Farewell, Eater London

After five and half years, as of February 2023, Eater London will cease daily news publication. In the future, the site’s core maps will be updated on a quarterly or bi-annual basis.

But for now, and for me, the site’s editor, it is time to say goodbye.

When we launched in the summer of 2017, we did so with the express aim of doing something different in London food media — being thoughtful, honest, ruthless, humourous, and thinking about the wider meaning of food and the role restaurants play in a capital city like London.

“Eater London will offer a new perspective,” I wrote on the site’s launch day in July of that year. “It’s London, so this site won’t be a carbon copy of American Eater sites, but the site will speak honestly, while always ensuring that it treats its subjects fairly.”

This is what we always tried to do; not everyone liked it, not everyone agreed with us. But lots do and lots did, through a challenging period of successive crises for an industry which is finding it increasingly difficult to sustain itself, let alone its patrons.

Through the casual dining crisis of 2018-2019, MicheLoLs, cultural appropriation, and racism scandals, through COVID-19, Brexit, and the post-COVID moment — during this exciting, challenging, and tumultuous time, Eater London has always sought to question who restaurants are there to serve. And to give the most up-to-date and thoughtful answers to the always-pressing questions: what should I eat, where should we eat it, and why should we do so?

My greatest hope is that Eater London’s legacy will be this: That by giving a platform to a new generation of writers, we refigured the way a lot of people think about restaurants in London — to look and stray beyond the inner city and to always think outside of the status quo.

I’ve relished the opportunity to run Eater in London and will always be extremely proud of the work we’ve done and the impact we’ve made. I want to thank Amanda Kludt for giving me the chance to do that; James Hansen, the smartest and most capable deputy I could ever have asked for; Laura James for her commitment to getting the site off the ground during the difficult early days; my managing editors Sonia Chopra, Carolyn Alburger, and Missy Frederick for their incredible support and guidance through the years; and everyone else at Eater who made our work better.

Lastly, and before we sign off for the final time, I want to thank the incredible group of contributors I’ve been fortunate to work with during this period — the people who have made Eater London what it is, the people who will continue to change food media in London and the U.K.

Firstly, a very special thanks to the extraordinary contributions from Jonathan Nunn, Apoorva Sripathi, George Reynolds, Andrew Leitch, Anna Sulan Masing, Emma Hughes, Sophie Dening, and Michaël Protin.

And to Amira Arasteh, Hilary Armstrong, Zahra Al Asaadi, Sam Ashton, MiMi Aye, Josh Barrie, Rida Bilgrami, James Bird, Ailis Brenan, Maazin Buhari, Stephen Buranyi, Kaltrina Bylykbashi, Lauren Cochrane, Chris Cotonou, Chloe-Rose Crabtree, Ed Cumming, Joanna Derry, Christian Dymond, Tom Ford, Ellie Foreman-Peck, Feroz Gajia, Harkaran Gill, Richard Godwin, Laura Goodman, Helen Graves, Simran Hans, Joel Hart, Virginia Hartley, Lisa Haseldine, Jonathan Hatchman, Hester van Hensbergen, Angela Hui, Tomas Jivanda, Yasmin Khan, Adrienne Katz Kennedy, Gemma Croffie, Israel Kujore, Daria Kyrilova, Alexander Larman, Leila Latif, Heedayah Lockman, Daisy Meager, Frankie McCoy, Ben McMahon, Chloe Scott Moncrieff, Diya Mukherjee, Nathalie Nelles, Marina O’Loughlin, Lucas Oakley, Suze Olbrich, Sam Orbaum, Poonperm Paitayawat, Soheb Panja, Isaac Parham, David Jay Paw, Riaz Phillips, Emma Louise Pudge, Isaac Rangaswami, Advika Reddy, Keshia Sakara, Ejatu Shaw, Ola Smit, Ed Smith, Victoria Stewart, Jill Suazo, Sejal Sukhadwala, Tomé Morrissy Swan, Vaughn Tan, Ruby Tandoh, Hugh Thomas, Jennifer Trak, Shekha Vyas, Jess Wang, Sophie Wilkinson, Kimberley Wilson, Zeren Wilson, Sean Wyer, and Daniel Young.

You can find me on Twitter and Instagram @adamcoghlan where I might tell you things like Singburi, 40 Maltby Street, Saikei, Cadet, and Quality Wines are the five best restaurants in London.

Thank you all for reading, especially those who said they didn’t.

See you soon,

—Adam