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The Daily Telegraph restaurant critic William Sitwell has been exonerated of breaching press guidelines after chef Richard Wilkins, of 104 Restaurant in Notting Hill, accused him of both misleading writing and harassment.
The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) ruled in Sitwell’s favour, saying that the “article had accurately reported the details of the contact between the author and complainant,” and “the fact that the article under complaint was the second article the newspaper had published about the complainant and his business did not constitute harassment.”
Wilkins made the complaint after Sitwell accused the chef of leaving threatening voicemails and sending threatening texts, in the wake of Sitwell’s negative review of Wilkins’ restaurant. Sitwell had alleged that Wilkins said:
“I’m going to be waiting for you. I’m going to come and find you [...] Things are going to get really dirty. I mean it, I seriously mean it.”
Wilkins claimed that these statements were not threatening, because things getting “dirty” “referred to any potential legal action he might take and the reference to him coming to find the author was simply so that the author could explain his review.”
IPSO did not agree.
Sitwell stepped down from his Waitrose Food position in October last year after sending an ill-advised communication of his own, in which he suggested that journalist Selene Nelson write an article on “killing vegans.”
Wilkins, meanwhile, had also alleged that the review, and subsequent article, were part of “some bizarre revenge plot” orchestrated by Sitwell and chef Marianne Lumb, who ran what is now 104 as Marianne for five years before closing the restaurant in 2018.
IPSO did not agree.