Egon Ronay, the dapper Hungarian food critic who stamped his name indelibly on British culinary history, has died at the age of 94.
Ronay died on Saturday morning after being ill for a number of weeks, said his friend Nick Ross, the broadcaster. He had never retired and just a few weeks ago was telling friends about new projects he had in the pipeline with the BBC.
Ross, who had known Ronay for many years, said: “He was, in the most literal sense, incredible, right up until the last few weeks of his life. He was sharp as a button. We went for a tasting with him four months ago and he had this remarkable ability to taste flavors in anything.”
“Right up until his death, even young chefs regarded him as the monarch. He was a tiny man, but had no airs and graces about him, and yet he was almost fawned upon by restaurateurs right up until his last illness,” Ross said.
Simon Hopkinson, the acclaimed writer and cook, said on Saturday: “He was a great gourmet. His knowledge of food was encyclopedic and he had a continuing love for restaurants. He also had great style and generosity. He employed me as an inspector, and twice when I was caught speeding, he paid for my barrister and my fines.”
Ronay was born in Budapest in 1915, and arrived in London in 1946. He was seeking a new life after his father Miklos had lost the family estate and five restaurants he owned to the Russian occupation following World War II.
His father’s friends arranged for the young Egon to take a position managing a restaurant in Piccadilly. He quickly found his feet and soon took on his own 39-seat restaurant near Harrods called the Marquee, putting elegant French dishes on the menu and causing a stir in austere postwar London.
When the TV chef Fanny Cradock and her husband Johnny visited the Marquee, they persuaded others to take an interest in Ronay’s opinions and he began to write a food column for the Daily Telegraph in which he launched fearless attacks on standards, bemoaning school dinners.
In 1957, he completed the first edition of the Egon Ronay Guide. It grew in popularity and restaurants rapidly adopted a mention in the book as a mark of distinction; many of them proudly displayed the blue rosettes awarded by the guide in their window every year they were listed.
Based on the Michelin Guides, they were born out of a “genuine anger” about mass catering standards. Ronay made a point of ensuring their impartiality so that people could no longer get away with “murdering food.”
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
RSS