Ruth Reichl, for example, is frequently described as a food writer/editor who functioned as the "restaurant critic" for The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times during her career. She has also been called a "gastronomer" and a "food philosopher."
Reichl was born on January 11, 1953 in Cleveland, Ohio. She received her bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1975 and went on to earn a master's degree from Oxford University in 1978. In 1979, she began writing about food for The New York Times, where she worked for eight years before moving to California. There, from 1990 to 2006, she wrote about food for The Los Angeles Times.
Besides being a restaurant critic, Reichl has written other articles for such publications as Gourmet, Travel + Leisure, Vanity Fair, Vogue, The Smithsonian Magazine, and The New Yorker. She has also published two books: Kitchen Confidential (2000) and Tender at the Bone (2003).
In 2007, Reichl left her position with The Los Angeles Times to start her own company, which provides content marketing services to businesses in the food industry. She continues to write about food and drink, including restaurants that she visits, but now does so independently of a newspaper or other publication.
A food critic is a professional writer who tests and evaluates food. They are sometimes known as food writers or restaurant critics. Food critics usually visit several restaurants, order a variety of foods, and write about their experiences. Food critics may be hired by newspapers, journals, blogs, and websites. Some popular food critics include Jonathan Gold of the Los Angeles Times, Michael Bauer of The Washington Post, Tom Sietsema of the New York Times, and Mimi Kirkpatrick of San Francisco Magazine.
Food critics tend to fall into two categories: restaurant reviewers and food journalists. Restaurant reviewers focus on a specific area of the country or world where they can find good food at affordable prices. While this may mean visiting many different restaurants over time, it also means that they often have first hand knowledge about what kinds of things make for successful meals in those places. By contrast, food journalists review restaurants while covering some other topic within their field. For example, a food journalist might cover all types of cooking methods while eating out on her/his budget.
Restaurant reviewers usually receive an honorarium from the place they review. This may take the form of free meals or discounts during their visits. However many freelancers provide their own meals when writing about their experiences.
In addition to reviewing restaurants, food critics may also report on them. This may be done with a simple column titled "Reviews" or it may be part of a larger story.
She began New York magazine's restaurant critic in the fall of 1968, at a time when most New Yorkers were uninformed about food and few chefs were known by name, and throughout the next four decades, she both recorded and encouraged the city's and America's developing love with food. She was a trailblazing "foodie."
Greene was born in New York City on January 4, 1938. Her father was an investment banker and her mother was a homemaker. She has one brother. When she was five years old, the family moved to Great Neck, Long Island, where they remained for three years before moving back to Manhattan. She attended St. Bernard's School and then went to Vassar College, from which she graduated with honors in English in 1958. She then worked as a copywriter for McCann Erickson before joining New York magazine as a fashion editor in 1969. She left that position two years later to concentrate on writing about food, and she has not returned to work behind a desk since.
Besides being a restaurant reviewer, Greene has also written about wine, dance, art, and theater. She first came to public attention as the woman who had an affair with Frank Sinatra's friend Tony Martin. The story broke in 1992 after Greene wrote about it in her book, I'm Not Your Mother, Don't Be Like Me.
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