They are rapidly becoming not only the best connected but the most influential online restaurant commentators in the country.
But the enormous social media success of posh foodie pair Topjaw – aka old friends Jesse Burgess and Will Warr – does not mean they are universally popular.
And now, for the first time, a successful – and proudly working class – London chef has decided to go public with his stinging criticism of the influencers.
Ed McIlroy told the Daily Mail: ‘It’s funny that Topjaw are being hailed as the voice of the industry. Because to me they’re the opposite.
‘Jesse Burgess in particular probably grew up snapping his fingers at waiters – and now he’s supposed to be the voice of restaurants in the UK?’
Mr McIlroy’s outspoken comments today are the culmination of a feud between him and the social media broadcasters that has been bubbling like a simmering stock for many months.
But first the question of Topjaw’s social background, connections and meteoric rise – which informs that accusation of ‘finger snapping.’
Burgess and Warr are both well-connected former public schoolboys on the periphery of the Made In Chelsea scene, with the latter sufficiently friendly with Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, to be entrusted to be her in-house filmmaker.
Old friends Jesse Burgess and Will Warr have grown an army of fans as restaurant influencers and are extremely well connected
Working class chef Ed McIlroy claims the pair probably grew up snapping their fingers at waiters
Ed’s dislike of Topjaw stems from when, as unknowns, the pair attempted to film inside his pub The Plimsoll near Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium and were told by the chef that he was too busy
They also have celebrities queueing up to appear in their short films, with recent cameos from the likes of Sir Idris Elba, Ncuti Gatwa, Stanley Tucci, Kate Winslet, Florence Pugh, Walton Goggins, Andrew Garfield, Steve Coogan, Ed Sheeran and Charli XCX.
They have also made similar inroads with more established media food commentators like Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, Michel Roux Jr, and Masterchef star Grace Dent all appearing on Topjaw.
Indeed, the duo count connections at the very top of British society.
Film-making wizard Warr, who mostly stays behind the cameras, has already cemented his reputation with a series of intimate videos made with Prince William, Kate and their family
The fourth and most recent film, released earlier this month to mark the Princess’s 44th birthday, was filmed in Berkshire, Cumbria, Gloucestershire, East Sussex and the Cotswolds.
He had previously worked on footage of the Coronation and the couple’s 10 year wedding anniversary in 2021, and was recommended to the Waleses via a friend, Matt Porteous, the photographer who has shot the Royal couple’s Christmas card photos.
All of this has grown Topjaw a huge audience: 940k followers on Instagram, 235k on TikTok and 442k on YouTube.
And Topjaw frontman Burgess, a former model, is now being groomed for mainstream international media fame with a Gordon Ramsay-produced Apple TV show ‘Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars.’
The pair describe themselves as simply ‘two best buds travelling the world documenting the best things to eat, drink and do’ – and are at pains to downplay the influence they may have, with Burgess recently saying: ‘I’m not a critic, and really I’m not there to criticise.’
But leading London chef Ed McIlroy insists that criticism is exactly what the pair have been dishing out to him – unfairly he believes – and he even claims they have censored any positive mentions of him on their broadcasts.
McIlroy came to food world attention when he relaunched an old pub near Arsenal’s Emirates stadium as The Plimsoll to great acclaim – Grace Dent called it ‘brilliant’ – while their signature burger became renowned as the best in London.
And it was The Plimsoll burger that saw McIlroy and Burgess first fall out, he claims.
Burgess, on this occasion writing for food magazine The Pass, described McIlroy’s establishment as ‘a strong contender for London’s most inhospitable pub’.
Mcllroy claims Burgess’s nose had been put out of joint twice because he was refused permission to film in the kitchen and then turned up to review The Plimsoll on an Arsenal match day when the pub is rammed with drinkers and so doesn’t serve food.
McIlroy told the Daily Mail: ‘He hasn’t received hospitality when he’s come to the pub, because the first time he came before he was famous, he demanded to film something during a Friday whilst I was very busy in the kitchen, and I asked him to leave because I had no idea who he was.
‘Then another time he comes back for a burger on a match day, and he was just told that we don’t do food on those days. And I think that was enough to irk him to then start trying to publicly slander us.’
The burgeoning feud was stoked further when McIlroy opened a second establishment nearby in Finsbury Park, the Spanish-influenced fish restaurant Tollington’s.
While once again most reviews were favourable – Grace Dent again describing ‘hands down the greatest chips I’ve ever eaten’ – Topjaw disagreed.
On their Instagram account there is a link to a section called ‘Jesse’s Journal’ in which Burgess gives straight-to-camera reviews. And on his visit to Tollington’s, where he ordered a monkfish dish, he said frankly: ‘I couldn’t eat it, it was rubbish’.
McIlroy’s jokey response to this slight last summer saw him post a viral video of a car smashing into a restaurant on Instagram saying ‘I’m going to drive a Prius into Topjaw’.
And he even challenged Burgess to a fight – or at least an organised boxing match for charity.
Now, furious McIlroy has gone one step further and gone on record about his dislike of the pair – who he says ‘have crossed the line’.
The angry chef told us: ‘I don’t expect everyone that walks through the door of the restaurants I open to love it, and nor would I ever want that.
‘What annoys me is the bias that I discovered. The problem is with this industry, everyone does know everyone, which maybe he [Burgess] doesn’t understand because he’s not actually a part of it.’
He even claims favourable mentions of his work have been cut: ‘Friends have told me that many people have suggested my restaurants on Topjaw’s quick-fire interviews but they were just edited out continuously.’
While McIlroy admits their feud can appear slightly performative – he keeps insisting he enjoys the ‘banter’ with Topjaw – he does insist the antipathy is very much real.
‘There’s a little ongoing sort of feud between us,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think about Topjaw that much until someone asks me about them…
‘There was a point where we almost reconciled. I was about to just say ‘stop being silly and come and have some dinner.’
But they have yet to make peace.
As Topjaw’s influence has grown the pair have made other less public enemies than McIlroy – the pair have even reportedly been sent death threats – as many resent them for ‘ruining’ little known restaurants by directing huge crowds to them.
Burgess and Warr are both well-connected former public schoolboys on the periphery of the Made In Chelsea scene
Burgess is often seen at the wheel of his Bentley on social media
Warr (right) is now a family man with three children and lives with wife Sarah in a leafy suburb of London
Jesse married his long-term girlfriend Taura Lamb last year in a multi-day ceremony attended by the pair’s celebrity friends
McIlroy insisted: ‘I really hope they’re not getting death threats, but maybe it’s just people on the internet and it shouldn’t be taken as seriously because of that.’
But it is taken very seriously and McIlroy believes the medium being used – and the short attention spans it encourages – is part of the problem.
‘I think the online food influencers are just reflective of a societal problem right now,’ he said.
‘It’s for people that have the attention span of some kind of small amphibian, and they’re going to find that kind of content exactly what they want.
‘Why would they want to go and read a traditional restaurant review when they can have someone that looks and sounds good and is able to present in a manner that delivers quick-fire information.
‘So they just take those suggestions and put them onto their Google Maps and then go to these restaurants.’
But he insists they can still bury the hatchet: ‘If I sat in the pub and had a pint with the Topjaw guys, it wouldn’t be awkward.’
Another overt critic of the Topjaw oeuvre is Will Hosie, lifestyle editor of Country Life.
He recently decried ‘amateur opinions taken as gospel by those who no longer recognise the difference between someone with an iPhone and an expert.’
He explained: ‘What Topjaw produces is not a critique: it is the video equivalent of what we call an advertorial.
‘It is impossible for a critic to ever be entirely objective, but Topjaw are all subjective.
‘Mmmm’, ‘woooow’, ‘phwoaaaar’ – Jesse gushes to the camera whenever he shoves something into his mouth.’
If Toby Inskip, the man behind Eating with Tod, and his disastrous recent ‘Festive Feast’ event might be viewed as the Lidl of food vloggers, then Topjaw would surely rank at the Fortnum and Mason.
But they insist they are not just about expensive restaurants and have even told some of their celebrity guests that their tips are ‘too posh’.
This is despite the fact that some have claimed they are too posh themselves.
Warr, the son of farmers near Banbury, Oxfordshire, went to independent co-ed boarding Bloxham School, where fees these days top £50,000 a year, and studied product development at Loughborough University, working on the side as a freelance film-maker throughout his degree.
Burgess, meanwhile, grew up in Cambridgeshire and went to £43,000 a year Kimbolton School in Cambridgeshire with his mother a cabin crew member on private jets.
Originally he had his heart set on an acting career but at 17 he was spotted by a modelling scout on the King’s Road in Chelsea and signed up to Storm, the agency famously behind Kate Moss.
After several successful catwalk years, he began working with fellow ex-Storm model and Made in Chelsea star Jamie Laing star on his gourmet sweet-making start-up called Candy Kittens.
And that is where Burgess met Will Warr, quickly becoming best friends as they travelled around the country making promo videos for Laing.
‘It was like a university tour,’ Burgess told The Times. ‘Will and I were going to Liverpool together, making a video, and we thought, ‘This is really fun and we’re quite good at this.’
Flushed with the success of Topjaw, Jesse and Will are now both millionaires in their own right.
Producer Will is estimated to be worth £2million while Jesse has amassed £2.25million, bolstered by going ‘solo’ with his Apple TV venture.
Sir Idris Elba is one of the many A-listers interviewed by Burgess and Warr on Topjaw
Actress Florence Pugh was quizzed on her food opinions in one of Topjaw’s trademark rapid-fire segments
Kate Winslet is another megastar who has offered up her culinary thoughts to the Topjaw pair
Burgess and Warr have interviewed singer Ed Sheeran
Topjaw itself is valued at just over £450,000 and employs four people, while both Jesse and Will both have made significant property investments.
Will and his wife Sarah, 34, live with their three children in a house worth £1million in a leafy south London street, while Jesse and his would-be pop star wife Taura Lamb, 27, have a flat worth £1.5million in the A-list enclave of Swiss Cottage in London.
Burgess and Lamb had their wedding featured in British Vogue last year – a multi-day affair which first had a ceremony in the Fitzrovia Chapel in Westminster.
This was followed by a quiet celebration at nearby pub The George. ‘Rather than a sit-down meal, we opted for groaning platters of black pudding scotch eggs, fried chicken, celeriac skewers, iberico pork ribs and oysters,’ Jesse told Vogue.
Two days later the pair had an all-day knees-up at Old Sessions House in uber-cool east London and Jesse used all his contacts within the food world to wow his guests.
The affair began early with a wedding breakfast put on with the help of ‘food coordinator’ Helena Lewis.
And culminated in mains designed to share – ‘a white peach salad and slow cooked lamb shoulder, smoked Merguez ragu with fennel, crispy potato grilled Sicilian peppers and summer courgettes on whipped goats curd’.
Lamb peppers her social media with glamorous photographs of herself on holiday, but the majority of her recent pics are of her and Jesse looking loved-up, presumably while he films his latest Topjaw installament.
Meanwhile back in his leafy suburb, Will lives a far more domesticated life with wife Sarah and their young children.
Their social media is filled with idyllic scenes of playtime and outings familiar to most young middle class families in Britain.
They moved into their new home in January of last year and Will credits wife Sarah – who he owns a service business with – for the interior design of their ‘forever home’.
Will Warr and his wife Sarah live in a leafy suburb of south London
Topjaw really took off from 2019, when they made a film called ’48 Hours in Paris’ featuring cafes and restaurants on the recommendations of local Parisians – and it went viral.
Films in other cities such as Bangkok, Dubai, Los Angeles and Amsterdam soon followed, and as the interest grew, so did the advertising revenues.
Once established, the pair began searching for celebrities to give their videos added reach.
Topjaw was approached for comment.
