A team of top London chefs just pipped a team of critics to victory on Saturday night at the inaugural Starter For Ten quiz – part of the London Restaurant Festival.

Questions were set by distinguished critic, and London Restaurant Festival chair Fay Maschler, with legendary quizmaster Bamber Gascoigne in charge of proceedings.

Thomasina Miers from Wahaca, Richard Corrigan, Rowley Leigh from Le Cafe Anglais and Jeremy Lee from the Blueprint Cafe were on the chef team against Giles Coren, Toby Young, Matthew Norman and Tracey MacLeod were the critics. Simon Parkes of the Food Programme of Radio Four was the voiceover man.

There were drinks beforehand – kindly donated by our sponsors Field, Morris & Verdin – and the quiz had picture rounds, music rounds, proper buzzers and the whole works. It was all very professional and the questions were deliciously tricky.

Well done to the chefs and good effort from the critics – better luck next year.

Reservations for one of our landmark events – Pierre Koffmann’s pop-up Restaurant on the Roof of Selfridges – have been so brisk that we have decided to extend his ‘run’ for not only one extra week but a fortnight so it will last for three weeks in total (ends 31 October).

The London Evening Standard ran a full page on the news this evening.

Starter for Ten

I’ve just been chatting to Bamber Gascoigne, the legendary former host of University Challenge, who will be our quizmaster for Starter For Ten. He’s having lunch with Fay on Friday and they are planning the questions. By the way, do please submit any questions you might have and if they’re deemed worthy we’ll incorporate them into the quiz. (comment on this blog post or email our Festival Contacts with “Starter for Ten Question” in the subject line)

In case you have not heard, Starter For Ten will be a quiz that pits Critics against Chefs with all the questions based on the subjects of food, restaurants, eating out and general foodie knowledge.

We’re thrilled to have Bamber on board as he very rarely gets involved in being a quiz host any longer. But he loved the idea so has come out of retirement for the London Restaurant Festival.

Starter For Ten will take place on Saturday 10 October at Vinopolis and the distinguished chef team is Angela Hartnett, Richard Corrigan, Rowley Leigh and Jeremy Lee while the critics – no less acclaimed – are Giles Coren, Toby Young, Tracey McLeod and Matthew Norman.

Get a ticket while you still can and join us for a drink and what promises to be a very entertaining evening. We’ve arranged the event so you can still go and have dinner afterwards so you can make a night of it.

Fay Maschler on Market Kitchen

Fay is off to film an episode of Market Kitchen today with Matthew Fort and Pierre Koffmann and I’m sure all talk will be of the festival. Don’t miss the screening that will be on 5 October.

London Eye Restaurant Capsules

For those of you who want to get the chance of the ultimate private pop-up make sure you get your bids in for the restaurants in the London Eye. All the details are on the site. I hard earlier that Zuma is getting some pretty hefty punting but all of them are generating interest.

We’ve got some extremely exciting news about the restaurants in the Eye that I’ll be able to reveal over the next few days so keep checking in.

Book a Table for Festival Menus

One last thing, do please start thinking about making your reservations for Festival Menus in whichever of our several hundred participating restaurants takes your fancy. I gather that over 1,500 bookings have already been made which is great news. The Festival Menus really are your opportunity to try new restaurants at an affordable price or see what inspired ideas your old favourites can offer.

Thanks to everyone for all your support and I’ll be back with a daily blog from now until the end of the festival.

Do let us have your comments below as these will be invaluable as we move forward both this year and in the years to come.