27 December 2019 Very many thanks to all those who have sent in such a wide range of inspiring suggestions. This is just a reminder to everyone else that this competition closes on Tuesday night, on the stroke of midnight as the new decade is rung in.
2 December 2019 Please send us celebratory suggestions and win five years' membership of our Purple Pages plus a very special cookbook (from which this image was taken; it has been brutally cropped – our apologies to photographer Andrew Montgomery).
Next year, in almost a year’s time to be precise, we’ll be celebrating the 20th anniversary of JancisRobinson.com and would love to have your ideas about how we might celebrate it.
You can read the somewhat convoluted story of how this website came about in The story of JancisRobinson.com. It was at the beginning of November 2000 that we formally published our first articles, and 13 months later the membership area Purple Pages was born. (The name was inspired, somewhat tangentially, by the original design.)
I had happily devoted so much time to the site during that first year that I realised I couldn’t run it as a charity. Determined to remain independent of sponsors and advertisers, I thought I would try to see whether a subscription model might work and have since been thrilled by the number and enthusiasm of our members, in almost 100 countries, over the years. (See, for example, What people think about JR.com and What other people say about us, rather in need of updating.)
We celebrated our 10th anniversary exactly nine years ago today with a champagne tasting on the snowiest night I have ever seen in London, in the then-empty German Gymnasium in King’s Cross, now one of many smart restaurants in this revitalised area. Since then we have held a host of tastings, also in King’s Cross, starting with one designed to increase British consciousness of the quality of Barolo. I reckon we succeeded, and we have since showcased many other wines that deserve more attention. Last night, for instance, we held a hugely successful tasting devoted to the somewhat neglected wines of Valtellina in our usual setting of Caravan, King's Cross.
So how should we celebrate our 20th anniversary, please? We’re inviting suggestions to be sent to editorial@jancisrobinson.com. These need not involve events of course; it would be nice if celebrations were not limited to members and visitors based in the UK. The more inventive the ideas the better.
Whoever provides the winning suggestion(s) will of course be rewarded.
Our son’s first restaurant is celebrating a much more impressive anniversary this year, its 150th. The result is The Quality Chop House: Modern Recipes and Stories from a London Classic by William Lander, Daniel Morgenthau and Shaun Searley (£30 Quadrille). It has received glowing reviews from Diana Henry in The Telegraph, Marina O’Loughlin in The Sunday Times and the Cookbook Review. We are pleased to offer the two runners-up a copy of this handsomely illustrated book (Dan, left, and Will pictured below by the book’s photographer Andrew Montgomery, in the bit of the restaurant that is not listed and therefore is not encumbered by narrow Victorian booths). The overall winner will also receive a copy of the book as well as five years’ complimentary membership of our beloved Purple Pages.
Suggestions please to editorial@jancisrobinson.com by 31 December 2019. We will decide on the winner and runners-up, and then name them some time next month.