'Welcome to the first OFM Food Awards in association with Waitrose. The ones that you, the readers, voted for. When we first decided to launch the annual awards little did we know that the response would be so phenomenal. So many of you voted for your favourite restaurants, shops, products and books that we were literally overwhelmed and had to call in outside help to cope with the postbags. Now the votes are in and counted and we have first, second and third places plus regional runners-up.
While one or two of the results were reassuringly familiar I must say that a couple of them saw me raising a foodie eyebrow. So, I can reveal that your highest accolade goes to Heston Blumenthal whose Fat Duck restaurant is your absolute favourite place to go for a special treat.
It is just brilliant news that the Best Cheap Eats award went to the man who started Wagamama - Alan Yau - for the cut-price cooking at London's Busaba Eathai. Great stuff! The only downside is that now we will have to queue even longer to get seated at his simple, down-to-earth eating places. There will be few surprises that Borough Market won Best Market or that Neal's Yard Dairy won Best Small Retailer. And few of us here doubted for one second that anything but Green & Black's chocolate would be your favourite organic product. But there were some welcome discoveries too, such as the Crooked Billet, a traditional country pub winning the top spot for Sunday lunch and a mention too for the minute Afghan kitchen in North London.
While you, the readers, were voting, a group of food industry judges - including myself - were busy arguing about a separate set of special awards over roast lamb and mashed potatoes at Claridge's. Around the table were Ruth Rogers of the River Café, Gordon Ramsay, Craig Sams of the Soil Association, Angela Megson, the buying director of Waitrose, and the editor and deputy editor of this magazine - Nicola Jeal and Caroline Boucher. Observer restaurant critic Jay Rayner kept in touch - from America - via mobile phone throughout the lunch.
Needless to say there was the odd disagreement but once we had tucked into Gordon Ramsay's steaming pumpkin soup and seductive apple crème brulée we all calmed down and came to a few conclusions. There was almost total unanimity among the judges when Jay Rayner nominated L'artisan du Chocolat as best producer. We know a good thing when we taste it. But other decisions were not quite so straightforward. It was almost impossible to settle on the Best Newcomer. Ruth Rogers had quite rightly nominated the open-all-hours café-restaurant the Wolseley in Piccadilly, and Caroline Boucher and Angela Megson had put forward a buffalo farmer in Milton Keynes whose rich yet low cholesterol milk was seen as a welcome addition to the supermarket shelves. (I made the most stunning rice pud with it last week.) In the end we decided to split the category.
Perhaps the quickest decision made was the most important - the person who has contributed most to the food industry. And no, it wasn't a high-profile 'look-at-me' TV cook, or a predictable household name. We did much better than that. Nominated by Craig Sams, and seconded by every single judge, it was a cook whose customers are mostly under 5 feet - though quite as picky as any gourmet.
We proudly gave our first Hall of Fame award to dinner lady Jeanette Orrey who has recently transformed the meals at her school. Since swapping the crisps and burgers for truly delicious and healthy lunches and sourcing local produce to cook them with, 85 per cent of the children now sign up for school lunches.
The award is given both to bring attention to her amazing efforts and to encourage others to do likewise. If enough can follow in her footsteps, there may be a small revolution in what our children eat. An award we are very proud to bestow.
And finally an enormous thank you to all of you who voted (and thank you especially to all who voted for their favourite book!) and to our panel of judges who took time away from their kitchens and desks to join us round the table. Your effort means a tremendous amount to the producers, local restaurants and markets who work so hard to bring us some truly great food to eat. Here at OFM we are all off to raise a glass of bubbly to the winners, and a cup of snail porridge to you all.'
