Best not to make a fuss, as all good children were once taught. Just eat what's on your plate and say nothing: it's rude to comment on food, and in the case of a newspaper restaurant review, could land you in court.
Restaurant critics dropped their forks in shock yesterday at the news that a Belfast jury has upheld an owner's claim that a review of his Italian restaurant was "defamatory, damaging and hurtful".
"If this stands it could be the end of serious restaurant reviews," Matthew Norman, who has critically analysed his dinners for this and other papers for the last 15 years, said. "You could end up having to get the restaurant owner to sign a waiver promising that he wouldn't sue before you went there. To say there's a freedom of speech issue here is so blazingly obvious it almost goes without saying."
The Irish News in Belfast has announced its determination to fight the jury's verdict and the £25,000 awarded in damages to Ciaran Convery, who sued over a review in 2000 that described his staff as unhelpful, his cola as flat, and his chicken marsala "so sweet as to be inedible".
The review, by Caroline Workman, who trained in London restaurants and is a former editor of the Bridgestone restaurant guide, gave Goodfellas one out of five; Mr Convery described it as "a hatchet job". Workman said in court she had been "completely honest". But the jury of four men and three women took just 90 minutes to conclude that the review had contained defamatory comments.
A spokesman for the paper said: "The outcome of this case raises profound questions involving the freedom of the press." The decision to appeal is backed by the National Union of Journalists, which described the verdict as disturbing.
"It is very worrying news," Norman said, taking a break from struggling to find words to describe the lamb with coffee and the "free-range egg cooked at 65 degrees" from his most recent critical outing. "You really cannot overstate the imbecility of a libel jury: what we really need now is a sustained campaign against our ludicrous libel laws."
Jay Rayner, restaurant critic for the Observer, who once wrote that an act of grievous bodily harm on a sea bream merited a judicial penalty, and whose photograph, with those of other leading critics, is said to hang in a rogues' gallery in the kitchens of several leading London restaurants, said: "Restaurant owners, if they've done a really lousy job, given the cost of eating out today, should not be protected from being told that.
"I wouldn't advise them to rush to sue - most of us are fairly good at our job, and I always write conscious of staying within the limits of libel. There are ways of doing it - I once said that a soup tasted as if it came out of a packet, and added that this was a remarkable achievement given that it was undoubtedly home-made."
Caroline Keane, a partner at the media law firm Wiggin LLP, said: "With most restaurant reviews you would argue that the whole review is a matter of honest opinion, given without malice - and you are entitled in law to have quite a vitriolic opinion, you don't have to express an opinion that most people would necessarily agree with."
Mike Robinson, a chef, cookery writer and television presenter, and his wife have recently taken over a small country pub at Frilsham in Berkshire, the Pot Kiln, where the reviews have mainly been glowing. He said the court decision as "ludicrous" but said: "Reviews are desperately important to us - all chefs talk about them all the time. Don't believe the ones that say they don't care: if they know there's going to be a review in a paper they'll be round queuing outside the shop at 6.30 in the morning.
"They do make a difference to business, but somebody once said to me that you can get just as much business from a really bad review as from a good one."
He recently had an excellent review, from a critic he knew, who added one last line condemning the tarte tatin: unlike many restaurants, which buy in desserts, Mr Robinson had made it. "It was all I could think about, it wiped out all the nice things he had said before - I really felt like crying over that blessed tarte tatin."
Yesterday the critics were unanimous that they do not rejoice in a really awful restaurant, just because it's more fun to put the knife in. Rayner said: "Bad restaurants are like colds or car crashes - they're inevitable but you do try to avoid them." Norman conceded: "It's easier to make jokes if you really hate somewhere - but you are always conscious that you have somebody's livelihood in your hands." Matthew Fort, who has just written a blog post on the subject for the Guardian's Comment is Free, staunchly insisted: "Our restaurant critics are the envy of the world."
Joe Warwick, editor of Restaurant magazine, said: "I can't actually imagine that this is going to put the handcuffs on restaurant reviewers, and I don't think it's likely to result in a flood of owners suing either."
Mr Robinson said all chefs had big egos, or they wouldn't do the job, and bad reviews really hurt. But he added: "I would never even consider suing - unless somebody said something really deeply unpleasant and personal. And even then I wouldn't do it."
· Knives out
"It is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine anyone conjuring up a restaurant, even in their sleep, where the food in its mediocrity comes so close to inedible."
Fay Maschler, the Evening Standard, on Chittagong Charlie in Golders Green, London
"All things considered, quite the worst restaurant in London, maybe the world. San Lorenzo serves horrendous food, grudgingly, in a room that is a museum to Italian waiters' taste circa 1976."
AA Gill, the Sunday Times, on San Lorenzo in Chelsea, London
"The worst meal I've ever eaten. Not by a small margin. I mean the worst! The most unrelievedly awful! You don't need to be an atomic physicist to grill steaks. They arrived so raw you could have drowned swimming in the blood."
Michael Winner, the Sunday Times, on Bibendum in Chelsea, London
"The taste and texture of the pease pudding reminded me of occasions when I have accidentally inhaled while emptying the Dyson."
Giles Coren, the Times, on Court Restaurant at the British Museum in Bloomsbury, London
"The old Sheriff's Court is now a place where the crimes are actually committed. Granted, bad cooking probably does not warrant a long stretch inside. But the offence of grievous bodily harm upon a lovely little sea bream really ought to carry some form of judicial penalty."
Jay Rayner, the Observer, on The Corinthian in Glasgow
"I got the impression from the menu the food has a Vietnamese slant to it. [What] looked like a sea mine in miniature was the most disgusting thing I've put in my mouth since I ate earthworms at school."
Matthew Fort, the Guardian, on Opium in Soho, London
