The messsage engraved under the lid of the silver hamper made it official: I’d been named Online Food Writer of the Year at the Fortnum & Mason Food & Drink Awards 2013.

I accepted congratulations from television presenter Claudia Winkleman, who was hosting the awards ceremony in Fortnum & Mason’s Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon, and Ewan Venters, this grand English institution’s CEO.

Turning to the audience gathered in front of the stage I faced an impressive cross-section of the London food media establishment. Their presence reflected the prestige this event had already acquired in this, its inaugural year. I soaked in the moment, to the extent a moment can be soaked, and then had this odd thought:

Why are you all applauding? Some of you don’t like me: I’ve heard you saying unkind things about me, the bothersome diner at the next table snapping photos of everything he eats, furiously tapping messages into his iphone up to 140 characters at a time, telling all the wrong and right people about all the right and wrong things to eat.

It isn’t easy defending the food paparazzi. Before I moved to London anonymity and discretion were in my job description as restaurant critic of New York’s Daily News. Sometimes I’m not too pleased sitting in the vicinity of the new me either.

But like it or not social media augurs the end of eating out in private. It’s just too easy and too instantly gratifying to join a community, start a conversation, share experiences, tell friends or whoever happens to be listening in: Look where I am! Look what I’m eating!

Social media channels put us in direct contact with San Sebastian and San Gimignano, South Brooklyn and South London. In more and more places we connect with more and more people as obsessed with food as we are, who regard life as a place to kill time between meals.

What an honour to be singled out by the Fortnam & Mason judges alongside shortlisters Edward Smith of the food journal Rocket & Squash and Oliver Thring of guardian.co.uk as a voice in this crowd.

 

Complete list of the Fortnam & Mason Food & Drink Award winners.