Julian Barnes, novelist
Whenever she arrived – to a dinner, a book event, a concert – she would have a smile on her face and a light in her eye that seemed to say: “This is going to be fun.” She was good at pleasure, intensely hardworking, and curious about all things, except perhaps croquet and backgammon (though I wouldn’t entirely count them out). She was one of the best journalists around: a coeval on another paper called her “the cleverest woman I know”.
In our household, we referred to The Observer as The Weekly Cooky because she seemed to be writing in every section: a political interview, a lead book review, a food column (how she enjoyed eating!) and a diary piece. If there had been an astrology column, she might have filled in when the stargazer got sick (though it would be a slot suddenly undermined by scepticism).
Her zest for life and work were bedrocked in a long and happy marriage to Anthony Quinn. And because she was serious, she could also be fierce and dismissive. She had a vivid scorn for female columnists who moved hair-raisingly rightwards as the years passed.
She didn’t suffer fools, or snobs, or the self-important. Some years ago, a writer with a high opinion of himself got his “people” to send her the message that “X would like to be interviewed for The Observer by Rachel Cooke.” Not wishing to be patronised for an hour or two, she mimicked his haughtiness in reply: “Rachel Cooke does not wish to interview X for The Observer.” Though if she had accepted his offer, you can be sure the piece would have been a corker.
Sir Richard Eyre, director
I met Rachel at a party – a book launch, I think. “You’re Richard Eyre,” she said, and I admitted it. It was a passionate friendship at first sight. I knew her writing and was thrilled to find that, in person, she was as she wrote (not always the case) – very bright, vivid, funny, warm, dazzlingly well read, unopinionated but never short of an opinion, modest, generous, loyal, even though a connoisseur of gossip.
We became ardent emailers, swapping views on books, films, food, theatre and people with such frequency that, at one point, I suggested it would save time to have two buttons on our laptops: AGREE and DISAGREE. We lunched occasionally and I discovered that she was as knowledgable about cooking as she was about writing.
Politicians talk of their moral compass, even when their pointer seems to spin aimlessly in all directions at once. Rachel’s was constant: she believed that people should behave well and was painfully distressed when friends or acquaintances – or her employers – let her down. It was no surprise that she faced her illness with stoicism and wit. “I’m like Elizabeth Barrett Browning in falling-down jeans,” she wrote, “trying to get strength up for more chemotherapy.”
In her anthology of female friendship, The Virago Book of Friendship, she wonders, in her piece about the publisher and founder of Virago, Carmen Callil, who died in 2022, what kind of person she will be without Carmen? I think much the same about Rachel: for me she was indispensable.
Jonathan Coe, novelist
RIP the beautiful, brilliant Rachel Cooke. We first met in 2001. She was 32, I was 40. I loved her writing, and loved her as a person. Fearless, funny and with zero tolerance for pretentiousness or bullshit. When I last spent some time with her, in March, she was on great form – full of mischief, curiosity, wisdom and energy. Full of life, in other words. And now, eight months later, this. Cancer is ruthless. All my love to her husband Tony. And go well, Rachel. You are irreplaceable.
Delia Smith, cook and author
Everyone is special, but Rachel was somehow more special. It’s difficult to put words on that but, for me, Rachel had an outer beauty and also an inner beauty that came through in her person and in her writing. She was bursting with energy, enthusiasm for life and a wry humour that turned up in all her brilliant articles and books. I first met Rachel when she came to my home to interview me. She brought me a delicious cake she had made herself. Extra-special Rachel is such a very sad loss – to her readers and all those who loved her.
Jeremy Langmead, writer and editor
Rachel had a beguiling combination of supreme intellect and an appreciation for the absurd. Those big blue eyes that never missed a trick could look to heaven if someone said something stupid, or cry with laughter if they witnessed an absurd mishap. And yet Rachel was always incredibly kind.
I first worked with her when she was 24 and an assistant editor at the Sunday Times’s Style section. I was the deputy editor and then the editor. The two us worked long hours – finishing at 2am or 4am each Friday, when we put Style to bed. Rachel was, as she liked to say, a pit pony. She did not stop working. She could turn out an exquisitely written piece in a matter of hours, whether the subject was serious or frivolous.
Despite her bookish manner and love of the arts, she never complained in those early days when I asked her to write about something utterly ridiculous. She would roll her eyes at the idea, appreciate the potential humour the story could offer and come back with a brilliantly understated and comical account of what she’d had to do.
When there had been a report in the papers that supermarkets had become places to socialise or meet people, she went along to the local Safeway in Wapping carrying a glass of cheap white wine and a packet of Twiglets to see if it turned into a party. When the fashion designer Hussein Chalayan sent his models down the catwalk with illuminated mouthpieces that held their mouths wide open and emitted an eerie red light, I asked Rachel to wear one on the tube home, photographer in tow, to see how her fellow passengers reacted.
Five years later, when I went to edit the short-lived Nova magazine, Rachel came with me as the deputy editor. After Nova, we both went to work for different newspapers and, without my childish commissioning, she flourished and became one of the country’s most admired and prolific feature writers, interviewers and arts critics. She would go on to write more than 100,000 words each year for The Observer.
Rachel continued to write for me wherever I went. She was chief interviewer for Esquire magazine when I was the editor and interviewed everyone from Alan Carr to Gordon Brown, when he was prime minister. Her penetrating interviews were always a joy to read. She always knew her subject, asked the right questions at the right moment and didn’t miss a thing. She was fair, but wrote what she thought. You were as intrigued each time by what the interviewee had said as much as what the interviewer observed.
Rachel’s confidence flourished after she met and married the film critic and author Anthony Quinn. They were so perfectly matched. Rachel was so happy with Tony; they led a wonderful social life together, entertained so many friends – she was a fabulous host and cook – and they laughed and laughed at each other’s jokes and complemented each other’s love of literature and the arts.
The way Tony loved and cared for Rachel while she was ill was truly extraordinary to behold. He would tirelessly hold her hands for hours each day in the hospital and when she opened her eyes from a long sleep, she would look up at Tony, smile, squeeze his hand and then sleep some more.
Rachel was the most loyal friend for 32 years. We remained incredibly close; she never forgot a birthday, always put so much effort into choosing the cleverest gift, dedicated her book Kitchen Person to me and made me laugh more than anyone I know.
She never judged and was always entertained by the mischievousness of others. One of the last times I saw her, when she was incredibly ill, with the Marie Curie nurses delivering pain medication to her house every three hours, she rallied round and we sat together on her bed and reminisced and laughed. She was still as sharp as a tack. It was an evening I will forever cherish.
Rachel deservedly won many accolades and awards for her writing, as well as admiring reviews for the numerous books she published. In 2013, she published Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties. As she had always done, she shone a light on the achievements of other women. Rachel, too, had a brilliant career. And was one of the extraordinary women of today.
Roger Alton, former editor of The Observer
Rachel was a wonderful writer, beautiful to read, but she was much, much more than that. She was blessed with a vitality that made you happy to be alive; always witty, funny, kind and compassionate. She was a remarkable journalist and a beautiful writer, one of the very few whose articles became destination journalism. Her columns for The Observer and her brilliant TV reviews for the New Statesman were the first thing you turned to.
Blake Morrison, writer
Rachel was one of the great arts journalists of our time. There were weeks when she seemed to write The Observer all by herself – there’d be a big interview, a column, a book review and maybe something on food as well. Her writing was sharp, funny and (in the words of Philip Larkin, a poet we both loved) “less deceived” – among her gifts was a talent for seeing through bullshit. Last year, she brought out an anthology of friendship, and to celebrate I took her out for lunch, where she talked about Yorkshire, Freud, walking, newspaper wranglings, her television column for the New Statesman and much besides. She was great company and one of the hardest workers you’ll ever meet. It’s desperately sad that she has died so young. I can’t imagine The Observer without her.
Rachel Cooke photographed for Observer Food Monthly, 2010
Hadley Freeman, columnist
I first became a fan of Rachel’s writing, all those 25-plus years ago, because of how clever but warm, engaged but questioning all of her articles were, whether she was writing about food, interviewing scientists or explaining her love of cricket. And when I was lucky enough to become friends with her about a decade later, I realised she was all that in person – but in even greater proportions. Rachel was interested in so much, bursting with enthusiasm, full of her own passions, and so curious about other people’s too – a critic but never a snob.
She might not have quite understood my love for trashy American movies, but it amused her. She always embraced a fellow enthusiast. Her and Tony’s home was exactly like the two of them, cerebral but cosy, classical music always on the radio, something delicious always in the oven. What a sadder, stupider world it already is without her.
Sarah Waters, novelist
I didn't know Rachel well – and now, of course, I wish I’d got to know her better. But over the years, I spent time with her often, at literary events, at launches and festivals. She was the sort of person I was always cheered to see walk into the room: she was such good company, such fun to be with. And the same is true of her writing: her books, reviews and interviews. Her work has that rare, wonderful quality of being both fiercely insightful and brilliantly entertaining. Whenever you come across something of Rachel’s, you know you’re in for a treat. She interviewed me a couple of times, and did it with warmth and care, so that I always felt, unusually, that I could recognise myself in the resulting articles. I was gutted to hear about her death. She was smart, funny and brave, and the world will be a sadder place without her.
Peter Straus, agent
I first met Rachel after I had read several of her extraordinary pieces in The Observer. It was clear she had a fierce and uncompromising intelligence, and wrote elegantly with wit and grace. Her terrific enthusiasm and insatiable curiosity for all kinds of writing, from graphic novels to poetry, became ever more evident the more I knew her. Her own books reveal her wide-ranging interests and versatility: Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties through Kitchen Person: Notes on Cooking & Eating to The Virago Book of Friendship. Rachel was brave, she was passionate, an excellent reader and critic and a wonderful writer. I will miss her as a writer and as a friend.
Jeremy Lee, restaurateur
I met Rachel years ago, in the early days of her writing for The Observer. A wonderful game supplier, Ben Weatherall, had arranged for a whole raft of people from what was formerly known as Conran restaurants to go up to this hunting lodge in the middle of the Highlands and go deer stalking. We spent the day together on the moors. And then we went back to the house and cooked up a riot of venison – liver and joints and all sorts of things. A ghillie took rather a shine to Rachel – his intentions were quite amorous, which always made us giggle. After that, our paths crossed often. She was a great observer of the London and British restaurant scene, and a perfect champion for all that we do.
It was always a great joy when she came to Quo Vadis; she was a source of wonder. Forever a twinkle in her eye, always a smile simmering at the edges of her mouth. She emanated the most gorgeous warmth. So very funny, a great turn of phrase. Wherever she went, she brought good cheer.
Rupert Christiansen, writer
Rachel had an astonishing range of enthusiasms and a boundless capacity for taking intense interest in whatever, or whoever, was thrown at her. It was this insatiable appetite for life in all its aspects that underpinned both her ebullient personality and her magnificent journalism in all its abundance and variety – equally trenchant on any subject, from the Tavistock clinic to the perfect roast chicken.
She was happiest in the fast lane, with nothing left to waste. I will never forget a magical evening we shared at Glyndebourne, and the equal pleasure she took in the opera, the picnic, the people, the landscape, the sunset and any little thing I could tell her about the place. How much she packed in to her existence, how much joy she had in it and what happiness she found in her marriage to Tony: a meeting of minds and hearts and irrepressible senses of humour.
Sarah Donaldson, former arts editor, The Observer
Rachel was a gifted writer, a total grafter, had vast and hugely varied knowledge, was mischievous, lively and hilarious. But more than anything, she was passionate. Her enthusiasm for books and the arts was that of 10 people and it was always, always present in her writing – as was her abundant wit. I loved how unpredictable Rachel’s taste was.
She adored 17th-century Dutch painter Frans Hals as much as she was delighted by the drug-fuelled banking drama Industry. Her favourite thing was to cover Laura Cumming’s column – always brilliantly – and she would have been happy, I know, to have given up all other subjects and only write about art.
She almost always filed with the words: “I hope you enjoy this”. And you always did. Rachel also had zero tolerance for injustice – we bonded over this in her final year, as did many people, and her humour and energy was always a balm. It is impossible to believe that she is no longer in this world.
Lisa O’Kelly, former editor, The Observer Review
It was me who lured Rachel to The Observer almost a quarter of a century ago, when I was editing the Review, and it is hard now to imagine the paper without her. She was an absolute original, as brilliant writing about food and fashion as she was on books, TV, art, history, current affairs – the list goes on. She was also such a joy to edit. Sending her off to do an interview you could relax, knowing you were going to get perfect copy: warm, slyly witty, insightful and true.
Henry Dimbleby, writer
Rachel was funny, precise, teasing and allergic to pretension - in person and in prose. Her column was always the one I turned to first. She could move from a lamb stew in Sheffield to Anthony Bourdain in New York, and make both feel like parts of the same conversation – about food but really about how we live now.
She also knew that food can change lives as well as bring joy, and got properly cross when talking about what we serve our children in schools. She understood that a country’s food culture is one of the ways it tells itself who it is.
Simon Hopkinson, cook and author
What comes to my mind when I think of Rachel is just her appreciation of loveliness. I was once down in the south of France with her and Tony, and Julian Barnes and Carmen Callil. We had a house for 10 days and I’d said I’d only go if they let me cook. And Rachel just kept up this unbelievable enthusiasm and excitement for everything I made.
I used to love to hear her talking about art and books and food and all the things she was passionate about – whether on the radio on Front Row, or just around the table. She was very good at loving and hating the right things. We never cooked together but she did give me the recipe for these wonderful cheese biscuits, and was thrilled when I put them in one of my books.
It was that excitement about the good things in life that I loved about her. I can picture us sitting side by side on barstools after a party, I think, at the Ivy, and ordering very, very good martinis. And Rachel couldn’t get over how perfectly cold hers was: “Just what the doctor ordered!”
Photographs by Gary Calton for The Observer, Antonio Olmos for The Observer, Dave Benett/Getty Images, Suki Dhanda for The Observer, Murdo Macleod for The Observer