A Matter Of Taste: Catriona Jackson

Posted on 2 October, 2018

Catriona Jackson is the first to admit she’s probably not how most people would expect a food critic to look.

“Particularly when I first started reviewing restaurants, everyone would expect a man—and someone who was perhaps a little overweight,” she laughs.

It works in her favour: reviewing food 
is one of the few positions where anonymity is key, as every intention is to have the same kind of experience as the person at the next table.

“My view of a restaurant reviewer is that you are there to represent the normal person, and it’s an awful lot easier to represent the normal person if you are treated normally,” Catriona says.

“So I try really hard to make sure people don’t know. It’s also better for the staff in a way; you’d have a lot of nervous people.”

With so many restaurants 
popping up left right and centre in Canberra, Catriona has a lot on her plate—literally.

During her career, Catriona worked
 as regional editor for The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide and contributed to cultural magazines such as Vogue Entertaining and Travel, Eureka Street and Overland; her tastebuds often taking her around the country and beyond.

She is now currently reviewing a restaurant every three weeks for The Canberra Times, outside of her busy day job as chief executive at Universities Australia.

But while her skillset is diverse, it’s not hard to sense the deep passion Catriona has for food when we chat.

She says she’s always taken food extremely seriously, even if others didn’t.

“My first job was working for the student newspaper, where I decided to put one of my food reviews on the front page, much to my colleagues’ displeasure,” she says.

“That was 30 years ago, when food television was an oddity, and you could name on one hand any celebrity chefs.”

Times have certainly changed; now food is practically considered an art form, with celebrity chef upon celebrity chef spruiking their latest restaurant venture.

With that comes the good and the bad, says Catriona.

“The celebrity chef thing has become a massive phenomenon, but sometimes it stops becoming about the food
 and becomes more about ferocious competition,” she says.

“But then you have people like Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson or, someone who I always admired, Julia Child— people who are just really passionate about food and the role it plays in life.”

Looking back at her restaurant ventures, she’s noticed big changes in the way people eat—predominantly, that the restaurant experience has become more relaxed.

“Going to a restaurant used to be a much more formal exercise, with white tablecloths and very formal service,” she says.

“We’ve really loosened up about eating, and I think that’s a good thing.”

She adds that Canberra is lucky in
 that it hasn’t been subjected to any “pretentiousness” that often comes with popular restaurants in bigger cities.

So what comes first when reviewing a restaurant—the atmosphere, service or food?

“Atmosphere is incredibly important in a restaurant, but quality is more important,” Catriona says.

“If the food is spectacular and I feel unwelcome, it’s not going to be a pleasant experience.

“A really exciting restaurant, as far as I’m concerned, is where you can just tell they’re always thinking about food, they’re evolving, they’re looking for new ideas, you go in and there’s something that just makes you go ‘wow.’

“And it’s not necessarily at just the high-end restaurants—sometimes that’s going somewhere fabulously cheap. Or sometimes they aren’t changing,
but they’re just continuously making what they make really well, and having serious pride in what they do.”

When I ask if she has any local favourites of her own, Catriona, an inner-north resident, says she is spoilt for choice.

“It really depends; Italian and Sons in Braddon is where I choose to go with my husband for a lovely indulgent evening,” she says.

“If it’s a weeknight or a casual thing, I really enjoy things that are offbeat but still interesting and individual. So we will often find ourselves trotting down to the Polish Club, because they’re a set of really terrific, young and vibrant cooks making interesting, diverse meals for next to nothing.

“Or we’ll pop down to Braddon to find out what’s new that day. If the kids want a treat we’ll go to Frugii, for the best ice cream—in my opinion—outside of Italy.”

Of course, one of the more uncomfortable parts of Catriona’s
 job is giving criticism where it is needed, which is not always met with open arms.

“Very occasionally in Canberra, you get chefs or restaurant owners who are very unhappy with what you’ve written, so it is incredibly important that you take giving restaurant criticism very seriously, because you’re giving criticism that may affect their business,” Catriona says.

“For this reason you’ve got to be absolutely scrupulous that you get every detail right, and that you check and double check yourself.

“Food is a pretty intangible thing, it’s hard to describe what really makes somewhere a fabulous place to be in. But the people who run the restaurant are a fundamental part of that. If they care about the restaurant, love being there, and they’re welcoming people, it’s very difficult not to feel special, like you’re part of something.”

Photography: Tim Bean Photography