Product Research for Food Magazines

This magazine portrays an indulgent lifestyle through the food, the setting is more important than the food itself. Whereas the other magazine shows indulgent ingredients. This cover focuses on designer food and suggests that its readers are fashionable people.

The magazine has high production values, the cover is glossy and the peaches look perfect, almost unreal. This portrays the idea of luxurious foods that focus on the importance of their appearance.

Sans serif font used in different sizes and colours in this context looks contemporary, although it has overtones of something more traditional.

The word ‘perfect’ suggests that readers aspire to perfection in their cooking and are experienced cooks

Use of French makes the dessert sound pretentious, like a work of art rather then a pot of chocolate, portraying it as more luxurious and it may put people off because it sounds harder to make.

'My favorite childhood recepies' Represents the idea of reminiscing over childhood recipes the readers had. but also impressing friends at dinner parties now by producing these dishes.

The image of the cake looks more accessible in contrast to the close up of the peaches, because it has already been tasted, its not a masterpiece that is only to be looked at, the taste is very important.

The close up of the home baked style cake portrays indulgence in terms of taste. The image of the cake has connotations of cooking being cosy, warm and homely and not stressful

‘Easy food you’ll make all summer long’ portrays the idea that good food doesn't take hours to prepare.

By the use of the image of the three chefs with captions next to them it gives the magazine a more tabloid newspaper feel which is therefore less pretentious. By putting famous chefs on the front cover, the reader is given a sense that the recipes inside are going to be of a certain quality.

Both these images are taken from the Waitrose magazine. This also portrays cooking as an art form rather than a meal which could be made by anybody. This could put people off trying to put together these dishes. It conveys the idea that appearance is the most important thing.

The front cover of the Waitrose magazine doesn't present food as natural but as a carefully crafted design. Throughout the magazine there are images of nature illustrated by watercolours of fruit and vegetables. Again this reinforces the idea that food is an art form.

This montage of images suggests natural produce and the reference to the church suggests that the readership should worship the food. The images suggest good home cooked simple and tasty food. These pictures help to entice the readers into an indulgent and relaxed lifestyle. They bring a little part of the countryside to them when they are eating these products.

This is an image taken from GoodFood magazine. It represents the idea that tasty food does not necessarily mean food that is beautifully presented, but suggests that the simple things in life are sometimes better. This image presents eating as more of a sociable relaxed pastime.

In comparison to the Waitrose magazine which uses bland, minimal colours and a more sophisticated setting, GoodFood magazine uses stronger colours in a more rustic setting. Things like the pink icing on these cup cakes represent having fun with food and not being too precious.

This image gives the readers the confidence to cook, because its showing food that could have been produced by people who aren't chefs. This means, that readers can relate to it. Also any aspirations they may have to cook a dish can become achievable.

This is a front cover from a French food magazine bought in a low end supermarket which is the French equivalent of Sainsbury's. This magazine has low production values. The magazine is A5 and all the other magazines are on A4.

The magazine uses 4 close up shots of dishes on the front cover. In contrast GoodFood and Waitrose FOOD Illustrated use a mid shot and close up of one dish being displayed, with more information about the setting.

My target audience is only British not French people and the magazine would not be sold in France. But by comparing the English and French magazines you can see that both audiences see presentation of food as important. For example GoodFood and Vie Pratique Gourmand use depth of field to show that their audience want food that looks good and is easy to achieve. Vie Pratique Gourmand represents the idea that recipes should be light and in keeping with the Mediterranean diet whereas the British magazines focuses on hot large portions.

The review is taking a dig at the restaurant’s name and the fact that the restaurant is situated on the King’s Road, a road famous for wealthy people to shop and dine out and was full of Sloane Rangers.

AA Gill has used a five star rating system and given each rating a humorous meaning based on the theme of Sloane Rangers which he has used in the review.

AA Gill has picked on a news story in the past week about dog cloning which he criticises throughout the review. In fact most of the review is not about the restaurant at all. He makes fun of the strange names that people call their dogs and uses this as a way of making fun of the restaurant’s name and its clientele.

AA Gill also uses the fact that it is a Spanish restaurant to make fun of the Spanish. It is only in the last paragraph that he talks about the food, which he says is good value and he gives it three stars.