The owners of a restaurant ‘dissed’ by Mr Gerard in his column in Saturday’s Telegraph [PS 27 January: the page has apparently been removed] claim that – in exchange for a review – he had solicited from it lodging not just for himself, but also for his family.
The whole issue is addressed in full public view on the Telegraph’s online reader commentary on the review, where the proprietors of the establishment concerned, Mr Underhill’s, claim:
“We do hope [Mr Gerard] has eaten with us on several occasions over our 29 years. Last summer we were offered a review by him in exchange for providing free accommodation for him, his wife and his two children. This was not something we felt comfortable with so we declined the offer.”
Mr Gerard’s online ‘defence’ at no point explicitly addresses the simple charge that he made reviewing the establishment dependent on its offering free family accommodation. Indeed, his words appear to have been chosen with exquisite care: “We have a budget and always pay for the dinner or lunch under review” (emphasis added).
As Mr Gerard has so conspicuously failed to address Mr Underhill’s charge head on, it is difficult to believe it is not true.
[PS 28 January – Mr Gerard has now issued a ‘blanket’ denial]
If the claim is true, it is a disgrace. Reviews in the Telegraph, or any national newspaper, should be unannounced, and they most certainly should not be ‘for sale’. And – to avoid any suspicion of ‘sour grapes’ – criticisms should most particularly not be directed against any restaurant which has declined to ‘buy’ coverage.
Mr Gerard doesn’t actually tell us when he did eat at Mr Underhill’s, but he does tell us that his criticism – “Mr Underhill's is not the best restaurant in Britain; it's not even the best restaurant in Ludlow“– was not in fact directed at the restaurant at all!
It was actually directed at “a certain guidebook that heaps huge pressure on restaurants of relatively modest reputation by declaring them the best in Britain etc, and naturally they struggle to live up to such billing.”
Such a guidebook Should Be Named. Why then, in the Public Interest, was this shameful publication – Harden’s, of course – not named in the Telegraph?
Well, the explicit reason given is that “a “poor cove there [actually we are two] gets terribly excitable whenever he sees his name in print”. Nothing to do then, with the fact that last time Mr Gerard wrote about Harden’s – by name – we had to go all the way to the Press Complaints Commission to get the nonsense he had written corrected?
Sadly, this is not the only occasion on which Mr Gerard has had a problem with easily ascertainable facts. Last year, he confidently wrote up Theatreland restaurant St Alban (now closed) on the basis that the chef was one Francesco Mazzei. As everyone in London who writes about food (apart from Mr Gerard) knew, Mr Mazzei had left the restaurant long before… to set up another restaurant, L’Anima, which was already beginning to enjoy acclaim in many circles as the top opening of 2008!
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