Adrian Anthony Gill was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on June 28, 1954. He studied at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London and at the Slade School, but did not graduate from either. A series of odd jobs followed as he descended into alcoholism. After entering a rehabilitation program in 1984 and joining Alcoholics Anonymous, he taught cooking classes. He wrote a short article about his recovery for Tatler's Good Rehab Guide and was hired as a food writer and essayist.
In 1993, he was hired by The Sunday Times. He wrote about television, travel, and politics before taking over Table Talk, the newspaper's weekly restaurant column. His travel writing and foreign reporting were collected in A. A. Gill Is Away and A. A. Gill Is Further Away. His other books included Sap Rising, The Ivy: The Restaurant and Its Recipes, Le Caprice, Breakfast at the Wolseley: Recipes from London's Favorite Restaurant, Grand Cafe, The Golden Door: Letters to America, and Table Talk: Sweet and Sour, Salt and Bitter. His autobiography, Pour Me: A Life, was published in 2015. He died from lung cancer on December 10, 2016 at the age of 62.
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