A taste of London with food talks

London must probably be the most colorful capital of Europe in terms of diversity in gastronomy. Every country’s cuisine is represented here in some way or the other, whether it be high-end establishments, family-owned small eateries or street food and markets.

But London is not only about what you eat, it is also about events with captivating talks and in-depth writings about it. The intellectual dimension of food and drink is as important as what you eat. Even the supermarket magazines are packed with information, and full of ideas tucked into recipe headnotes. It is common to get interesting talks on TV, but also live discussions at various events scattered around the year. One of these events is held at The British Library in London, featuring the most engaging food talks and panels, where the library becomes the venue that food writers and enthusiasts head every year. As part of the sixth British Library Food Season that was held last weekend, May 25-26th, I was lucky to attend to one of the most stimulating panels which was titled “The Golden Age of Restaurant Writing” which focused on the once legendary food pages of Time Out London.

London made a gastronomic breakthrough in the 1990s and in the same years, writing restaurant reviews came to the fore in parallel. Lead by editor and critic Guy Dimond and his team of talented writers, Time Out London food pages soon became the essential guide for Londoners, featuring the most-trusted authoritative restaurant reviews of the time. They were informative, well-written and most importantly, not biased and totally independent. The guide was paying for the meals in restaurants and the critics were always in disguise. Guy Dimond was known as the faceless restaurant critic, which sometimes led to funny incidents. In fact, once he and his companion were dining in a newly opened restaurant where another critic whose face was known in the press was also there at the same time. The story unfolds hilariously. While the whole service team was circling around the other, they put Dimond at a bad table near the toilets, subjected him to terrible service and then sort of apologized shamelessly realizing that they’ve gone too far: “We had a bit of a service disruption today, but we had a very important restaurant critic guest!” However, in those golden years, Time Out was a publication so trusted and influential by its readers that the restaurant had to close down shortly after Guy Dimond’s review following this unfortunate incident.

Today, however, those years are remembered with a bit of nostalgia. Fewer people write by paying for the food they eat, and magazines and newspapers have long since stopped allocating budgets for this. Now it is the era of PR agencies. It seems that real criticism is not in anyone’s interest, it is more about publicity. Most establishments seek influencers, as it is enough for them to post a few pretty pictures of plates on social media apps like Instagram and write three or five words, which usually involves the boring word “amazing” which gets on my nerves amazingly quickly. Once upon a time, like a hard to believe fairytale story, restaurant criticism used to be taken very seriously, they were highly informative and reliable. One of the people trying to bring back the good old days is Jonathan Nunn, a food and city writer based in London who co-edits the online magazine Vittles. The participants were Guy Dimond and two former staff writers from the magazine, Anne Faber, now a famous television programmer from Luxembourg, and the other, famed Indian writer Roopa Gulati. The panel was inspiring in many ways and a little sad. At the opening Jonathan Nunn read an article written for the magazine by Fuchsia Dunlop, celebrated author of many books on Chinese cuisine who was then not even known as a food writer. Her writing was a short article about a family-run restaurant in Chinatown, packed with so much information and could be a lecture piece to showcase how to describe the taste, texture and feel of the food so clearly. Moreover, how to create the feeling of going to that restaurant at the first opportunity, only in a mere few lines. While Anne Faber and Roopa Gulati shared their memories of how they got started with Time Out, highlighting their time with the guide. Another legendary writer of those years, now based in Hong Kong, Charmaine Mok, was fondly mentioned several times, praising her outstanding talent in delivering the most difficult tasks with ease and perfection. Listening to their experiences, seeing the passion and dedication involved in those years, even remembering that such reviews once existed was a truly inspirational experience. In a way, it also gave me a bit of hope, and perhaps a revival of those golden days.

Gastromasa debuts in London

The International Gastromasa Gastronomy Conference is a platform where star chefs with international reputations share their visions, career stories and demonstrate techniques they use in their creations. Gastromasa, founded by Gökmen Sözen in 2015 in Türkiye, had its first debut in London on May 28-29 with the theme of “Inspiration.” The opening speech of the two-day event was made by the world-famous Spanish chef Ferran Adrià. I must have listened to Adrià many times, first in Turin, Italy in 2000 at the first international event of the Slow Food movement. In those years, he was the shining star of gastronomy. Everybody was talking about his groundbreaking kitchen in elBulli. Years later, in 2013, I had the chance to attend the opening of his exhibition displaying the whole story of elBulli restaurant at Somerset House in London. That exhibition was the talk of the year in London at the time. I’ve heard him speak at events in Spain many times since then, at Madrid Fusion, or at Gastronomica in San Sebastian. Each time listening to him was inspirational, his astounding creations stupefying, his passion contagious. But his talk at Gastromasa London was totally new to me. This time, he gave a lecture on creativity and inspiration in the kitchen throughout history that could be taught as a course at university. In fact, he now devotes all his time to his work for the “elBullifoundation,” which he founded after closing down elBulli. The elBullifoundation has three missions: to preserve the legacy of el Bulli restaurant, to share expertise in management and innovation, and to produce high-quality content for the fine dining industry. At his Gastromasa London presentation, there it was, the high-quality content delving into the history of innovation in gastronomy. It was interesting and new to me that while he usually always talks about his own cuisine and creations, this time he drew all the attention to the process of creativity in history and hardly mentioned himself. Ferran Adrià is a genius watched by the whole world. Even if Gastromasa’s first year in London had some glitches and shortcomings, it is a great reference for the London edition to have started with such a big name for the future editions, and it was not only about him, there was a great line of renowned chefs as speakers. Each one of the speakers delivered inspiring talks on “Inspiration,” proving once again that Gastromasa has always shined with the fraternity of its fellow chefs, and now shines in London away from its homeland, mostly with the support and devotion of its speakers.