi réservations est un manque d’éducation. François Simon • Yes, but as a former restaurateur it is really maddening when people do this and don’t cancel. When I was chair of the Restaurateurs Association we got together and blacklisted the guilty! Prue Leith • This is fine but don’t leave it until the last minute. Anything less than a week is poor form. Leyla Kazim The old saw “use ’em or lose ’em” has never been delivered with such a chill of doom as it is right now. These are challenging times for restaurants, and independents — even beloved ones — are closing daily. Be a regular, support your locals, the love will flow both ways. Remember why you used to go to restaurants before bragging rights on Instagram were invented. • I wish, but I’ve got a job to do and a lot of restaurants to cover. Going back to the places you like is what you get to do after you retire. Ruth Reichl • I willingly go back to restaurants I love much more often than I want to try new ones. Nigella Lawson • Restaurants need regulars, hard to survive on new diners alone. There’s also something very comforting about routinely visiting a restaurant — don’t feel pressured to act otherwise. Jesse Burgess • Yes, nice idea. Prue Leith • Yes. Dan Keeling • Absolutely. Leyla Kazim • I have a feeling that everyone will say yes to this. Jonathan Nunn The story goes that Van Halen had a line in their rider, Rule 126, that read something like, “There will be no brown M&Ms in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation.” It’s not an example of rock star arrogance, far from it. The rule was buried right down inside a complex list of specifications about stage safety. If they’d read and implemented the bit about the candy, the tech crew were a lot less likely to have missed the more important ones about electrocuting the band. Sometimes, on the job, you spot a restaurant doing something that makes you think, “Yep. They get that right and nothing else can go wrong.” For example: Tim’s M&Ms • The triple table cloths at The Dover • The five-onion Gibson at Brutto• The imported tin cutlery at Speedboat Bar• The way they iron on the tablecloths at The Seahorse in Dartmouth • The custom-made short wine glasses at St John* • The dessert trolley at Maison François* Note from Jancis Robinson: “I am happy to go on the record re my strong lack of enthusiasm for St John’s wine glasses, which I regard as an inconvenient affectation.” Marina’s M&Ms • Brat’s custom-made grill • The flambé trolley at the Ritz• Home-made chips anywhere, but especially at Café Cecilia or Tollington’s• The hand-cut jamón at José • Really fine paintings: Christian Furr at The Devonshire Grill; Norman Hyams at Leila’s Shop• Anyone who takes the time to make a pithivier, especially at Osip in Bruton Jay’s M&Ms • The muslin-wrapped lemons with the oysters at Bentley’s• The volume of thick vinaigrette with the globe artichokes at Oslo Court• The keeping of champagne flutes in the chiller at the American Bar of The Stafford Hotel• The measuring of house-wine consumption by ruler at Josephine Bouchon• The immediate offer of chilli oil at PizzaExpress
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