London's restaurant world turned out in force last night for the annual Too Many Critics evening organised by Action Against Hunger. The premise is simple: critics swap places with chefs for a night. This year's event took place in the City at the Coq d'Argent.
Hot Dinners spotted Huw Gott and Will Beckett from Hawksmoor, Bar Boulud's maitre d' Paulo de Tarso, Club Gascon chef Pascal Aussignac, Duck and Waffle's Dan Doherty and Ashley Palmer Watts from Dinner. The room also included MEATliquor's Yianni Papoutsis and Scott Collins, Oisin Rogers from The Ship in Wandsworth and Charlie McVeigh from Drafthouse to name but a few.
As for the critics, last night's kitchen brigade featured the Indie's Tracey MacLeod who made the oatcakes for the cheese course, the Metro's Joe Warwick, Charles Campion from the Evening Standard, Lucas Hollweg from the Sunday Times, Tom Parker Bowles from Waitrose Kitchen and Bill Knott from The Financial Times.
The Observer's Jay Rayner prepped the asparagus starter before taking to the piano with his jazz group to entertain diners while the Telegraph's food writer Rose Prince made sourdough soldiers to go with the soft boiled egg. Paul A Young supplied the heavenly cider brandy truffles for dessert.
In total, the evening raised over £40k for the charity. The biggest bid of the night was for a car place on The Great Mozzarella Run - a Cannonball-style run from Naples to London run by Neapolitan pizza company Rossopomodoro - which raised a whopping £7k in the live auction.
You can donate to Action Against Hunger and find out more about their work on their website.
