James Chatto

James Chatto is an acclaimed British-born Canadian food and wine critic, author, journalist, and former performing artist whose razor-sharp culinary reviews have meticulously catalogled Toronto's gastronomic evolution for over four decades. EatingWell Born in London, England, he was introduced to the culinary arts early by his godfather, the legendary actor and food critic Robert Morley Amazon.ca. Before launching his writing career, Chatto was an accomplished creative performer, working as a theater actor in the West End, a singer and saxophonist with a single that peaked at number two on the British Northern Soul charts, and later farming olives in Greece EatingWell. After immigrating to Canada in the early 1980s, he translated his deep knowledge of gastronomy into a powerhouse career in Canadian media Amazon.ca. He served as the primary restaurant critic and columnist for Toronto Life for 23 years, alongside notable tenures as an editor for Enroute and the LCBO's flagship Food & Drink magazine. A James Beard Award-nominated author, Chatto has penned several seminal texts, including The Seducer's Cookbook, A Kitchen in Corfu, and his City of Toronto Book Award-nominated classic, The Man Who Ate Toronto: Memoirs of a Restaurant Critic. A true icon of the industry and co-founder of the Canadian Culinary Championship, he is an expert puppetmaker (even making a cameo with his handiwork in his child Mae Martin's television projects) [YouTube], and recently released his acclaimed 2026 historical cookbook, Acquired Tastes: The Lives and Recipes of Eight Culinary Ambassadors, co-authored with his son Joseph Sproule and wife W.L. Martin.