London used to be a culinary laughing stock. Andrew Turvil, restaurant critic and former editor of The Good Food Guide, tells us how that all changed in the 1990s in today’s Notebook
The 1990s restaurant revolution that shaped London for good
Have you noticed how stories about the 1990s seem to be everywhere right now? Helped no doubt by the coming back together of a certain couple of brothers from Manchester. While you’re pondering that, perhaps gazing out over London from the 24th floor of Tower 42 in the luxe art-deco comfort of City Social’s bar, sipping on a Golden Mirage, or tucking into a California roll high up Heron Tower at Sushi Samba, spare a thought for those city workers who have gone before you and found themselves working in an era before the 1990s restaurant revolution, when London was something of an international culinary laughing stock.
Change was forged in the ‘90s by a bold and diverse bunch of chefs and restaurateurs, who challenged the tired and limited orthodoxy of eating out in this country, and broke new ground. The spark of change was ignited by Michelin-starred Frenchmen such as Albert Roux and Raymond Blanc, who trained up a new generation of Brits like Marco Pierre White and Gordon Ramsay. But this new culinary order was not all about French food, for the ‘90s was the era of Modern British, Pan-Asian, Pacific Rim, Fusion and the Gastropub. These new culinary terms are familiar to us now but at the time reflected the increasing globalisation of our economy and culture. There was also a dawning realisation that the produce from these shores was amongst the best in the world, while at the same time people like Sir Terence Conran brought glamour back to the capital’s restaurant culture.
A few ground-breaking chefs combined Indian flavours with the best British ingredients to elevate Indian food to new levels (Michelin-starred levels, no less), while Nobu Matsuhisa gave us fusion flavours the likes of which we’d not seen before. And with the arrival of The Eagle in Farringdon, the great British pub found a new lease of life, too, as a destination for proper, fresh food. London entered the 21st century emboldened by a restaurant revolution which made anything seem possible.
St John’s trots on 30 years later
When Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gullier opened St John in 1994, they brought us nose-to-tail eating and a down-to-earth simplicity we’d not seen before – no flowery descriptions, no unnecessary adjectives, just the rustic, flavour-packed food on the plate. And we lapped it up. Some 30 years later it’s still a favourite, the original restaurant only a pig trotter’s throw from Smithfield market, and a reminder that while the world is changing fast, there’s always somewhere you can go if you hanker after something without the swirls, swipes and complexities of contemporary dining.
England’s wine is finding its feet
There are over 1,000 vineyards in the UK and English wine is a regular fixture on the country’s wine lists. Sparkling wine is the star of the show with production booming and some 15+ million bottles produced per annum. That’s a lot of popping. The south of England has the same terroir as France’s Champagne region and vineyards in Sussex and Kent can match the best of France. The Sussex Wiston Estate found its 2016 Cuvée served up at the recent State Banquet for Donald Trump (but as a teetotaller he missed out!)
The future rolled in
When former City fund manager Caroline Bennett opened Moshi Moshi Sushi above the concourse at Liverpool Street Station in 1994, she gave the UK its first conveyor belt restaurant (or Kaiten), and we were hooked. Turned out it was the food delivery system Generation X had been waiting for! It felt like eating on the set of Blade Runner. The London food scene was developing at a pace with new ideas coming from California and Asia to spice up our lives.
Quote of the week:
“Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are”
Brillat-Savarin, author of The Physiology of Taste, 1825
A recommendation
The Go-To Food Podcast
The way we consume our food media has changed dramatically since the 1990s. Back then, television was king, and cookbooks were pretty much the only way of bringing new ideas and culinary inspiration into the home. Today we follow our favourite chefs on Instagram and TikTok and have access to their recipes 24-7. And that commute to work can be enriched by listening to the likes of The Go-To Food Podcast, which gives real insight into top chefs like Heston Blumenthal and Nathan Outlaw. Before the 1990s restaurant revolution, chefs were a bit of a mystery, and fine dining an exclusive form of alchemy. Today, food is mainstream and London is one of the best cities in the world to eat out.
Andrew Turvil is the author of Blood, Sweat and Asparagus Spears: The Story of the 1990s Restaurant Revolution (out 25 September 2025, Elliott & Thompson), former editor of The Good Food Guide and a restaurant critic