Egon Ronay, Britain's king of good food, dies at 94

The Hungarian émigré transformed the UK's restaurants, taught a generation about good eating – and couldn't bring himself to retire
Egon Ronay tastes supermarkets own label Champagne
Egon Ronay conducting a blind taste test of supermarket champagnes in 2006. Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA Archive/Press Association Ima

Egon Ronay, the dapper Hungarian food critic who stamped his name indelibly on British culinary history, has died at the age of 94.

Ronay died yesterday morning at his home near Yattendon, Berkshire, with his wife Barbara and two daughters by his side, having been ill for a number of weeks, according to his friend Nick Ross, the broadcaster. He had never retired and just a few weeks ago was telling friends about new projects he had in the pipeline with the BBC.

Ross, who had known Ronay for many years, said: "He was, in the most literal sense, incredible, right up until the last few weeks of his life. He was sharp as a button. We went for a tasting with him four months ago and he had this remarkable ability to taste flavours in anything.

"Right up until his death, even young chefs regarded him as the monarch. He was a tiny man but had no airs and graces about him, and yet he was almost fawned upon by restaurateurs right up until his last illness."

Simon Hopkinson, the acclaimed writer and cook, said yesterday: "He was a great gourmet. His knowledge of food was encyclopaedic and he had a continuing love for restaurants. He also had great style and generosity. He employed me as an inspector and twice when I was caught speeding he paid for my barrister and my fines."

Other chefs lined up to pay tribute. Raymond Blanc, whose Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons in Oxford won Ronay's Restaurant of the Year award just a year after it opened in 1977, said the recognition changed his life. "It was probably the most coveted award," he said. "People work a whole lifetime to get it."

Marco Pierre White said he owed more to Ronay than anyone else in the industry. "It's hard to express in words what he actually did. He, without doubt, was the most important individual in the restaurant world. He did more for gastronomy in Britain than any institution or individual. He made us all dream, he made us all want stars, he made us all work harder and created excitement – he was an extraordinary individual. Today is a very sad day for the hotel and restaurant world."

Ronay was born in Budapest in 1915, and arrived in London in 1946. He was seeking a new life in a new country after his wealthy father, Miklos, had lost the family estate and five restaurants he owned to the Russian occupation in the aftermath of the second world war.

His father's friends arranged for the young Egon to take a position managing a restaurant in Piccadilly. He quickly found his feet and soon took on his own 39-seat restaurant near Harrods called the Marquee, putting elegant French dishes on the menu and causing a stir in austere postwar London. Ronay was given British citizenship in 1951. He also has an adopted son, Gerard, with his second wife.

When the TV chef Fanny Cradock and her husband, Johnny, visited the Marquee, they persuaded others to take an interest in Ronay's opinions and he began to write a food column for the Daily Telegraph in which he launched fearless attacks on standards, bemoaning school dinners many years before Jamie Oliver. In 1957, he completed the first edition of the Egon Ronay Guide, selling 30,000 copies. It swiftly grew in popularity and restaurants rapidly adopted a mention in the book as a mark of distinction.

Based on the French Michelin guides, Ronay made a point of ensuring their impartiality so that people could no longer get away with "murdering food"; he is fiercely proud of the fact that every meal was eaten anonymously and that he never accepted as much as a glass of brandy without paying.

Ronay sold the rights to his books to the AA in 1985. But the company that subsequently purchased the titles went into bankruptcy and Ronay went to court to claim back them back. After that he disappeared from public view, re-emerging in 2004.

But Ronay was still quick with the sharp tongue that had first helped him make his name. "It won't be many years before food in this country [the UK] is better than it is in France. But there is an annoying new trend for over-complicated menus that are anything but customer friendly," he told the Observer in 2003. "They read like recipes, with the result that you choose halibut and then fail to find it on your plate. It's even hard to get a decent dessert: instead, you get a sculpture. It's ridiculous."

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