The proof of the pudding is in the eating

A particular cabernet sauvignon was described as evoking a banana with its own chat show

Food fights come in all shapes and sizes. I once got involved in one, in a university hall of residence, which ended up with the deputy warden charging furiously into the dining room and slipping on some macaroni cheese, breaking her ankle. She was a much reviled figure so there wasn't much sympathy. In fact, a tradition began that very day which for all I know endures; thereafter, at certain formal dinners, a plate of macaroni cheese was given a place at high table.

Food fights come in all shapes and sizes. I once got involved in one, in a university hall of residence, which ended up with the deputy warden charging furiously into the dining room and slipping on some macaroni cheese, breaking her ankle. She was a much reviled figure so there wasn't much sympathy. In fact, a tradition began that very day which for all I know endures; thereafter, at certain formal dinners, a plate of macaroni cheese was given a place at high table.

Mass-catering macaroni cheese flew through the air far better than it tasted in the early 1980s. It probably still does. No restaurant critic these days ever encounters anything remotely as revolting. But that does not stop them hurling abuse as enthusiastically as that briefly anarchic band of students which that long-ago evening hurled their grub, to the evident fury of Luke Johnson, the chairman of Channel 4 and owner of two of London's most acclaimed restaurants, The Ivy and Le Caprice. Between him and the critics, a rather marvellous food fight has just broken out.

It was ignited by an article Mr Johnson has written for the December issue of Waitrose Food Illustrated. Having put up for 15 years with "the rantings" of restaurant critics, he thunders, he is at last going to bite back. Which he does in no uncertain terms by claiming that some critics are alcoholics, and that some only bestow decent reviews on establishments owned by their friends or relatives.

"What moral right does a critic have to publicly express their personal bias and, perhaps, help bankrupt the establishment?" he adds, concluding: "I fear the motivation driving some reviewers is a powerful sense of envy."

The critics have returned fire, accusing Mr Johnson of writing about them far more intolerantly and intemperately than they would ever write about a sub-standard restaurant. Besides, they sneer, he is not even a restaurateur. He is a businessman, who made ill-judged decisions when he ran Pizza Express and is due little of the credit for the success of The Ivy and Le Caprice.

It is dangerous to raise one's head above the parapet when so much metaphorical macaroni cheese is flying, but here goes anyway. Instinctively and temperamentally, I am on the side of the critics. I was a critic myself for 10 years - albeit of television programmes rather than plates of lightly curried sweetbreads - and I know there is no disgrace in a broadside from those whose work one is paid to scrutinise. Often, it shows you are getting it right, not wrong.

Moreover, in a world without restaurant critics, who would heap richly-deserved damnation on such miserable practices as leaving open boxes for gratuities on credit card slips, when a service charge has already been levied? Who would expose preposterous mark-ups on wine? Who would ridicule surliness or shoddiness among waiting staff, or plain incompetence in the kitchen? And conversely, who would bring to our attention the fabulous little bistro in an unfashionable part of London or even in the hinterland beyond the M25?

Mr Johnson questions a critic's moral right to help bankrupt an establishment, but no good restaurant ever closed because of unjustly bad reviews. In fact, he should switch his target; there are more examples of poor restaurants prospering on the back of unjustly good reviews.

Still, Mr Johnson's "hysterical tirade", as it was described by one indignant critic, is not without foundation. He also asserts that "certain critics specialise in rude reviews, making readers laugh at the efforts of the chef and staff in whichever establishment is being pilloried. As entertainment, I suppose, that's fine; as criticism, such diatribes are beneath contempt."

He's right. Indeed, he's more right than he knows. The art of criticism generally, whether of restaurants, television, literature or anything else, has been ill served this last decade or so by heavy-handed mockery. A clear pattern has emerged, whereby a particularly skilled writer pioneers a style that might be mocking but is leavened by perception as well as wit. This is then copied by less skilful writers who can manage only the mockery.

In restaurant criticism, the pioneer of this style was Craig Brown. I still chuckle at a line he himself must have long forgotten, when he lampooned the adjectival incontinence of many restaurant wine lists by describing a particular cabernet sauvignon as evoking nothing so much as a banana with its own chat show. But history tells us that, in all departments of life, talented pioneers pave the way for people much more modestly blessed, and restaurant criticism is no exception.

That said, it is still a repository for fine writing, whatever Mr Johnson thinks. I can even think of some excellent writers who know that great cooking does not necessarily end where Fulham Broadway meets North End Road. So if Mr Johnson wants to hurl something nasty at certain national newspaper restaurant critics who have the cheek to pronounce on standards of service when SW-something is as far as they can be bothered to drag their tastebuds, I'll be right behind him with the macaroni cheese.

b.viner@independent.co.uk