Giles Coren: How To Eat, Cheltenham Literature Festival, Sunday, October 14

AS a restaurant critic, Giles Coren is second to none.

As an outrageously funny interviewee, however, his every word had to be taken with a pinch of salt.

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People half remember him, he suggested, as "the other one with that really funny Sue Perkins, in that TV history of food."

Typically, he reckoned he wakes up with a hangover. Then asks his wife where and what they'd eaten, if he'd liked it and whether he'd said anything funny.

Subsequently, the serious and knowledgeable professional emerged. And his book How To Eat Out, has been well received.

It all began on Tatler when he'd sacked the existing critic, "so I could eat out free."

Then when editing The Times Diary after 9/11, he'd gone too far with a bin Laden limerick competition, and they'd moved him to the restaurant role,"where I could do no harm."

Had he done any? Well he was public enemy No 1 to a large pasta chain and had been instrumental in closing an Indian restaurant group. But he merely spoke as he found and they were big enough businesses to take it.

Which restaurants did he like in Cheltenham? Pause for hazy recollection about which town he was in. Then: "Lumiere and Le Champignon Sauvage." Generally though he thought French cuisine overrated.

And of the TV chefs he liked Nigel (Slater) but not Nigella. Although he'd tried her ham in Coca Cola as it sounded so bad it must be good. It wasn't.

Derek Briggs