On Restaurant Writing

Inside the world of the restaurant critic.

This is an online event hosted on the British Library platform. Bookers will be sent a link in advance giving access and will be able to watch at any time for 48 hours after the start time.

Restaurant critics have the power to make or break a business, shape chef trends and influence food fashions. But who are their reviews written for, and what makes good restaurant writing? What is the responsibility of the food critic and how can the traditional forms of restaurant writing evolve for the times ahead? Led by Lisa Markwell, food editor of the Sunday Times, with Nicholas Lander restaurant critic for FT, Jimi Famurewa restaurant critic for the Evening Standard, and Ligaya Mishan from the New York Times.

Jimi Famurewa is a British-Nigerian writer, editor and broadcaster who contributes to publications including The Guardian, GQ and Wired UK and, since early 2021, has been the chief restaurant critic for the Evening Standard. He is a regular guest judge on BBC One’s MasterChef, host of Waitrose's food podcast, Life on a Plate, and his previous column in ES Magazine won the Restaurant Writing category at the 2020 Guild of Food Writers Awards. He lives in south east London with his wife and two children.

Nicholas Lander is the restaurant correspondent for the Financial Times, a position he has held since 1988. He has written two books: The Art of the Restaurateur and On The Menu. Nicholas used to own Soho's renowned L'Escargot restaurant, and has acted as hospitality consultant to a host of arts centres and businesses including the Royal Opera House, the V&A, and the urban regeneration of Kings Cross.

Lisa Markwell has been a journalist for 30 years, winning awards as editor of The Independent on Sunday and spending eight years as restaurant critic at the same paper. More recently she took a ‘gap year’ to undertake the chef’s diploma course at Leith’s School of Food and Wine, documenting her progress in a newspaper column and graduating with a distinction. Lisa is currently the food editor at The Sunday Times, working with many top chefs and food writers, and is editor at CODE Hospitality, writing a digital bulletin and print magazine for the restaurant community. She still cooks for occasional pop-ups. Her culinary adventures appear on Instagram as @holdsknifelikepen.

Ligaya Mishan writes for the New York Times and T magazine. She was a 2020 finalist for the National Magazine Awards, the James Beard Awards, and the IACP Food Writing Awards. Her essays have been selected for the Best American Magazine Writing, the Best American Food Writing, and the Best American Travel Writing, and her criticism has appeared in the New York Review of Books and The New Yorker. The daughter of a Filipino mother and a British father, she grew up in Honolulu, Hawai’i. She is the co-author, with the chef Angela Dimayuga, of “Filipinx: Heritage Recipes from the Diaspora,” forthcoming from Abrams in October 2021, and is working on a book of essays.

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