Giles Coren

Personal life

Coren was born in Paddington, London, the only son of Anne (née Kasriel) and English humourist Alan Coren and elder brother of journalist Victoria Coren Mitchell. Coren is Jewish. His wife Esther Walker, a journalist and food blogger is the sister of Hannah Snow who is married to the comedian Alexander Armstrong. He is related to the Canadian journalist Michael Coren.

He was educated at The Hall School in Hampstead, Westminster School, and achieved a First Class degree in English at Keble College, Oxford.

Coren has two children, Kitty and Sam.

Journalism

Coren has been a restaurant critic for the British newspaper The Times since 1993, and was named "Food And Drink Writer of the Year" at the 2005 British Press Awards and in 2016 was named Restaurant Writer of the Year at the Fortnum and Mason Awards. As well as restaurant reviews, he also contributes a regular column to The Times, the subjects of which range from personal life to politics. Under the pseudonym Professor Gideon Garter he wrote The Intellectual's Guide to Fashion for The Sunday Times.

Coren has contributed articles to publications including Tatler and GQ, and he is currently editor-at-large for Esquire. In November 2014, he joined Time Out as a columnist, writing weekly on city life.

Books

Coren is credited by inventor James Dyson as the co-author of his autobiography published in 1997.

In 2005, he published his first novel, Winkler, reviewed in the New Statesman and The Independent. One section of the novel won the Literary Review's "Bad Sex in Fiction Award".

Coren has also written two non-fiction books – the first, Anger Management (For Beginners), a compilation of columns he had written for The Times was published in 2010, and his second, How To Eat Out, was published in 2012.

Television

In autumn 2005, Coren appeared as a regular correspondent on Gordon Ramsay's The F-Word. In June 2006, he presented a programme on the digital channel More4, entitled Tax the Fat, about clinical obesity and the cost it presents to the NHS. He co-presented the Channel 4 series Animal Farm with Dr Olivia Judson in March 2007. Around the same time, he appeared in a series of television commercials advertising Birds Eye frozen foods. Also in 2006, Coren presented the film and DVD review programme Movie Lounge.

With Sue Perkins, Coren starred in Edwardian Supersize Me; the two spent a week on the diet of a wealthy Edwardian couple, for a BBC Four documentary shown in December 2007. The pair were reunited for a series (The Supersizers Go...) broadcast in May 2008 on BBC Two. From 15 June 2009, the pair hosted The Supersizers Eat..., which began with an episode on the cuisine of the 1980s and went on to look at the 1950s, 1920s, the French Revolution, Medieval culture, and ancient Rome.

In 2012, he presented Our Food on the BBC, travelling the country talking about various local foods.

In 2013, he presented Passover - Why is this night different? for BBC1 and co-presented (alongside Alexander Armstrong) 12 Drinks of Christmas for the same channel.

In 2014, Coren ventured to North America. Firstly, he filmed Pressure Cooker for Canada's W Network (since transferred to the US FYI Network) and followed that up with Million Dollar Critic for BBC America. The latter premiered on 22 January 2015 directly after Gordon Ramsay's New Kitchen Nightmares and attracted a big audience to the slot.

In January 2015, the BBC announced two new series to be fronted by Coren, Back in Time for Dinner, the first episode being broadcast in March 2015 and Eat to Live Forever which was shown in March 2015. Both shows were a success with Back in Time for Dinner achieving a BAFTA nomination in the 'Features' category. Back in Time for Christmas followed as well as Back in Time for the Weekend. In 2016, Coren filmed Back in Time for Brixton and Further Back in Time for Dinner and the two were released on in 2016 and 2017 respectively.

In 2016, he fronted the one-off, critically acclaimed documentary My Failed Novel for Sky Arts. For the same channel, he will co-host eight-part series Fake! The Great Masterpiece Challenge alongside art historian Rose Balston.

In 2016, he presented 500 Questions, a 4-part primetime game show on ITV. The series is taken from the US where it aired on ABC. Created by Mark Burnett, it is "an intense battle of brainpower that will test even the smartest of contestants"

In 2017 he presented Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby alongside Monica Galetti.

Leaked e-mail to subeditors

On 23 July 2008, The Guardian's media blog published an email from Coren to sub-editors at The Times. Coren's internal Times email used profanity, the use of which he defends, to take issue with a colleague's removal of an indefinite article (an "a") from his piece, which he believed ruined a joke in his last line. Coren said a joke was lost in the change from "a nosh" (meaning fellatio) to "nosh"—a word derived from Yiddish meaning "food", which he doubted his editors knew better than him. The Daily Telegraph said the incident was "not the first time the critic has been caught out writing abusive emails to colleagues". The exchange was reprinted in the American magazine Harper's in October 2008.

Polish controversy

In his next article, on 26 July 2008, Coren said his Jewish ancestors had been persecuted by Poles. He stated that Poles used to burn Jews in synagogues for entertainment at Easter; and that Poland is in denial about its role in the Holocaust. He used the racial slur "Polack" to describe immigrant Poles, arguing that "if England is not the land of milk and honey it appeared to them three or four years ago, then, frankly, they can clear off out of it".

Coren's piece led to many Times letters protesting against anti-Polish sentiment and detailing the rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Prof. Antony Polonsky wrote: "Coren is incorrect to state that there have been no attempts to deal with the complex and painful Polish-Jewish past." Polish ambassador Barbara Tuge-Erecińska wrote: "the issue of Polish–Jewish relations has been unfairly and deeply falsified." Coren's comments led to a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission, an early day motion in the UK parliament, and a critical editorial in The Economist.

Coren responded: "I wrote in passing that the Poles remain in denial about their responsibility for the Holocaust. How gratifying, then, to see so many letters in The Times in the subsequent days from Poles denying their responsibility for the Holocaust.". He also told The Jewish Chronicle: "Fuck the Poles". After the Press Complaints Commission rejected their complaint because the criticism had been of a group rather than an individual, the Federation of Poles in Great Britain lodged a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights.

Portuguese controversy

Coren wrote “Portuguese cooking is the worst on earth. Or, at least, the worst of any warm nation on earth,” and followed with “Obviously, Irish cooking could give it a run. Or Polish. But in its leaden, oversalted blandness, the cuisine of Portugal is, at best, what English cooking would be if we had better weather,” Coren writes.

Aníbal Soares, president of the Portuguese branch of the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, said Coren has mixed “several issues that have nothing to do with gastronomy, from various eras of his life” and ultimately shown “great ignorance and totally irresponsible research.”

Mediawatch complaint over Twitter posting

On 14 January 2010, Coren attracted criticism after he posted on his Twitter feed: "Next door have bought their 12-year-old son a drum kit. For fuck's sake! Do I kill him then burn it? Or do I fuck him, then kill him then burn it?" Vivienne Pattison, director of watchdog Mediawatch UK, condemned the remark as "very bad taste". Coren later posted: "Oh hell's bells. Look, can I just say I didn't kill the kid, or have sex with him. And anyway he's not real. And I live in Vienna."

Privacy injunction and alleged contempt of court

On 13 May 2011, Coren attracted more controversy after joking about a privacy injunction by posting on his Twitter feed: "god, ANOTHER injunction tonight. another footballer. and SUCH a boring one. fucking shit midfielder... he's yet another very ugly married man who's been carrying on with a gold-digging flopsie he should have seen coming a MILE away...". Then on 14 May he tweeted "Gareth Barry looks remarkably relaxed when you consider that... first touch for Gareth Barry... not according to what I've heard... time for a bet. what chance Barry to score? tiny fiver on barry to score at 22–1. wdv been nice to get a double with Giggs in the match before... Barry's been pulled off...". This was later deleted but was archived. The political blogger Paul Staines, who writes under the pen name "Guido Fawkes", commented: "It is late, you’ve had a few drinks, you tweet something you wouldn’t if you were sober", and added: "This is possibly Coren’s funniest work for ages..."

On 22 May 2011, it was reported that lawyers at Schillings acting for an England footballer had persuaded the High Court judge Mr Justice Tugendhat to ask the Attorney General for England and Wales, Dominic Grieve, to consider the criminal prosecution of "a top journalist" over a matter that breached a privacy injunction. Coren acknowledged on Twitter that he could face jail for contempt of court, saying: "A funny fucking day. The support of twitter has been almost tear-jerking. But I am afraid there won't be room for all of us in the cell. xxx." On 23 May 2011, Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament John Hemming spoke in the House of Commons and used parliamentary privilege to identify Coren as the person involved, leading to an immediate rebuke from Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow. In an interview with The Sunday Times on 29 May 2011, Hemming revealed that he considered naming both footballers in the Coren controversy, before the Speaker stopped him. Hemming commented that the Speaker was "probably right to do so", and added: "I couldn't be guaranteed his family didn't know, whereas Giggs' name had been chanted on the terraces."

According to The Daily Telegraph, the Premier League footballer identified by Coren in the tweets was not Ryan Giggs, and was known in the privacy injunction by the pseudonym TSE. The case at the High Court in London was TSE & ELP v News Group Newspapers Ltd, with TSE being described as "a married footballer" who had been involved in an extra-marital relationship with a woman known as ELP. Neither person had wished The Sun to publish the details of the relationship. The injunction was granted on 13 May 2011 by Mr Justice Tugendhat, who accepted claims from the footballer that publication of the details of the relationship "would provoke the cruel chants of supporters." Tugendhat said that aspects of the case had been published on "various electronic media, including Twitter", but added: "the fact that these publications have occurred does not mean that there should be no injunction in this case".