Some months ago a complaint against a restaurant critic (made, not surprisingly, by a restaurateur) was upheld in court, and the newspaper in which it had appeared, The Irish News, was fined £25,000. Which is an awful lot of money. You can feed four people at Nobu for that.

And then yesterday the paper announced that it is to challenge the fine, with the great Lord Lester of Herne Hill, QC, declaring: “It [the review] did not purport to be a factual report by a food scientist. It was a personal description by a food critic explaining why she formed a poor opinion of the restaurant... ”

Bloody right. And hurrah for The Irish News for taking this thing on. Ever since the finding in Ireland we critics have had a hell of a time getting our opinions over. Until that £25,000 fine, whenever a legal department raised queries about one's copy, one could always reply that nobody had ever successfully sued a paper over a restaurant review.

Suddenly, now I was having weekly conversations with the Times lawyers that went something like this: “You claim in your article that the tiramisu tastes of vole's vomit/ mouse poo/ the contents of a country vet's turn-ups at the end of a long hot day artificially inseminating pigs...”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever eaten vole's vomit/ mouse poo/ the contents of a country vet's turn-ups at the end of a long hot day artificially inseminating pigs?”

“Er, yes.”

“Really?”

“No.”

“Well, if you write that and the restaurant sues, then we have no defence of truth or fair comment.”

“But it's a joke.”

“Not funny. We've changed it to ‘the tiramisu tasted horrid'.”

“OK.”

“The problem is that it is only your opinion that the tiramisu tasted horrid.”

“Er, I thought that was the point.”

“You make it sound like a statement of fact. It is not a fact. It cannot be proven in court. We changed it to ‘the tiramisu tasted horrid, in my opinion'.”

“OK then.”

“Then we had a chat and decided that we'd prefer ‘unusual'.”

“Really?”

“Yes, we've changed it to: 'In my personal opinion, based on previous eatings of tiramisu on diverse premises on independently verifiable occasions, I have formed the subjective notion that this tiramisu tasted “unusual”. But that's only me. And other people may find otherwise. After all, de gustibus nil disputandum, and all that'.”

And I have had no choice but to roll over and take it. If The Irish News wins its appeal, however, I will once again be able to say to our lawyer: “Come on, pal, that sounds rubbish.” And he will once again be able to say: “You're right, Giles. Let's go with the vole's vomit and see them in court.”

Giles Coren is restaurant critic of

The Times

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