The (New) New York Times Restaurant Critic(s), and MORE Reviews

Give me five solid starred reviews a week!

The new New York Times Chief Restaurant Critics, Ligaya Mishan and Tejal Rao.

The search for a New York Times restaurant critic is always great fodder for the food writer gossip circuit. The palace intrigue of basically everything NYT staffing leads to questions about the viability of internal versus external candidates and whether or not the NYT would actually poach a working critic from a city like Los Angeles, Washington, DC, or San Francisco, where MacKenzie Chung Fegan has recently been putting in the work (which I wrote about in May). I had heard the name of the terrific NYT cultural critic Wesley Morris mentioned. I had heard that Pete Wells was going back to his old job (with adjustments). Insane. I had heard from a friend last week that both critics (they confirmed there would be two) were dudes.

When asked about the topic—and as the host of a weekly podcast, in which I am often speaking with working journalists and chefs, I was asked several times—I stood by the assumption that if the current temporary critics, Melissa Clark and Priya Krishna, wanted the gig, it was theirs to have. They’ve done a great job filling in, and on a recent This Is TASTE podcast episode, New York magazine’s Tammie Teclemariam and I talked about the new 100 Best Restaurants list the NYT published under Melissa and Priya’s watch.

The work Melissa and Priya put out as food critics was excellent but also narrow for two ambitious journalists who write across the world of food. In her pre-critic days, Priya had written about a controversial vegan food festival, celebrity coffee, and the impact of Asian grocery stores on American culture. Melissa is a recipe wizard who clearly enjoys dancing between Word docs filled with spice blend intel and more reported stuff (such as the legacy of Judith Jones). I wondered if the two of them had ambitions to report beyond the NYC restaurant world.

Yesterday I was thrilled with the news that the Times has indeed looked inward for its two new critics: Ligaya Mishan and Tejal Rao. As the NYT wrote in its announcement:

Mishan has been a contributor to The Times for 21 years. She wrote the Hungry City column from 2012 to 2020, as well as a variety of columns and articles for the Food section and T Magazine. Ms. Rao, currently a critic at large, joined The Times in 2016. She was previously a restaurant cook and a critic for The Village Voice and Bloomberg.

Solid, solid choices. Ligaya and Tejal are deeply skilled reporters with great taste and strong points of view regarding American dining. They also have stamina. Ligaya ran the Hungry City column for nearly a decade. I loved her writing about Le Succulent (RIP) in Park Slope. There are literally a hundred dispatches in this style if you go back and read Ligaya’s work in the archives. And Tejal is a reporting force. I had her on the podcast recently to talk about her excellent piece about Pasadena’s Panda Inn. Tejal gets it. I have had respect for both of their work for years and have known Tejal since her days working at the Village Voice. I’m excited that both of their new job descriptions expand beyond New York City restaurants. I am sure the Atlanta- and Seattle-based PR pros are sharpening their pitch emails right now.

But in my opinion, the biggest news to drop yesterday was buried in the announcement:

The editors said they were not “backing away from covering New York” and would add brief starred reviews from other writers to recommend more restaurants to readers.

The announcement is vague, but I got really excited about the idea of the NYT publishing more starred reviews. I’ve been talking to a lot of people about the lack of restaurant criticism coming from major publishers. These conversations are usually prefaced by strong opinions about the social media influencer age, and how the backseat / front-stoop TikTok reviewers have replaced professional critics in the worst possible way. Cheese pulls usually take a lot of Ls. I’ve also been talking a lot about how a true restaurant review—a funded critic dining out, then writing words about their experience—is almost like a public service for the restaurant industry. For publishers (like Vox Media, Dotdash Meredith, and Condé Nast) to ignore the form completely is disingenuous and short-sighted.

And restaurants themselves need starred reviews. They seek this validation from institutionally sponsored critical voices and stand to benefit from positive reviews. This is true not only for getting butts in seats (and a rave review will do that) but as productive feedback from the people whose opinions they value most, even if it’s delivered in the harshest tones.

Good for you, New York Times. My dream is a roster of roving NYC critics, some writing under Hungry City, others filing straight starred reviews. Give me five solid starred reviews a week! Maybe Wesley Morris would be one of the reviewers. Maybe Pete would jump back into the mix. Bring back Sam Sifton for a pinch hit! But mostly I’m excited to read the writer I don’t know yet.