The Good Food Guide

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.^[1] Initially published once every two years, the Good Food Guide was then published annually from 1969 until 2000.^[2]

In October 2021, Adam Hyman purchased The Good Food Guide^[3] 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 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 .^[4]

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.^[5]

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.^[6]

History

The Good Food Guide was first compiled by Raymond Postgate in 1951-52. 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 rose from his frustration with the "horrifying things" he had witnessed in restaurants and urging interested readers to send him restaurant recommendations.^[7] When Hulton, the Leader's publisher, abruptly closed the magazine down, Postgate worked with Lilliput to continue his project.^[7] In November 1950, a neophyte version of what would become the Good Food Guide was published. This list of fifteen recommended restaurants was 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."^[8] 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, readers' reports were compiled and the first Good Food Guide was published. One of the original compilers was food writer Margaret Costa who would become the regular Sunday Times food columnist.^[9]

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.^[10] Driver's approach to editorship was characterized by Tom Jaine, himself a former editor of the Good Food Guide (1990-1994), as "galvanic." Driver "excoriated" many of the restaurants that he and Good Food Club members nonetheless deemed 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."^[10] Higher-end restaurateurs and chefs, including Kenneth Bell at Thornbury Castle, Gloucestershire, took offense at the Good Food Guide under Driver's editorship, launching letters to the Times as well as meeting with the Consumers' Association to whom Postgate had sold the Good Food Guide in 1963.^[10][11]

Drew Smith assumed the editorship in 1982 and brought on board Jeremy Round as his assistant editor, replacing Aileen Hall.^[12] Round went on to become the first food columnist at the Independent, and during his tenure at the Good Food Guide, fellow Guide writer, David Mabey, credited Round with helping develop the Guide into "a mouthpiece for serious gastronomic debate."^[13]

Characterizing Smith as "a lean, lanky, feisty chap," Mabey noted several campaigns that Smith launched, all of which had a significant effect on the British restaurant scene, British gastronomy, and diners.^[13] The first was the "No Mortgage Needed" campaign launched in the 1983 Good Food Guide to address the high cost of dining out. Many restaurants responded to Smith's challenge to "provide a complete meal under £10," and many new addresses ended up in the 1984 Good Food Guide as a result.^[14]

In August 2013, the guide was purchased and published by Waitrose & Partners.^[15] 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.^[16]

This new format highlighted restaurants that are both World Class and Exceptional,^[17] a reflection of the new scoring system of the Guide^[18]

The event also awarded seven unique categories of awards^[19]

• 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) ISBN 978-1-84490-106-7
• The Good Food Guide 2016 (Waitrose, 2015) ISBN 978-0953798339