Renowned Food Critic A.A. Gill Dies At Age 62

Renowned British restaurant critic Adrian Anthony "A.A." Gill died Saturday, Dec. 10, at the age of 62, just three weeks after announcing his cancer diagnosis. 

Gill was a columnist for The Sunday Times and Vanity Fair, and his reviews were known for being brutally honest and holding nothing back; he was also known for being extraordinarily funny in a cruel but well-written sort of way.

"To say the food is repellently awful would be to credit it with a vim and vigor and attitude it simply can't rise to," he wrote in a Vanity Fair review of Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Chinese restaurant, 66.

Three weeks ago he announced his cancer diagnosis in a column, telling readers that he was suffering from "an embarrassment of cancer." He said he was giving them warning in case the cancer affected his perception of the food he was writing about.  

Gill cooked in restaurants and taught cooking classes before starting his writing career at the age of 37. He published more than 10 books. He also claimed to have once shot a baboon just to see what it might feel like to kill a person. Animal rights groups did not like that very much.  

Gill is survived by four children and his long-term partner, journalist Nicola Formby.