Hannah Twiggs

Hannah Twiggs is Food and Drink Editor at The Independent, using reported features, recipes and opinion columns to show how what we eat connects to money, restaurant culture and community life. Her work stands out for treating food as a social and economic story as much as a culinary one, whether she is unpacking dining etiquette, interrogating trends or following projects that fight hunger. She also helps lead IndyEats, the masthead’s food and drink vertical and newsletter, which delivers weekly cooking tips, food trends and reviews of new hotspots.

Food, money and the cost of eating out

Twiggs returns often to the question of value, looking closely at how rising prices shape the way people eat at home and in restaurants. In a recent feature on “Six restaurant hacks to get the best value for your money when dining out”, she speaks to chefs, sommeliers and restaurateurs about practical ways to enjoy meals out without overspending, from talking openly to staff about budget to using corkage and avoiding over-ordering. In another piece, “£6 for a breadstick? How restaurants are making snacks gourmet”, she explores the boom in upscale snacks – from grilled olives to £7 crisps – and how restaurants use these small plates to drive revenue, asking bluntly whether what’s on offer is really worth the price. Her recipe-led work includes guides such as “12 amazing recipes you can make without worrying about food prices”, where the selection is explicitly shaped by the cost-of-living context and aims to provide dishes that feel generous without relying on expensive ingredients.

Across these stories, Twiggs blends consumer journalism with service writing. She shows readers how to read menus for clues about labour, sourcing and margin, while highlighting the small decisions – like anchovy plates, sharing dishes and wine markup – that distinguish an honest bill from an inflated one. This focus on the economics of food gives her coverage a sharper edge than generic restaurant or recipe writing, with clear guidance rooted in expert voices from the industry.

Charity kitchens and hunger relief

A second strand of Twiggs’s work follows how food can be organised to fight hunger and build solidarity. In “Inside Too Many Critics: Food critics, chef judges and charity chaos”, she goes behind the scenes at the Too Many Critics dinner at Claridge’s, where critics cook for Britain’s top chefs to raise money for Action Against Hunger. She captures the tension of critics becoming the critiqued while keeping the focus on the charity, the guests’ experience and the funds being raised to combat hunger globally. A follow-up feature, “Too Many Critics 2025: Food editor cooks for chefs at Roe for charity”, sees her move from observer to participant, joining a lineup of food writers in the kitchen for another Action Against Hunger event and detailing how the one-night-only dinner is structured to maximise donations.

Her community-focused reporting extends beyond gala dinners. In “From soup to solidarity: How Cook For Good got Nigella and pals to …”, Twiggs profiles a food bank and community kitchen operating out of an old laundromat near King’s Cross, where locals can spend a few pounds to access pantry items worth far more and sit down for coffee, pastry and conversation. She shows how the project’s cookbook and partnerships with well-known cooks help sustain a model that feeds people, stretches budgets and fosters social ties. Taken together, these pieces mark her out as a food writer who is consistently interested in the mechanics of charity – from ticketed events to grassroots kitchens – and in the ways food systems can be redesigned to tackle hunger.

Restaurant culture, etiquette and dating

Twiggs also dissects the social side of eating out, particularly how behaviour at the table shapes relationships. In “The Valentine’s Day dining icks that guarantee no second date”, she compiles an alarmingly specific list of red flags, from wrestling with ribs and ordering unwieldy burgers to cutlery mishaps, napkin misuses and, above all, rudeness to staff. The piece reads like a map of contemporary dining etiquette, stressing that kindness to front-of-house teams and an ability to eat “like a human” matter more than grand romantic gestures. In a related column, “Why I’d never dine out on Valentine’s Day – even as a food writer”, she makes the case against restaurant Valentine’s menus altogether, arguing that they can turn even great venues into unromantic, overcrowded spaces and that staying in can be more enjoyable.

Her attention to who orders what, how people talk to servers and how bills are handled dovetails with her value-focused reporting, reinforcing the idea that generosity and respect are central to good hospitality. These stories broaden her beat beyond food itself to the rituals around it, offering a clear-eyed view of how dating dynamics and social norms play out in restaurants.

Trends, social media and home cooking

On the home front, Twiggs tracks food trends and the influence of social media, often anchoring big themes in concrete recipes. “Cabbage Core – the trend that’s here to stay” asks whether the current fixation on cabbage is a genuine superfood movement or just a recycled diet fad, while providing detailed methods for kimchi, sauerkraut, cabbage “steaks” and slow-baked stuffed cabbage. In “What does modern English food taste like in 2026?”, she speaks to chefs and producers about the evolution of English cuisine and includes recipes such as lamb with elderflower vinegar jus and a goat’s curd cheesecake topped with strawberries. Both pieces show her habit of pairing cultural or health questions with practical dishes that readers can cook at home.

Her interest in how people really cook is evident in coverage of social media’s impact on home kitchens, where she talks to a cook about the gap between viral TikTok and Instagram dishes and what works for everyday traybakes and midweek meals. The cost-conscious recipe collection mentioned above further underlines this focus on accessible cooking, designed for real budgets rather than aspirational shopping lists. Through IndyEats, she steers this mix of trends, recipes and reviews into a weekly format, keeping the masthead’s food coverage grounded in both the realities of home cooking and the excitement of new openings.