The former Good Food Guide editor offers a first-hand chronicle of the “big bang” that turned Britain from a punchline about over-boiled veg into a dining scene others looked to emulate. Turvil picks up the thread from the days when eating out meant suits, French-written menus and heavy sauces, and unspools it to today’s multicultural landscape with 160+ Michelin-starred restaurants across the UK.

Told in 33 chapters—each anchored to one restaurant and one emblematic dish—the narrative traces the shift from the Le Gavroche Suissesse and Wagamama’s ramen to Nobu’s Black Cod Miso and celebrity glamour. At the centre stands Marco Pierre White: his oyster-and-caviar tagliatelle at Harveys, the £5 recession lunches, the conveyor-belt sushi queues. Turvil’s reportage hums with faces, cigarette haze and the crisp ring of service bells behind the pass.

Crucially, this isn’t just nostalgia. He brings data (the explosion of coffee outlets, the rise of organics), insider stories you could only gather from the line, and a clear map of how the ’90s minted or defined today’s headline names—Gordon Ramsay, Angela Hartnett, Clare Smyth, Marcus Wareing, Heston Blumenthal, Jason Atherton—alongside the schools of Fergus Henderson (St John) and Vineet Bhatia.

Fast-paced, witty and sharply reported, it’s for anyone who’s ever shouted “Yes, chef!” or Instagrammed a steaming marrow bone—a page-turner that reads like the secret diary of the revolution that changed dining out for good. If, like me, you lived in London in the late ’90s/early ’00s, you’ll recognise scenes with almost all your senses.

More than a chronicle, Blood, Sweat and Asparagus Spears is a mirror of how gastronomy became urban culture—identity, habits, shared codes. You close the book sensing the revolution didn’t end in 2000; it continues at every table that dares to try something new. And for Voyadelle, that’s always the beginning of another story.