Read on Twitter
this is a thread about why giles coren is the worst person in the food industry and why we, as a whole, should stop defending him
coren loves chinese food yet has zero respect or interest in the people cooking it. here he is yesterday mocking chinese accents/language in the times
this isn’t the first time. he also thought asking this question was an appropriate thing to put on twitter
when told to stop using the phrase ‘chinaman’ he doubled down on it instead of just apologising
it’s worth noting that he made a big deal on intstagram about the restaurant being a dive and talking up how weird it is. it’s actually an extremely modern, well branded Sichuan restaurant. coren wants to be the white explorer discovering the natives
in the same post on Instagram he said that abusing jacob rees mogg is equivalent to the abuse black footballers receive. this is not the first time he has made light of racism using spurious comparisons
let’s not forget the time he used polish slurs in an article and got reported to the PCC and the ECHR
he once wrote in an article on a Camden Town kebab shop “I’m racist and I’m not afraid to say that the total lack of Englishness from Camden Town today makes it feel, to me, bogus and pointless and wrong” https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/giles-coren-reviews-q-grill-wbrzpltdw3t
he has described Elephant and Castle - an area I’m writing about rn which is predominantly Latin American and African - in dogwhistle terms as “a stabby shitehole of staggering grimness”
during the jerk rice story when a black british mp complained about cultural appropriation he trolled the debate with this utter rubbish
giles used his son to write a really vile article fat shaming children and adults, and then admitted he made it up about his son just so he could write the article
cn: ableism. coren consistently uses ableist slurs, his friends don’t call him out. he uses them in print too
cn: rape jokes - he consistently uses rape as a punchline to jokes. he has been called out for this before (by @AbiWilks) and he has not stopped
coren loves to threaten people on twitter. any other person would be banned and sacked from their job for this
feels ridiculous to type this but coren once joked about killing and raping a 12 year old boy and faced zero consequences
when rupert myers was rightly ostracised for sexual harassment, guess who one of his few defenders was? gilesy of course
he doesn’t have a good record with this. when #metoo 
stuff started coming out, his sole contribution was yet another troll article on how a written kiss might lose him his job https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a-couple-of-misplaced-kisses-could-end-my-career-plwzh6n3l
stuff started coming out, his sole contribution was yet another troll article on how a written kiss might lose him his job https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a-couple-of-misplaced-kisses-could-end-my-career-plwzh6n3l
im gonna stop now. this is the tip of the iceberg and im not paying to read times articles. i haven’t even mentioned the article about the holiday with his daughter, which at best reading is deeply deeply weird. he’s also a shit, talentless writer and knows fuck all about food.
last word on the subject imo https://twitter.com/rubytandoh/status/1004666659435700225?s=21
this thread is being shared a lot again so i guess i should mention that coren’s racism does not stop at 2018. here he is last year joking about meghan markle seeing a primatologist
after john cleese’s comments about london not being a british city, coren wrote a “satirical” piece that was just an excuse to put in as many racist stereotypes in one article as possible
he also got rumbled operating a secret alt account where he would accuse anyone being critical of him of being antisemites, in the process using antisemitic slurs himself https://twitter.com/demarionunn/status/1078788960279769088?s=21 https://twitter.com/demarionunn/status/1078788960279769088
he doesn’t just do racism, he does homophobia too
he often makes references to stabbing when he reviews restaurants in areas which are predominantly black. here is talking about dalston in a review of roti stop next to one of kudu in peckham
for me, this is possibly the most straightforwardly racist thing he’s said in a way that also undermines any claim he has to be a food writer
i think by now it’s clear that @thetimes editorship approves of all this because he brings them a lot of money. so while i support calls for him to be fired, it’s up to chefs and people in the food world to call this out m. a review from him should no longer be a badge of pride
so thank you to chefs like @ZanKaufman and @NanbanLondon and @Jackson_Boxer (all of whom operate great restaurants) as well as @jayrayner1 for calling this out for what it is
