The newest critic on the block

The news of a new restaurant critic always causes a bit of a buzz in the food PR world, to say nothing of the food writing world. I’d heard that Charlotte Ivers was going to be announced as the new columnist for the Sunday Times a little while back, so was waiting for the first column to arrive. (I should declare the specific interest that I used to be a restaurant critic myself and get very exercised by ideas that it’s a “cartel” into which there are never any new members.)

It feels that the restaurant PR world is pretty beady too. It’s important for there to be good relationships between them and the critics, even if sometimes the reviews are less than positive. So how to approach someone new in the close-if-not-cosy world of food journalism?

I noticed one or two operators tweeting Ivers direct (or is it Xing these days?) I used to find that quite refreshing, personally, but I’m not sure those social media platforms are the best method these days. I certainly find Instagram DMs tricky because it’s hard to keep track if a one-off comment becomes a conversation. Call me old-school, but it’s easier to search an email inbox than scrolling back through Insta…

For Ivers, anonymity is not an option, so she won’t be able to deploy the method by which the brilliant Marina O’Loughlin (a very tough act to follow) kept herself separate from the PR pushes. Of course, the good thing for you is that writers have editors and in this case, Tony Turnbull – old friend of Roxhill – is already very well plugged into the new openings and old favourites world of restaurants (although he might be rueing the state of his inbox post-Sunday’s reveal). Let’s see if the next few weeks, very busy for openings, reveal any preferences for the newest critic on the block.