The Good Food Guide
Template:Short description Template:More citations needed Template:Italic title The Good Food Guide is a guide to the best restaurants, pubs and cafés in Great Britain. The first edition was published in 1952 and covered the years 1951-1952.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Initially published once every two years, the Good Food Guide was then published annually from 1969 until 2000.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
In October 2021, Adam Hyman purchased The Good Food Guide<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> for an undisclosed sum from Waitrose & Partners. The Guide was relaunched in 2022 as a digital product. The Guide will no longer be published annually in print but will instead be published in an app that will be continuously updated with new Guide entries along with a The Good Food Guide Weekly digital newsletter, location guides and Club perks and offers.
According to the organisation, all reviews are based on the huge volume of feedback that are received from readers and this, together with anonymous expert inspections, ensures that every entry is assessed afresh. Every inspected meal is paid for, and Readers of the Guide are still actively encouraged to submit their reviews, via the Good Food Guide website, which are then considered for prospective inclusion in the Guide.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Some guidebooks prior to Postgate's were, like his, based on readers' recommendations, but in the early 1950s, the majority were made up of the opinions of experts, or taste arbiters. They decided for their readership which restaurants were good and which were not. Other guidebooks might have advertised themselves as "independent," but many included listings for restaurants that paid them.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Elizabeth Carter was appointed as editor of The Good Food Guide in November 2007. She has been an active restaurant inspector and contributor to the Guide since the 1990s, and has extensive experience in restaurant-related publishing and media. Previous roles have included editor of Les Routiers UK and Ireland Guide (2002-2004) and editor of the AA Restaurant Guide (1997-2000).
Chloë Hamilton works alongside Elizabeth Carter as co-editor.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
History
The Good Food Guide was first compiled by Raymond Postgate in 1951-52. Appalled by the British post-war dining experience, Postgate formed the Good Food Club, recruiting an army of volunteers to inspect restaurants anonymously<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and report back. Prior to the Good Food Guide, Postgate had published in the Leader Magazine (23 April 1949) an article entitled "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Food," stating that his new-found society was based on his frustration with the "horrifying things" he had witnessed in restaurants and urging those interested to send him restaurant recommendations.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref> When Hulton, the Leader's publisher, abruptly closed the magazine down, Postgate worked with Lilliput to continue his project.<ref name=":1" /> In November 1950, a neophyte version of what would become the Good Food Guide was published. It was a short list of fifteen recommended restaurants, prefaced by Postgate's "The Good Food Club: Rules for Eating Out," including Rule One, "Read the menu outside. If there is no menu outside, don't go in."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Postgate's aims were simple; among them, ‘to raise the standard of cooking in Britain’ and ‘to do ourselves all a bit of good by making our holidays, travels and evenings-out in due course more enjoyable’. Following the success of The Good Food Club, reports were compiled and The Good Food Guide was published. One of the original compilers was food writer Margaret Costa who would become the regular Sunday Times food columnist.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Several editors have been associated with the Good Food Guide. Christopher Driver was appointed successor to Postgate in 1969-1970 and served in that role until 1982.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Driver's approach to editorship has been characterized by Tom Jaine, himself a former editor of the Good Food Guide, as "galvanic" as he "excoriated" many of the restaurants that he and Good Food Club members deemed nonetheless worthy of inclusion in the Guide, but which still suffered from "cupidity and the vain pretensions of their customers." Furthermore, Jaine continued, Driver "included with gusto and near-apostolic zeal Indian, Chinese and other ethnic restaurants which had hitherto been thought beneath a linen-and-crystal gourmand's notice."<ref name=":0" /> Higher-end restaurateurs and chefs, including Kenneth Bell at Thornbury Castle, Gloucestershire, took offense at the Good Food Guide, launching letters to the Times as well as meeting with the Consumers' Association to whom Postgate had sold the Good Food Guide in 1963.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In August 2013, the guide was purchased and published by Waitrose & Partners.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The guide continued to be published annually, until May 2021.
Awards
In 2024, the Guide changed the format away from a ranked list, celebrating its newly formatted Good Food Guide Awards on the 30th of Jan 2024.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
This new format highlighted restaurants that are both World Class and Exceptional,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> a reflection of the new scoring system of the Guide<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The event also awarded seven unique categories of awards<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
- Most Exciting Food Destination
- Best Front Row Seat
- Drinks List of the Year
- Best Farm to Table
- Chef to Watch
- Best New Restaurant
- Restaurant of the Year
Publications
- The Good Food Guide Dinner Party Book (Hilary Fawcett and Jeanne Strang, 1971)
- The Good Food Guide Second Dinner Party Book (Hilary Fawcett, Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1979)
- Good Cook's Guide: More Recipes from Restaurants in the "Good Food Guide" (1974)
- The Good Food Guide: Recipes - Celebrating 60 of the UK's Best Chefs and Restaurants (Which? Books, 2010) Template:ISBN
- The Good Food Guide 2016 (Waitrose, 2015) Template:ISBN
References
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