Rachel Cooke obituary

Mon, 17 Nov 2025

Journalist, literary critic, food writer and columnist whose work graced the Observer for 24 years

Rachel Cooke filled her weekly slots in the Observer with curiosity, enthusiasm, humour and discernment for 24 years. Books, food and people were her three main subjects as a critic, columnist and interviewer – and as an author herself. Readers enjoyed reading her because she enjoyed herself: her account of daring to bake a cake for Delia Smith in 2022 was an unabashed delight.

She was not always so keen to please. In her first interview she complained that its subject, the chef Rick Stein, had given her nothing to eat (he was so cross that he phoned her boss). She upbraided the cricketer Kevin Pietersen for “quite outstanding charmlessness”. Rachel took seriously her duty to inform as well as divert. Her piece about the psychiatrist David Bell, who wrote a critical report about the gender identity service at the Tavistock clinic in London, was a model of clarity. The impression left by her encounter with the politician Wes Streeting was of his ruthlessness.