Fine dining's power couple

Unlike many in his profession, Nicholas Lander is no name-dropper. It takes the unstitched lips of his publicist to reveal the food writer and restaurant critic has cooked for Ferran Adria at his London home.

''People are often too scared to ask chefs around to dinner,'' says the Financial Times columnist, Britishly polite under the artillery fire of questions about cooking for the high priest of modern gastronomy. So what was on the menu? ''Grouse. I like game.''

His wife, Jancis Robinson, says: ''He's had them all. Heston (Blumenthal) has been three times.''

Robinson is the other half of the world food media's power couple. He's the restaurant reviewer, she's the wine expert - also a weekly columnist for the Financial Times, she edited The Oxford Companion to Wine, the equally definitive World Atlas of Wine, and other award-winning titles, including the recent launch of American Wine with Linda Murphy.

Married for more than 30 years, the pair met when Lander, then 29 and with ''absolutely no professional experience for the job'' was sourcing wine for his London restaurant L'Escargot. ''It took me a while to figure out he didn't know what he was doing,'' she says. ''By then it was too late.''

Lander's award-winning book, The Art of the Restaurateur, begins with the story of L'Escargot, which defied the inexperience of its owner to be a critically successful venture before his ill health led to its sale. ''I felt very empty,'' he writes of abandoning the dream to expand, but the continuation of the story is a happy one: Lander wound up with the globe's most covetable job in restaurant reviewing, thanks to the Financial Times' exalted demographic - its moneyed readership has the interest and the means to visit restaurants on both sides of the Atlantic and further afield, including Asia and Australia.

Lander's sober commentary stands above the fray of his British contemporaries, who commonly approach restaurant reviewing as a blood sport. Jumping from owner to reviewer has left an obvious legacy: as befitting a column called ''The Restaurant Insider'', it teases out trends and themes within the industry, as well as busying itself with the minutiae of individual restaurants.

The Art of the Restaurateur seems, therefore, a natural extension of his work. Mining an untapped seam in the overstuffed market of food titles, it challenges the dominant wisdom that a restaurant is all about the chef.

''While chefs may use plates for their art, restaurateurs' imaginations work on much bigger canvases,'' Lander writes.

The art of hospitality is about seeing the potential in spaces, bringing out the best in a team, making the customers feel in charge - and doing it all profitably, day in and day out.

The book is not intended as a manual for aspiring restaurateurs, but there's plenty of advice, and the odd cautionary tale, to be found in its 20 case studies of restaurateurs of all stripes and persuasions, each personifying ''an extraordinary vision for what they want their restaurant to be''.

In Spain, Lander interviews El Bulli's Juli Soler, who embraced the challenge of the arrival of Ferran Adria by turning a standard a la carte menu into a degustation of 50 small dishes every evening. In London, Polpo's Russell Norman uses his experience as a drama teacher to guide waiters in role-playing and he drills them in an exhaustive 32-point guide to service.

Neil Perry comes under the spotlight for his vision with the rundown space that became the Rockpool Bar & Grill in Sydney, and for his respectful relationship with producers.

Lander himself was evidently no slouch at practising what he preaches. Sunnybrae's George Biron, who did two stints at L'Escargot in the early 1980s, says working with Lander was the ''best work experience ever''.

''He energised and inspired us all,'' Biron says. ''I know it's a cliche, but it really changed my life.''

Eating lunch at Coda while in town for the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival affords a window into Lander and Robinson's expertise, a natural symbiosis of more than two decades combining them into a unique breed of super-reviewer. ''The two most important things about a restaurant, according to Jancis, are lighting and lavatories,'' Lander says. ''Lighting is one area restaurateurs have got to give more consideration and probably far more budget.'' Coda's bare globes wrapped in what looks like blue chicken wire get the all-clear - they're fun, as well as casting a kindly light. As for the lavs, they're fine too. ''I can't really say what the right sort of lavatories are,'' he says. ''But everyone can identify the wrong sort.'' Music, on the other hand, ''is something restaurateurs feel is more important than it really is - I think they're terrified of an empty room. They turn it on and then don't give it enough attention during service''.

Robinson, meanwhile, says she's been surprised about the lack of Australian wine on Melbourne restaurant lists. Of Coda's indie-leaning wine credentials, she says: ''I get the feeling they'd kill themselves before putting on a Penfolds.''

The indie-leaning credentials of their son Will Lander meant he bucked expectation and refused to solicit his parents' advice when opening his first restaurant, The Quality Chophouse, in central London late last year.

''He's 28, so what can you do? '' Robinson says. ''I lay there at night worrying, then I was amazed this wine list emerged - things I know little about were on it. My slight annoyance that he hadn't asked us for advice turned to pride.''

Lander, too, is suffused with a paternal glow at the accolades for his son's place from the likes of The Sunday Times' Giles Coren: ''Hear me now: do not make the mistake of dying before you eat here.''

Does it make Lander miss the excitement of his own days as a restaurant owner? ''No. I've got one leg still in, and probably half a leg because of Will. That's enough.''

The Art of the Restaurateur, Nicholas Lander, Phaidon, hardback, $45, phaidon.com