Food - Bee Wilson on five decades of The Good Food Guide
"Not as French as it sounds, not as warm (in cold weather) as you hope, and on occasion in the past, no cleaner than it should be."
Such was The Good Food Guide's recommendation of Le Bistro, Edinburgh, in 1973. You have to wonder what the other restaurants in Edinburgh were like. In The Good Food Guide 2000 (Which Books, £14.99), Le Bistro wouldn't even make the round-ups. Edinburgh alone has 17 alluring entries, including a Californian fusion joint, a vegetarian Indian restaurant, several fish bistros and various places offering modern Scottish cooking.
Looking over copies of The Good Food Guide from the past 49 years is an exercise in social history, charting the gigantic changes in the postwar British diet. The truism that "we all know so much more about food than we used to" comes to life through the pages of the guide - at least as far as non-British food is concerned.
In 1960, the review of the Capri restaurant declared, ominously: "In Oxford, an attempt to offer real Italian food is an event." Osso bucco Milanese, chicken alla cacciatore (7/6) and cannelloni Capri were noted. By 1970, Italian food was no longer a novelty in Oxford and you could get 85p lunches at La Cantina di Capri or Frenchified titbits at the Restaurant Elizabeth.
A decade later, Raymond Blanc had opened up shop at Les Quat' Saisons, and Chinese food was available at The Opium Den. In 1990 the Indonesian restaurant Munchy Munchy was praised: "Typically hybrid ideas are chicken with cardamom and nutmeg in a papaya sauce with chopped pine kernels or sliced beef with cinnamon, cloves, fresh lime leaves and juice." But in the current edition, the only "ethnic" restaurant listed in Oxford is Al-Shami, serving kibbeh, fried lamb's brains, spicy Armenian sausages and " 'interesting' Lebanese pastries".
Almost as interesting as the kinds of food that are now included - 13 Japanese restaurants listed in London, as against one in 1967 - are those that are no longer deemed worthy of mention. In the early 1980s PizzaExpress appeared. Now the chain goes unheralded. The Hard Rock Cafe rated a write-up in 1973: "Inspectors agree that the burgers (60p for I lb, 80p for f lb, complete with bun, pickles and salad) are fair value - though on the far side of the water one would surely get a separate plate for salad."
In some cities, the revolution in restaurant food is practically Copernican. In 1960 Manchester listed an airport restaurant serving pate de la maison, an Indian, a Chinese and the Cafe Royal, where you could get Barnsley chop garni. Now you can eat eggs benedict at Rhodes & Co, fillet steak with horseradish risotto at Simply Heathcotes, seared tuna with "wasabislaw" and anchovy beignets at Mash and Air, prune and Armagnac clafoutis at Nico Central, cajun-spiced monkfish at Lime Tree . . . Oh, for the days of house pate and chops!
But some things never change. The Connaught, W1, has been included for 47 of the past 49 years, with almost the same review every time. In 1960 it was "luxurious but calm, unperturbed by changing fashions"; in 2000, it remains "comforting" and "very little has changed". Another thing that doesn't alter is the guide's antipathy to Michelin. In 2000, Drew Smith lambastes its "pernicious" influence; in 1960, Raymond Postgate compared its publicity-hungry ways with the "army of disinterested people" who make up the Good Food Club of Great Britain. It must be partly thanks to this army that dining out in Britain has so improved over the past 49 years.
Perhaps the guide shouldn't be seen as social history after all. The historian merely records and analyses the past. The Good Food Guide, more importantly, can change things for the better.
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