Matthew Fort was educated at Eton College, Roedean School, the University of Lancaster and the University Of Pennsylvania.  He has been a keen cook for most of his adult life. For twenty years he worked as a copywriter and creative director for a variety of advertising agencies.  In 1986 he was invited to write a column about food in the Financial Times Saturday Review. In 1989 he was appointed Food & Drink Editor of the Guardian.

Since then he has written on a wide variety of largely food-related topics for a wide variety of publications including the Illustrated London News, Esquire, Vanity Fair, the Observer,  Business, Country Living, Country Homes & Interiors, Decanter, the Field, ES Magazine, Cuisine et Vins de France, Bon Appetit, and Waitrose Food Illustrated. 

He was Glenfiddich Food Writer of the Year and Restaurateurs’ Writer of the Year in 1991, and Glenfiddich Restaurant Writer of the Year in 1992, and Glendfiddich Cookery Writer of the Year in 2005.

He edited the Guardian Sausage Directory in 1992.  In 1998 he published Rhubarb & Black Pudding (Fourth Estate).  His second book, Eating Up Italy (Fourth Estate), was the Guild of Food Writers’ Book of the Year in 2005. His most recent book, about his gastronomic adventures in Sicily, Sweet Honey, Bitter Lemons (Ebury Press) won the Premio Sicilia Madre Mediterranea in 2009.  He was also awarded the Premio Antic Corte Pallavicina in 2008.