Cloake, Lee and Phillips among winners at Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards

Felicity Cloake, Jeremy Lee and Riaz Phillips were among the winners at this year’s Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards. 

The ceremony was presented by new host, chef and broadcaster, Andi Oliver, alongside chef and awards judging panel chair, Angela Hartnett OBE. The star-studded audience included Yotam Ottolenghi, Dame Mary Berry, Si King and Dave Myers (a.k.a. The Hairy Bikers), Matt Tebbutt, Asma Khan, Rick Stein, Ravneet Gill, Stanley Tucci and Claudia Roden. 

Cloake won Food Book of the year for Red Sauce Brown Sauce: A British Breakfast Odyssey (Mudlark), which follows her adventures, by bicycle, in a quest to uncover the great British breakfast. The judging team were wholehearted in their praise for the Début Food Book winner Breadsong: How Baking Changed Our Lives (Bloomsbury). Father and daughter Al and Kitty Tait are behind the part-memoir part-cookbook, which tells the redemptive story of Kitty’s path from depressive withdrawal to finding the healing power of breadmaking. 

A Fortnum’s Special Award went to Professor Tim Spector for his pioneering work bringing the science of food to the widest readership. Food for Life: The New Science of Eating Well (Jonathan Cape) draws on a decade of cutting-edge research to provide an empowering and insightful guide to how we should eat for our health and for the health of the planet. A second Fortnum’s Special Award went to London chef Jeremy Lee for COOKING: Simply and Well, for One or Many (Fourth Estate).  

Celebrating Jamaican culture, cuisine, and history, West Winds: Recipes, History and Tales from Jamaica (DK) by Riaz Phillips won Cookery Book of the Year. Début Cookery Book went to writer and restaurateur Cynthia Shanmugalingam, for Rambutan: Recipes from Sri Lanka (Bloomsbury) her “joy-filled love letter to Sri Lanka, with tender family stories of the island”. 

The Drink Book of the Year went to Tom Morton for Holy Waters: Searching for the Sacred in a Glass (Watkins), which explores the links between faith and alcohol, spirits and the spiritual. Début Drink Book winner is head brewer Jaega Wise for Wild Brews (Kyle Books), a guide on how to brew beers at home using wild fermentation techniques. 

Further winners include “Searching for Italy” for Best Programme, where Stanley Tucci travels across Italy to discover the secrets and delights of the country’s regional cuisines. Food Writer went to Bee Wilson for her “exceptional and poignant” work in FT Weekend Magazine. Fliss Freeborn was awarded Cookery Writer of the year for her work in Student Cuisine for the Gloomy Teen. Kim Lightbody took home the Photographer award. Drink Writer went to Will Hawkes for his work in Pellicle, while Joanna Taylor received the Restaurant Writer award for her work in ES Magazine. The Audio category was won by “Blasstal”, a podcast about food and folklore on the Isle of Man presented and produced by Lucy Dearlove and Katie Callin. 

Matt Tebbutt from BBC’s “Saturday Kitchen” presented The Hairy Bikers with the trophy for Personalities of the Year for the second year running. The Digital Creator of the Year went to Giuseppe Federici AKA @sepps_eats, whose millions of followers devour his plant-based content on TikTok and Instagram, many of which he films with his Nonna. Both categories are chosen by the public, allowing fans from across the country to vote for their favourite foodies.