“So, how did you become a restaurant critic?”
People have been asking me that question for more than 36 years, ever since I started with the Orlando Sentinel in 1988. And I’ve always given the same answer: “I was lucky.”
That may sound flippant, but it’s true. In fact it was a series of lucky breaks that brought me to this profession.
I had gotten off my career path – scriptwriter, video producer – while I was living in Phoenix and was working the graveyard shift in room service at a swanky Scottsdale resort. One slow night I was reading the New Times, Phoenix’s alternative weekly, when I saw a full-page ad announcing the paper was seeking an editor for its soon-to-launch food section, to be called Chow. They wanted the section to be fun. They wanted an editor and writer who could make it fresh and entertaining. They wanted someone with experience – applicants were to send a resume and include clips.
I didn’t know what a clip was. But I thought, I know how to write, and I know how to cook (sort of). So I sat down at my typewriter and wrote a two-and-a-half page letter to whomever it may have concerned at New Times. I listed story ideas and wrote about how I thought the section could be different from the food sections of daily newspapers. I injected humor and closed the letter by saying I didn’t have any news clippings, “but this is how I write.”
Lucky break number one: I got the job.
Six months later, I lost it.
The paper’s publisher, of course, wanted a food section to tap into the substantial revenue of grocery ads. But grocery store owners tend to be conservative; alternative weeklies, well …there’s a reason they’re called alternative. And while my section was never salacious – debunking a rumor circulating in 1987 that Corona beer had urine in it was as eyebrow-raising as it got – it didn’t help that the main section of the paper would run stories about swingers parties in the time of AIDS. (Ironically, I had been assigned to go undercover to one such party as the husband of the woman who wrote the article, but I’ll save that story for another time.)
I didn’t see a plus side to losing my job then – especially the timing, one week before Christmas – but I’ve come to consider it another bit of good fortune.
In the brief time of my employment, I had decided I liked working for a newspaper and writing about food. One of the women I worked with at New Times had a bulging Rolodex (this was the eighties) with people she knew at newspapers around the country. She had a friend at the Orlando Sentinel who told her – more serendipity – the paper was looking for a new restaurant critic.
I sent off my resume – this time I had clips! – and about a week later was invited to Orlando for an interview. Not long after that, and despite having no experience in restaurant criticism, I was offered the job.
Even luckier: The deputy managing editor who hired me called me from Philadelphia where she was herself accepting a new position. I was her last hire for the Sentinel. Her successor once told me that had he already been in the position he would have rejected my application because I didn’t have a journalism degree.
It’s true I hadn’t gone to a J-school, but I got to work with a lot of talented journalists who had, and they graciously taught me the things I hadn’t yet learned, such as to never bury the lede.
Which is exactly what I’ve done here.
Today I am announcing my retirement from my job as a full-time restaurant critic.
It’s the culmination of a 36-year career – 20 at the Sentinel and 16 at this website – in which I’ve written nearly 4,000 reviews, plus numerous feature stories, columns and informational articles. I’ve enjoyed watching the Central Florida culinary community grow, and I’ve been privileged to have played a part in that growth, including advocating for nonsmoking restaurants, changing laws to allow smaller businesses to serve liquor, and championing the talents of local chefs and the high quality of their restaurants to a world that saw us as having nothing to offer but chain eateries.
I always found joy in telling you about a wonderful, new, out-of-the-way place in a positive review. And I hope you’ll know that the negative reviews were written not to be mean but to help the restaurant – and others – learn and become better. (One thing you may not have known is that I visited many, many lesser-known restaurants with subpar food and service and did not write about them, because it has been my policy that I didn’t have to tell you not to go to someplace you already weren’t going to.) I’ve always considered myself to be more of an ally than an adversary, and I was honored to receive the Award of Culinary Excellence from the Central Florida Chapter of the American Culinary Federation.
I’m proud of my association with the chefs and restaurateurs and of what our Central Florida restaurant community has become, especially its diversity of cuisines.
You may have noticed that I mentioned I was retiring as a “full-time” critic. This website is not going away. Neither am I. I will still publish news articles and restaurant reviews, just not with the same regularity. The hundreds of restaurant listings will be maintained, and I hope they will continue to be a resource for you.
There was one last bit of good fortune in my career. I left the Sentinel in 2008 at a time when readers were just getting used to the notion of getting information not only from print but digitally. I’m honored that so many of you followed me from the newspaper to the “flog” and that you’ve stayed with me for so long. Thank you for trusting me to be your guide for nearly four decades.
Technology has allowed me to keep the content flowing, sometimes from around the world. From London I broke the story that Kevin Fonzo had sold K restaurant; I interviewed Kevin Dundon in Ireland from a flat in Paris when he announced he was leaving Raglan Road; I banged out an exclusive that Enzo’s on the Lake had been sold minutes after checking into my hotel in New York; and I wrote an obituary for restaurateur Chris Christini on a train from London to Cornwall.
But no matter where I was, I was tasked with the daily writing of regularly scheduled reviews and the publishing of newsy nuggets, striving to always keep the content fresh. Instead of getting up and heading to my office or to the hotel lobby or finding a coffeeshop with internet access, I think I’d like to try sleeping in.
But I’m not through yet.
You may begin to see a shift in content here. As many of you know, I’ve been traveling a lot, and for my next chapter I want to share my experiences by organizing and leading culinary tours and cruises. I’ve had the enjoyment of leading journeys in Paris, Lyon and New York. I have plans to return to those cities, as well as London, Rome and Florence, and to partner with cruise lines that will take us to ports to visit local markets, experience cafes and restaurants, and learn how to cook regional dishes: bouillabaisse in Marseilles, cassoulet in Carcassonne. I hope you’ll join me. I think it’s going to be exciting.
Wish me luck.
