Top chefs win accolades in Guild of Food Writers Awards

Two of the country's most well known figures in the culinary world won top accolades at this year's Guild of Food Writers Awards.

Heston Blumenthal was presented with the Food Book of the Year Award for The Big Fat Duck Cookbook. The judges were 'impressed by the quality of the writing and the scope of the book: the concept, the historical perspective, the detailed recording of research and experiments, the keen intelligence that makes it so compelling and personal'.

And Jamie Oliver's campaigning Jamie's Ministry of Food television series and Geoff Tansey and Tasmin Rajotte's book The Future Control of Food were the joint winners of the Derek Cooper Award for Campaigning and Investigative Food Writing.

Other winners included Fuchsia Dunlop and Diana Henry who each won their second Guild Award; Mark Hix and Bee Wilson won their third; and BBC Radio Four's The Food Programme won its sixth.

Meanwhile the crowning glory of the evening came when Guild President, Jane Suthering, surprised two of the Guild's most renowned members when she presented Lifetime Achievement Awards to restaurant reviewer Egon Ronay and celebrated cookery writer Mary Berry.

The ceremony took place last week (25 June) in The Great Hall, Lincoln's Inn.

Words: Maria Bracken

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