Too Many Critics event raises over £35,000 for charity

The Too Many Critics event organised by the Restaurants Against Hunger campaign has raised more than £35,000 for humanitarian charity Action Against Hunger.

The fundraiser, which took place at London’s Royal Exchange last Sunday (19 October), featured restaurant critics including the Observer’s Jay Rayner, the London Evening Standard’s Charles Campion and the Independent’s Tracey MacLeod.

Together they prepared a five-course dinner, including a main course of British pork, with chefs such as Raymond Blanc, Shane Osborn and Fergus Henderson judging their efforts.

Guests at the dinner included the BBC’s Dragons' Den star Deborah Meadon, who paid £4,500 in the event’s auction for a trip to Zambia, Africa, to see first hand the work of Action Against Hunger.

Cardiff-based restaurateur Babak Arabestani won the bid for three plates, hand decorated by celebrity chefs Gordon Ramsay, Heston Blumenthal and Henderson, by offering £2,800.

Too Many Critics formed part of Action Against Hunger’s annual campaign Restaurants Against Hunger, which runs throughout October. The charity works in more than 40 of the world’s poorest countries, with its vocation being to save the lives of starving children.

Restaurant critics answer your questions>>

Charles Campion, food writer, London Evening Standard>>

By Kerstin Kühn

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