Editorial Policy

Effective date: September 20, 2026

Just Savour Life is a recommendation site. It isn't a review site, it isn't an awards site, and it isn't a place anyone can buy a good write-up. This page sets out exactly what that means in practice, so you don't have to take it on trust.

No paid reviews

Nothing here is written, recommended or endorsed because someone paid for it. That has never changed and it isn't going to.

Hospitality is welcome, and it buys nothing

I accept invitations, and I always have. If a chef, an owner or a winery wants to host me, I would rather be at the table than not — saying no to hospitality was never the point. What being hosted doesn't do is put a place on this site. It earns a conversation and an honest opinion. It doesn't earn a write-up, a recommendation, or an endorsement.

You'll always know when I've been hosted

When a piece comes out of a hosted visit, when a course arrives that I didn't order, or when something is ever sponsored, it says so at the top of the article — every time, without being asked, and before you read a word of the rest. What that looks like:

• Disclosure: this dinner was hosted by the restaurant. Nothing was agreed in advance, and this piece was written the way every other one here is.
• Disclosure: two courses here were sent by the kitchen and weren't on my bill.
• Disclosure: this piece was made in partnership with [brand]. They saw it when you did.

The note goes at the top rather than the bottom, because a disclosure you have to go looking for isn't one.

Sponsorship, if it ever happens

There are no sponsors today. I'm not ruling them out forever — a drinks company or an industry brand supporting a piece that isn't about them is a reasonable way for writing like this to pay for itself. Two conditions if that day comes. It gets disclosed at the top, like anything else. And it never covers a place or a product the piece is assessing. A sponsor doesn't get to read a piece before you do.

What happens when somewhere doesn't land

It doesn't appear here. I'm not a critic, and it's not something I ever want to be — there's no shortage of people ready to take a place apart. When something doesn't work, the people who run it would rather hear it from me directly, so that's where it goes: privately, to the chef, the owner, whoever I can reach.

One thing follows from that, and it matters. The absence of a place from this site means nothing at all. Most of where I eat and stay never gets written about, for reasons that have nothing to do with how good it was — time, photographs, whether there was a story in it. Please don't read silence as a verdict.

Where I have other roles

I'm COO of the Chinese Restaurant Awards, and I hold roles elsewhere in food and hospitality. Those organizations have their own processes, which are theirs to describe rather than mine. Nothing on this page is a claim about any of them. It applies to Just Savour Life — this site, its newsletter, and its social accounts.

Questions, or a correction

If something here is unclear, or you think a piece should have carried a disclosure and didn't, tell me through the Contact page. I would rather hear it.