Restaurant review “defamatory. Owner can claim damages. Australian courts make reviews of anything impossible!

Here’s the house band


Australian food critics were left spluttering into their napkins yesterday after a court decided that an unfavourable review of a Sydney restaurant was defamatory, opening the way for the owners to claim damages. The critics said the decision could lead to reviewers of theatre, music, literature and art fearing to speak their minds in case they are sued.

The case centres on a review of Coco Roco restaurant published in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper in 2003. Matthew Evans, then the newspaper’s chief food critic, dined at the restaurant twice and was not impressed. He said the flavour of oysters soaked in limoncello “jangled like a car crash” and that a sherry scented apricot white sauce that accompanied steak was a “wretched garnish” that he scraped off.

Awarding the restaurant nine points out of 20, he concluded that “more than half the dishes I’ve tried at Coco Roco are simply unpalatable”, and that the food was overpriced.

Coco Roco closed three months after the review and the owners, who had spent more than $2.5million refitting the restaurant, blamed it on the reviewer, saying that customers had been put off by Evans’ words.

I realize we’re dealing with courts in Australia’s often “unique” legal system. But, is there any sense of what a ruling might mean outside the case in question? After all, precedence is what Western jurisprudence is supposed to be all about.