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Tony Winning, mastro of lunch

Wednesday 26 August 2026

Jim Flannery, former editor and correspondent

Long ago at the usual riotous pub party, there arrived Tony Winning, back from scaling the heights
abroad. 
 
He spied me, then lurking in the trenches, as it were. "Ah, my mentor," he cried. "We must meet." This turned out to involve eating , a joint practice we enjoyed over many years, for Tony was a master of the theory and practice of lunch.
 
He had the jollity and the girth to prove it. It began in the Stone Age, at Gotch House, site of an embattled London Bureau, placed there in a feeble attempt to avoid domination by nearby headquarters at 85 Fleet street.
 
One day a dapper young Scot arrived, in smart grey suit, sure emblem of a go-getter. Tony Winning wanted to know everything about Reuters. Not for him was the company's provision of tea and bread rolls, a step down from soup kitchen fare. A restaurant was more his style. 
 
Today, as a veteran mourning Tony, I struggle to enter certain eating-houses, hearing that non-stop newshound scanning a menu, "I wonder what is good today."