Aileen Hall, who has died aged 85, was the deliciously sharp chief inspector of the Good Food Guide in what some have thought its glory years, in the 1970s under the editorship of Christopher Driver. She then became editor of Which? Wine Monthly, a newsletter that offered Britain’s drinkers unpatronising, broad-ranging and sensible advice on where best to spend their money for maximum pleasure.

Through a range of books, she put professional chefs’ recipes within the reach of home cooks, and, as Guardian wine correspondent in the 80s, she was among those who saw the greater potential for interesting writing on food and drink in the pages of a newspaper. Earlier in her life, she had also been an effective campaigner for the legalisation of contraception in Canada.

Daughter of Jean (nee Begby) and James Hall, Aileen was born, brought up and educated in Edinburgh. Her father was a commercial traveller. Aileen went to James Gillespie high school for girls, then Edinburgh University, and graduated with a degree in English and mathematics, and a diploma in education. She worked in schools in Scotland and the Channel Islands before moving in 1957 to Canada, where she taught maths and English in the industrial city of Oshawa on the shores of Lake Ontario.

In the federal elections of 1962 and 1963, Aileen stood as the left-of-centre New Democratic party candidate for Oshawa. Her friendship with the president of the Ontario branch of the party, George Cadbury, resulted in her taking on the role of executive director of Planned Parenthood of Toronto in 1967, an organisation founded by Cadbury’s wife, Barbara. Advocacy and encouragement of contraception, as well as the sale of contraceptive devices, were illegal in Canada until the repeal of the relevant laws in 1969, after a long struggle.

Aileen returned to Britain in 1970, to fill the post of chief inspector of the Good Food Guide, a publication then owned by the Consumers’ Association. It seems likely that her Canadian experience of politics and activism attracted her to the organisation. The guide itself, founded in 1951 by the socialist scholar and gourmand Raymond Postgate, had been a pioneer of consumer activism, and depended largely on the restaurant recommendations of thousands of private diners. The chief inspector’s role was to amplify or modify these reports, to inspect establishments for which no reports were forthcoming, to mobilise the elite group of supporters who had their dinners paid for by the guide in return for a record of their experience, and to impose some form of order on the guide’s offices and files.

Although strictly a gastronomic amateur, in keeping with the guide’s ethos, Aileen received intensive instruction from her formidable predecessor Hope Chenhalls, and proved an adept assessor of the varied styles of culinary endeavour then current in the UK. While long-established grand hotels and country inns still held their own, Britain’s better restaurants could be said to have fallen into three broad categories: those run by amateurs with enthusiasm and imagination (some failing to make the grade through ignorance, slapdash execution, or some form of madness or arrogance – the guide ever happy to point out these failings); those which presented foreign styles of cookery (the guide was an early advocate of the value of Indian and Chinese restaurants); and those which catered for the male diner, often on expense account, interested in splash for his cash.

A paragraph that Aileen wrote at about that time makes her view of the third category quite clear: “Not many women feel as easy in a restaurant as they do in their own kitchens, even if they are in male company. This is perhaps because they sense themselves in the presence of a rival. There is something essentially feminine about a good restaurant: it is womb-like, submissive, flattering and capricious. No wonder men sometimes fall for places which their wives – if they ever were taken along – would see through from the first mouthful. This is why some of the Good Food Guide’s most valued correspondents are women, who often notice more, taste more, and possess more technical knowledge than their escorts do.”

Woe betide any restaurateur who sought to bluff his or her way through manifest inadequacy, or indeed any waiter or sommelier. But Aileen was full of enthusiasm for those places that did their best. I recall even now the day that she came and inspected the restaurant in Dartmouth with which I was once connected. There was a sense of inquiry to the meal, a gentle test you might say, but once over, the delight in enjoyment, in sensory pleasure, and in shared objectives was palpable.

While with the guide, Aileen produced three cookery books under the pseudonym Hilary Fawcett. The first two, in combination with Jeanne Strang, were The Good Food Guide Dinner Party Book (1971) and The Good Cook’s Guide (1974) and the third, produced alone, was The Good Food Guide Second Dinner Party Book (1979). These brought together recipes from the guide’s recommended restaurants.

In 1984, Aileen moved to writing about wine, in particular editing Which? Wine Monthly (also published by the Consumers’ Association), which had grown out of the newsletter Drinker’s Digest, founded by Jancis Robinson. Her work at the Consumers’ Association led to many pieces on restaurants and drinks in the Times and the Guardian – she was the latter’s wine correspondent when Driver was editing the food pages.

Aileen was a member of the Guild of Food Writers, an honorary life member of the Circle of Wine Writers, received a Glenfiddich award for her wine journalism in 1987, and was a Dame de la Jurade de Saint-Emilion. But I shall remember her best as a fine cook in her own right, and a marvellous companion at table.

• Jemima Aileen Hall, food and wine writer and campaigner, born 23 May 1930; died 7 December 2015