The Caterer Blog

So, the hunter becomes the hunted, the chewer the chewed, the blah-er the blah-ed etc. Every article about the Sydney restaurant that successfully sued a critic started with a rehash of this idiom, so why differ?

It’s not the first time that a restaurant has managed this feat. In Belfast in 2000, Goodfellas Italian restaurant successfully sued The Irish News for £25,000 because of bad comments. The irony of an Irishman running an Italian restaurant with the name Goodfellas, suing because the article made them ‘look amateur’, obviously lost on the jury.

While Goodfellas is by all accounts still operating, the Sydney restaurant, Coco Roco, that sued the Morning Heralnd promptly went bust. Why? I’m guessing because it was rubbish, just as the paper suggested. But the Sydney High Court still decided the review had indeed been detrimental to business.

To me this all seems a load of tosh. As AA Gill pointed out over the weekend, no other reviewer would be sued for his opinion: a film critic, for example, wouldn’t have Tom Selleck’s mustachioed lawyers (I assume that’s how he selects them) knocking on his door because he slated Three Men and a Little Lady. Same for music and theatre critics.

“Has sir decided what he would like today? The oysters are very good.”
“Okay, half a dozen oysters. And the liver for main.”
“Very good sir.”
“And bring me some hubba bubba as well!”
“What flavour sir?”
“Let chef decide.”

It’s nice to see the spirit of Michael Dinner alive and well up north. The Little Britain character, based on, oh, no one in particular, had an appetite for fine food matched only by his appetite for the finer things in life – Monster Munch, Um Bungo and Hubba Bubba. So it’s only natural to draw comparisons with a certain owner of Lincolnshire-based restaurant Winteringham Fields, Colin McGurran.

They pronounce on your restaurants, but what motivates them, and are they fully qualified to pass judgement?

We're offering you the chance to put the Observer's Jay Rayner, Nick Lander from the Financial Times and the Evening Standard's Charles Campion on the spot in our new feature 'Ask the Critic'.

It's a chance to press the UK's top restaurant columnists on exactly how much chef training they've received, for example, or what you should most change at your restaurant - in their opinion.

So e-mail your enquiries to catererfeatures@rbi.co.uk or write to Tom Vaughan, Caterer and Hotelkeeper, Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey, SM2 5AS - together we can grill them.