The site was first launched in September 2009 under the name The Beauty and the Feast as a hobby and soon became a full time occupation. It was soon transferred from a blogspot address to a co.uk and the readership (and support) has grown in leaps and bounds.

Twitter: @liz_randell

I love cooking and baking all sorts of food but if pushed to name a favourite I’d say puff pastry for the cathartic, repetitive action and deeply satisfying sight of the layers rising in the oven. Add some sausage meat to the puff pastry and I’m in heaven. I am also slightly addicted to making sugar paste animals to adorn the top of cakes.

Twitter @HollyBellMummy

Twitter @EdinburghFoody

Twitter @laythetable

Twitter @luvfoodluvdrink

Tim Chester is a music, food, travel and culture journalist with his head in The Cloud but his heart in the analogue.

Twitter @timchester

A favourable climate for growing, a location rich in fishing and agriculture, plus enthusiastic chef’s and food producers alike.The reality is that Cornwall is rapidly turning into a foodie’s utopia, and if there is any ingredient in your store cupboard that isn’t yet produced in Cornwall, you can bet that it won’t be long before it is!

Now a full-time stay at home mixer girl I have no formal training or baking type qualifications completely self taught in my own particular style! I am driven by recipe development and my dream is to write professionally for magazines, my own baking articles.  I will get there just you wait and see. Inspired by allsorts of characters and styles, popular bakers, friends and family and I’m hoping you’ll be inspired by me too.

Twitter @thepinkwhisk

Twitter: @FennelandFern

Her food blog The English can Cook (marmitelover.blogspot.com) is one of the top food blogs in the UK, recently voted top 5 food blogs (second after the retired world foodie guide) by Quadrille publishers on Twitter.

She is the pioneer of the supperclub home restaurant movement in the UK with The Underground Restaurant. She is currently writing a book about The Underground Restaurant for a major publisher. She has written articles on food for The Guardian, The London Word, and foodtv.co.uk. She has appeared on BBC breakfast news, News 24 and Market Kitchen. She has almost 4,000 followers on Twitter.

Her training was in photography and filmmaking. She has taken pictures for all the major publications and had exhibitions of her travel photography in London and France. MsMarmitelover has a strong visual image both in the decoration of her home and restaurant, which is very francophile, vintage and shabby chic and her appearance, customised fascinators in her hair, vintage aprons, feminine dresses, and bright lipstick. She cooks in heels!

She is also a mother of a teenage girl and speaks both French and Spanish. MsMarmitelover has two other blogs:
- travelswithmyteenager.blogspot.com which is about bringing up a teenager in London, astrology, travel, politics, cinema and music.
-theenglishcaneat.blogspot.com another food blog which concentrates on product reviews, restaurant reviews and her foodie based travels.

Twitter: @MsMarmiteLover

LocalFoodAdvisor.com was founded by Allan and Maggie Ure in 2008 and has been recommended recently in both The Independent and Woman and Home. Before becoming Managing Director, Allan was a senior executive with Reed Elsevier PLC one of the world’s largest online publishers.

Harden’s Guides, run by brothers Richard and Peter Harden, is a publishing firm based just off the Strand in London.

Fifteen years ago, Richard and Peter launched their first and best-selling guide, Harden’s London Restaurants – now the longest-established pocket guide to London restaurants. In 1998 a companion volume was launched: Harden’s UK Restaurants. The opinions expressed in both guides are based on what is now the largest annual survey of restaurant-goers in the UK (over 8,000 people took part for the 2006 edition, contributing over 90,000 reports).

In addition the brothers have visited practically every restaurant listed in the London guide, and many of those listed in the UK volume. Their personal visits are always conducted anonymously, and at the firm’s expense.

Meet Richard & Peter

Richard (48) graduated from Christ’s College Cambridge with a degree in Economics and Law. An interest in food manifested itself in membership of the Cheese Appreciation Society and being Dinner Secretary of the college boat club. On leaving university, he qualified as a Barrister, before embarking on a career in the City, working initially at Baring Brothers and then at Samuel Montagu (now part of HSBC). In 1991, he founded Harden’s Guides with his brother Peter.

Peter (41) graduated with a degree in Natural Sciences and Law from Trinity College Cambridge. “Hoover” Harden’s legendary appetite was fuelled by rowing for the Goldie (the university second crew) and his position as food and drink secretary for his college ball. He too first went into finance, working as a junk bond analyst for the Saudi International Bank in New York, before returning to London to launch Harden’s Guides.

How the business began

The idea for Harden’s Guides came at the beginning of the 1990s, when Peter was working in New York and Richard in Dusseldorf. Both cities had handy, opinionated, pocket restaurant guides of a type which simply didn’t exist in London. The time seemed right to launch such a guide. The restaurant scene was just beginning to stir and, with great difficulty, a hundred people were persuaded to take part in the first London-wide survey. For nine months before publication of the first edition of Harden’s London Restaurants, Richard and Peter ate their way around the capital: between them the brothers consumed 600 meals out in a six-month period.

Fifteen years later, and the number of participants has increased eighty-fold. Yes, that’s 80 times more than Harden’s first guide with over 8,000 people casting their votes for the latest editions!

Twitter @HardensBites and @Hardensparty

About Tipped
Tipped is an online community for people to share tips on all the great, and not so great, places in their local area.

Get Tips  – We’ve got everything covered, from the greasy spoons to the Michelin-starred restaurants, the old boozers to the cool bars. Find the best shops and boutiques, art galleries, spas, gyms, hotels and more. Quickly search by any keyword and/or location. Or browse by category, tag or both using our clever filter system. And you can easily access Tipped on your mobile. This is just the beginning, we’re adding new categories and listings all the time.

Give Tips - Tipped is people like you and me writing reviews about local places. You don’t need to be a critic or writer, honest and insightful work best at Tipped. If you happen to have a way with words then by all means be colourful and entertaining. The more you tip and the more other readers vote your tips Useful, the more your presence and influence on the site will grow. So start Tipping now and tell us what’s hot! Your Tipped points are always found in My Profile.

Share Tips – Tipped is best when shared with friends, family, co-workers or others in the community. Quickly and easily add your friends by importing your existing contacts or search our member directory. Create lists of your personal collections for easy reference. Share your collections and your tips with your friends.

Tipped was started by Joel Brazil in January 2007. Prior to Tipped, Joel worked at Microsoft for 11 years in a variety of marketing and product management roles and most recently as Head of Mobile for MSN UK.

Foodari has in excess of 1300 recipes saved by its members which are used by casual visitors and members alike to gain inspiration of what to cook. Foodari continues to build new functionality to address the needs of its community, recent additions include The Food Web and Foodari Bookshop and there is a lot more coming soon!