Chef Bites Back: TopJaw

Our anonymous chef returns to turn the tables on the critics.

I look down at my phone and a video of Michel Roux Junior standing in the street pops up. He’s next to a handsome blonde presenter, and without introduction, a microphone is shoved in his face. The question, ‘Best restaurant in London?’ is asked in an affected husky voice. For a moment I wondered how I might answer that question if asked by Jesse Burgess. Then, after a moment’s pause, I swiftly discarded the question for another: What the fuck has happened to food journalism?

There’s a lot to think about, so let’s go back as far as we can. The first ever published guide to London’s restaurants was the Epicure’s Almanack by Ryan Rylance, published in 1815.

Back then, London was way less sexy. There were eating houses, inns and taverns or public houses. Good old fashioned proper boozers full of shit, spit and sawdust pies. My favourite fact from this jolly period was that there were three pubs surrounding Westminster Abbey called Heaven, Purgatory and Hell. I wonder what they were like? One serving food, one serving rum and the other serving some other form of licentious vice. It’s fun to picture, isn’t it? The Regency era, I mean, not the brothel, you dirty dogs! Now, 200-and-a-bit years later, how have things changed?

Nothing. Nothing has changed. The spectre of war still looms. The population is immiserated and the city’s most revered restaurant is still, in fact, a pub.

And what has happened to my cadre of nemeses? What has happened to restaurant reviews? I can honestly say I’ve not read one for years – have you? And why should we? Grace has basically given up, Marina has actually given up, Giles is still slogging away, hoping he could still be hired by the Daily Mail, and Jay has all but lost his way, second-guessing himself, self-flagellating all the way to the suburbs of Birmingham to increasingly remote curry houses in an attempt to outrun Jonathan Nunn.

Anyway, TopJaw, that’s what we’re here to do. They may not be the sole reason for food journalism’s current state, but they stand as a leading example of the way it has changed. In the same way the iPod heralded the end of physical album sales, TopJaw’s ascendence marks the end of the broadsheet review. For the younger generation, well, they don’t care about what Grace, Giles or Jay have to say. And it’s not just Gen Z; Gen Xers constitute one-third of TikTok users. Everyone’s at it, locked on their phones, pissing the prime of their lives away.

TopJaw is two lads, Jesse and Will. Jesse Burgess and Will Warr. They seem nice. Sort of nice. The kind of posh blokes that you end up sitting next to at a wedding: you hate them on sight, but after a few pints and a couple of shots of tequila you become bezzies with. But only for the night.

They’ve also hit upon a good formula. The first few videos are a mix of Soho characters, random people on the street as well as restaurant and well-liked bar owners. In most of them, Jesse is a bit pissed, larking about; it’s all clean fun and easy to watch. So where did it all go boom? Well they just kept asking bigger and bigger chefs and restaurateurs and we all threw ourselves at them without even questioning whether they deserved it. And now we’re stuck with them, we – the restaurant industry – let them in and it’s all our fault.

As for who turbocharged these two toward the frontiers of London gastronomy, I would say it’s the responsibility of Oisín Rogers, landlord and proprietor of The Devonshire. It’s his fault. At some point these two cosied up to Osh and he loved it. Not before he hilariously slagged them off for being bellends on Twitter.

Now it seems almost every TopJaw video is shot outside The Devonshire and what a hit it’s been. The Devonshire is surely the most popular opening of the last two years: I’ve heard they’re doing £300,000 a week. On Guinness and pies.

Like many things that cut through to a huge audience, it is of the lowest common denominator. This is not the restaurant of last year or even this year. It’s simply a fairly decent idea from three fairly intelligent blokes. Jealous? A little, but fair play to them, they’re printing money, and if they keep going at this rate they’ll be retiring at 60, sipping Guinness in The Devonshire Dubai after an intense round of golf.

Last week, I walked up the stairs to the station at rush hour and someone handed me a London Standard. It was so thin you couldn’t even call it a magazine, more of a pamphlet. When it was a proper paper, people would rush to get it, excited to read about the news of the day and the latest restaurant review. Now it’s weekly, tawdry and AI-generated: what a sad demise. I suppose the writing was on the wall when the critics threw themselves at the TopJaw juggernaut. Giles was the first to cave, obviously; I imagine Grace took some convincing and Jay, the most sanctimonious of them all, finally fell in a desperate attempt to sling a few copies of his ghastly cookbook. Will and Jesse must have loved that, spitting out their Guinness as soon as they all walked off. Print is dead: long live the reel.