Egon Ronay’s restaurant guide will be back on the shelves next February after a seven-year absence.

The guide is being sponsored by the RAC, which will give funding, promotional support and its name to the project.

But Ronay will retain control of the guide and publish it himself.

Ronay has assembled a team of inspectors who worked with him 20 years ago. Unlike most guides on the market, it will visit each restaurant listed every year.

“The significance of the guide is that it reverses the trend of giving emphasis to matters other than food in restaurants,” claimed Ronay.

“The new guide’s prime concern will be the quality of the cooking.”

Ronay published his first guide in 1957 but sold it in 1985 to the AA, which sold it on after three years.

Unhappy with the way it was being run, Ronay won back the legal right to publish under his own name in 1998.

by Angela Frewin

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