Skewered, ‘snob’ critic who mocked Wetherspoon pub

WITH pricey gastropub menus replacing traditional fare across the country, for many Britons a meal at Wetherspoon’s is their only chance to dine out without breaking the bank.

But now a leading food critic has been branded a ‘snob’ for savaging the pub chain’s biggest branch.

Marina O’Loughlin, who ususally reviews fine dining establishments, warned readers, ‘Don’t, for God’s sake, order the food’ in her review of the recently opened Royal Victoria Pavilion pub in Ramsgate, Kent, for the Sunday Times magazine.

Among her observations, Miss O’Loughlin said the pub’s peas had ‘a haunting backnote of fag ash’ and described the breaded scampi as like

‘Hannibal Lecter’s recycling bin’

‘stiff orange coffins emitting an ooze of vaguely fishy goo’.

According to Miss O’Loughlin, the worst dish was a ‘side of ribs’ which was ‘pappy and exhausted, the barbecue sauce as sugary as the sort of thing you might scoop out of the bottom of Hannibal Lecter’s recycling bin’.

The mixed grill, described compartively glowingly as ‘ not entirely unpleasant’, was judged the best dish.

Her derision extended to the Wetherspoon’s drinks menu, adding: ‘We endure two pitchers of cocktails – purple rain and mojitos – that taste of Calpol and diabetic coma.’

Unsatisfied with berating the pub chain – which saw its annual sales pass £1.5billion in 2015 – Miss O’Loughlin then turned on her fellow diners.

She wrote: ‘A man at a neighbouring table is piling into pepperoni pizza, onion rings and chips, combined count 2,513 calories. This is what he signed up for, consequences be damned.’ But Miss O’Loughlin’s verdict on Wetherspoon’s, founded by Tim Martin in 1979, did not go down well online.

One reader wrote: ‘Load of snobby b*******. Tim Martin (not a man I agree with on many issues) has created a fantastic British institution with his chain of pubs.

‘ They offer people a familiar place to go, where notions of class are rightly left at the door and all are equal.’

Another customer added: Another wrote: ‘For many people, Wetherspoon is the only affordable place to have a family meal out. And you’re looking down your nose at them.’

A spokesman for JD Wetherspoon said Miss O’Loughlin is ‘a food critic and she has the article as she sees fit, she is entitled to write what she wants’. With a meal and an alcohoholic drink usually setting diners back less than £10 a head, Wetherspoon is now one of the country’s biggest pub chains with 942 outlets across the UK and Ireland.

The Catherine Wheel, its hotel located in the upmarket town of Henley- onThames, Oxfordshire, has been rated on average at four out of five stars from hundreds of reviews.