What do you think?
Rate this book
Winner's Dinners: The Restaurant and Hotel Guide
For 15 years Michael Winner has been reviewing restaurants in the Sunday Times . His column remains the most read and most controversial and is a shining star of original comments. Here he has drawn on those reviews, updating many of them, and including other hotels and restaurants which he has never written about in the paper. Some 400 restaurants and hotels are listed in the United Kingdom and abroad. Written in his own inimitable style and presenting facts on food, service, and ambience, always in the outrageously subjective manner that we've come to know and love, Winner's Dinners is not only witty, controversial, and bitingly truthful, it will also give any reader the confidence to visit a previously untried restaurant and know that they will enjoy a good meal.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
About the author
Michael Winner
20 books1 followerMichael Winner was a film-maker, restaurant critic and columnist.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 23, 2015
I used to love Michael Winner’s column in “The Sunday Times (London)” his death in January 2013 took the sparkle right out of that newspaper. He was something of an enigma – was he arrogant or what?? The obituaries contributed not just a piquancy and intrigue, but also a stark reminder of the control a well-heeled diner can exert for profit and loss not just at very high class restaurants, but right across the range towards more humble establishments.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obitu...
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-ent...
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/20...
“Winner’s Dinners: The Restaurant and Hotel Guide” is enormous fun, principally for the huge number and broad selection of restaurants he reports on, at various lengths, and with varying satisfaction, at his own, personal, expense. It’s immaterial that the book’s now somewhat out of date (publ. 2009); because instead of reading the book for inspiration for ‘where shall we go for dinner’, it can be read as an educational series of entertaining forays in search of excellence. After bookmarking with what turned out to be twenty-one sticky tabs, I realised that my review here likely risked getting gravely out of hand.
What pleased Mr W was seeing the named chef present in and ruling his own kitchen. Did Mr W suffer from social insecurity? On one occasion, his host Mr David Tang had to reassure Mr W that he’d be seated no further than one place away from him. In London Mr W observes the installation of technology; such as the glass lift at the “Club at The Ivy”, which he assesses as an accident waiting to happen. The restaurant “Foliage” comes in for pithy & apt criticism of “mini portions of tarted-up plate decoration”. Ouch! Gordon Ramsey is slated for running too many restaurants and thus not being present to cook and justify his Michelin stars and the resultant bills of his customers. I wholeheartedly concurred with THAT! As a rule of thumb one should NEVER pay a premium unless the star-owning chef is known to be present and cooking in the kitchen that night!
Mr W is merciless when he feels he is not getting value for money; such as a gristly wagyu/kobe steak alone costing £123.75 (excluding vegetables and plate decoration)! In a different place, at another time he is wholeheartedly effusive with his praise for a British pudding as apparently simple as a rum baba; he ponders uncomprehendingly why such a triumph of a dessert should be in decline? Those who watch “The Great British Bake-off”, would doubtless agree. There again, I was flabbergasted by Mr W’s praise; “delightful” applied to Fado singing in Funchal, Madeira. Not, in my experience a word I’d have dragged forth. Once experienced, never forgotten, even if ideally suited to generating revenue from tourists!
Indirectly this affectionately compiled book can be read as a great resource for anyone planning a dinner party & looking both for new ideas and what to serve/not serve with what. It also assists, up to a degree, to train the inexperienced in just how far a cordial restaurant – customer relationship may responsibly be taken.
All in all this is an honest book written by a real and knowledgeable character. Whether the reader agrees individually with Mr W’s attitude or not, this collection of his dining reviews is pure gold dust. I can very well imagine Mr W’s close friends, including Mr John Cleese and Sir Roger Moore greatly missing the late Mr Winner’s company.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obitu...
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-ent...
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/20...
“Winner’s Dinners: The Restaurant and Hotel Guide” is enormous fun, principally for the huge number and broad selection of restaurants he reports on, at various lengths, and with varying satisfaction, at his own, personal, expense. It’s immaterial that the book’s now somewhat out of date (publ. 2009); because instead of reading the book for inspiration for ‘where shall we go for dinner’, it can be read as an educational series of entertaining forays in search of excellence. After bookmarking with what turned out to be twenty-one sticky tabs, I realised that my review here likely risked getting gravely out of hand.
What pleased Mr W was seeing the named chef present in and ruling his own kitchen. Did Mr W suffer from social insecurity? On one occasion, his host Mr David Tang had to reassure Mr W that he’d be seated no further than one place away from him. In London Mr W observes the installation of technology; such as the glass lift at the “Club at The Ivy”, which he assesses as an accident waiting to happen. The restaurant “Foliage” comes in for pithy & apt criticism of “mini portions of tarted-up plate decoration”. Ouch! Gordon Ramsey is slated for running too many restaurants and thus not being present to cook and justify his Michelin stars and the resultant bills of his customers. I wholeheartedly concurred with THAT! As a rule of thumb one should NEVER pay a premium unless the star-owning chef is known to be present and cooking in the kitchen that night!
Mr W is merciless when he feels he is not getting value for money; such as a gristly wagyu/kobe steak alone costing £123.75 (excluding vegetables and plate decoration)! In a different place, at another time he is wholeheartedly effusive with his praise for a British pudding as apparently simple as a rum baba; he ponders uncomprehendingly why such a triumph of a dessert should be in decline? Those who watch “The Great British Bake-off”, would doubtless agree. There again, I was flabbergasted by Mr W’s praise; “delightful” applied to Fado singing in Funchal, Madeira. Not, in my experience a word I’d have dragged forth. Once experienced, never forgotten, even if ideally suited to generating revenue from tourists!
Indirectly this affectionately compiled book can be read as a great resource for anyone planning a dinner party & looking both for new ideas and what to serve/not serve with what. It also assists, up to a degree, to train the inexperienced in just how far a cordial restaurant – customer relationship may responsibly be taken.
All in all this is an honest book written by a real and knowledgeable character. Whether the reader agrees individually with Mr W’s attitude or not, this collection of his dining reviews is pure gold dust. I can very well imagine Mr W’s close friends, including Mr John Cleese and Sir Roger Moore greatly missing the late Mr Winner’s company.
Displaying 1 of 1 review