James Brennan

James Brennan has been eating food all his life. He began writing about it in 2006 when he became food editor for Time Out magazine in Dubai. There he reviewed hundreds of restaurants and interviewed a glut of famous chefs, from Gordon Ramsay and Gary Rhodes, to Pierre Gagnaire and Nobu Matsuhisa.

He was a part of the launch team for The National newspaper in Abu Dhabi, and was the Academy chair for the Middle East and North Africa region in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards, before returning to the UK, and his hometown of Birmingham.

His ongoing quest for fascinating food has taken him across the world. He has gorged on the planet’s most expensive meat at a halal wagyu beef farm in Japan, nibbled pastries with a motorcycle gang in southern Lebanon, drank vodka with the Russian army on the Trans Siberian Railway, and eaten shawarma while floating in the Dead Sea. Whether it’s live shrimp at Noma in Copenhagen, or dead tarantulas at a roadside market in Cambodia, there is nothing he won’t eat for a good story.   

He has written about a variety of subjects (food, travel, culture, business and sport) for a range of titles, from The Independent and The Sunday Times, to CNN Travel and Bloomberg Businessweek, and has been a regular contributor to Fine Dining Lovers since 2011.