John Lethlean prides himself on being a fearless restaurant critic, so it’s perhaps unsurprising he refuses to back down from a “sexist” review which has cost him his livelihood and made him a pariah in his own industry.
After leaving The Australian after 13 years in September, Lethlean was freelancing for several publications when he wrote a review of a new Perth restaurant, Shui, in February which caused so much anger among top female chefs and readers it is still a live issue a month later.
Writing for the News Corp-owned delicious.com.au, Lethlean included a description of a female staffer’s skirt in his review: “The maitre d’/meet and greeter wears an outfit that threatens to expose more than just her inexperience when she bends over to set a table”.
Have @deliciousAUS or @JohnLethlean addressed this yet? Or did they both delete everything and cross their fingers people would forget about his misogyny and horrible behaviour? pic.twitter.com/W27rHbbnxg
— Jess (@JessShaverPhoto) February 28, 2023
The Western Australia-based writer then chose that line to promote his article on his personal Instagram page. The backlash was swift as people labelled the review degrading and out of touch.
MasterChef judge and writer Melissa Leong said “get in the bin”, and food writer Dani Valent said it was “sexist, disrespectful and pervy”.
The editor-in-chief of Delicious, Kerrie McCallum, took down the entire article without explanation or apology and Lethlean deleted his Instagram account after being bombarded with negative comments.
On Friday a rival food publication, Gourmet Traveller, published an article about sexism in the industry and an accompanying editorial which explained why the Lethlean article had been so triggering for women in hospitality.
“A middle-aged, white, male food writer had posted a quote from his most recent review,” editor Joanna Hunkin wrote. “A quote, one can only assume, he thought was clever and amusing, but in fact objectified and sexualised a female server.
“He didn’t post it to be provocative. He genuinely didn’t see the issue with what he’d written. Neither, it would seem, did any of his editors – or the publication in which it ran. At the time of publishing, three weeks on, it remained silent on the incident, its only action to quietly delete the offending article, refusing to acknowledge the widespread offence it has caused.”
Hunkin’s assumption was right. Lethlean told Guardian Australia he saw nothing wrong with his description of the staffer. “It was, in my opinion, a clever line written without any sexism on my part whatsoever,” he said.
Within half an hour of the Gourmet Traveller editorial going live, Delicious finally broke its silence about the spiked article and published a link to a belated apology on Instagram, referring to “an inappropriate sentence directed at a staff member” and offering an apology for “any offence it has caused”.
Soon there were hundreds of comments posted criticising the apology itself, including from renowned chefs Christine Manfield, Shannon Martinez and Jacqui Challinor. Manfield called for a boycott of Delicious.
“Was this apology actually written by ChatGPT?,” said one user. “What a joke. Far too little and way too late. It wasn’t a ‘publishing mistake’ either.”
Lethlean told Guardian Australia he doesn’t know whether anyone at Delicious read his review before pressing publish or whether they did and it “didn’t raise any flags”.
“I have in succession been dropped by Qantas, Delicious, and yesterday by the West Australian Good Food Guide to which I contribute,” he said.
“I’m not a sexist and that’s really … the bottom line. I feel it’s disappointing. It’s disappointing that it has come to this.”
McCallum and News Corp have not responded to requests for comment but Guardian Australia understands at least two chefs – Challinor and Kylie Kwong – have pulled out of judging Delicious’ upcoming Producer awards and other chefs have requested the publication remove their recipes and content from the site.
Delicious has not confirmed it has dropped Lethlean as a reviewer, and he has a monthly column in The Australian in which he wrote in February: “I’ve spent at least a million dollars in restaurants – most of it other people’s money – over the past 25 years and I’m still hungry”.
Lethlean says he has always written for the consumer and not the industry, which has angered some critics.
“I haven’t apologised and I’m not going to apologise,’” he said. “I thought what I said was completely, completely reasonable.”
“When I said, you know, ‘the outfit that threatens to expose more than her inexperience’ I would have said the same about a bloke.
“I thought a restaurant reviewer’s job was to tell it as you see it, communicate with your readers, and hopefully try to make it readable.”
