CON JOB? Ernie Whalley reviews 'Kitchen Con' by Trevor White

[Ernie Whalley]

The best description of Trevor White I ever heard was by a member of the Irish Food Writers Guild. “He is”, she said (no names, no pack drill) “a brat with beautiful manners”. Once labelled “The World's Oldest Juvenile Delinquent”, I can empathise. In Trevor's case the title is justified for however brat-like he can get (and he does do 'brat' rather well) he remains the son of Peter and Alicia when it comes to being courteous and charming.

Trevor's metamorphosis from callow youth to “The Man They Can't Gag” has been one of the best things to happen to Irish publishing in years. His magazine 'The Dubliner' has been a positive force for mischief-making, previously under the painstaking editorship of the estimable Emily Hourican and now under Trevor's own direction. While it treats topical matters seriously and lures the punters with plenty of wining and dining suggestions, both safe and sensible mainstream options, the magazine occasionally exhibits a wild-eyed maverick streak wholly at odds with the Celtic Tiger vibe. Politicians, legislators, the church, fellow publisher and other sacred cows such as Slow Food have not been immune to The Dubliner's rabid bite. As long as the Irish Times continues to print its wad of Leaving Cert essays we need organs like The Dubliner.

I worked with Trevor briefly, in his time as contributing editor of Food & Wine and had the task, nay, the pleasure, on a couple of occasions, of taking scalpel and blowtorch to his copy. Then came the day when editor Jillian Bolger embarked on a purge of contributing editors she felt neither edited nor contributed. I saw a different side of Trevor that day as he vituperatively (but unsuccesfully) defended his status quo. He might be a poshie, but he's no pushover.

Reading Kitchen Con I was struck early on how much Trevor's writing has matured since those days. The thought processes are well managed, the arguments cogent and logically structured and the prose, witty. Apart from a few untrammelled similes, the language is reasonably restrained. Best of all, the book is simply A Bloody Good Read.

There's plenty to disagree with, of course, and in the end the arguments presented will be blurred and muddied because most of what people will remember is Trevor mouthing off on radio, TV and in the press in his campaign to promote both Kitchen Con and himself. Which is a pity.

When it comes to restaurant criticism Trevor admits a preference for the writing of A.A.Gill and Michael Winner, thereby placing himself firmly in the Entertainers' camp versus the Technocrats, categories into which all restaurant critics subdivide unless you count the myriad Charlatans and Bloody Eejits.

I don't subscribe to Trevor's mainstream proposition which seems to be that it doesn't matter how irrelevant your restaurant criticism is as long as it's irreverent. He doesn't seem to rate technical knowledge at all. My own view, for what it's worth is that you can't really have any credibility as a restaurant critic unless you have both the wit and the experience to analyse what chef and proprietor are attempting to do and to what extent they succeed. You don't need to flaunt this knowledge; your column inches can be totally off the wall but the tools of the brickies' trade should be in your haversack.

My main, indeed, my only problem with the book is that it doesn't do what it says on the tin. Sorry A.C.Grayling (back cover blurb) but this book won't change a thing. There are no real revelations and some of the hypotheses – like 'chef's specials are only created to use up what can't otherwise be sold' – are pretty wide of the mark; many honest chefs will want to march into the offices of The Dubliner and present Tricky Trev with a bunch of fives. No-one gets hammered either, well unless you count Conrad Gallagher, a pretty soft target these days. Oh, and Kevin Kelly.

To anyone who has worked for Checkout, F&W, Image or any of Kevin's other brainchildren the tale of Trevor and KK's picaresque romp round the USA in search of subscribers to what those of us trapped in a dingy office behind Dunne's in Dun Laoghaire were wont to refer to as 'The Kidnapper's Bible' is worth a guinea a box. The rest of you won't give a toss.

Kevin Kelly is an enigma for sure. A highly intelligent man who single-handedly inspired some of Ireland's finest magazines, at the same time he could never resist a flirtation with vanity publishing and the ligging and ego-polishing that goes with it. In the words of one ex-employee (not me!) “He (Kevin) veers alarmingly between the roles of hustler and snob”. In a section of the book wholly irrelevant to the main theme, Trevor gives Kevin Kelly a roughing-up and, in doing so, makes us sympathetic towards him. Amazing.

As I said, Kitchen Con is a bloody good read. I'd recommend it. But change or shake the dining world, it won't.


Ernie Whalley

My own take on restaurant criticism may be read in two threads on this site The Infernal Triangle and Ten Steps to Restaurant Reviewing