This woman was New York magazine’s first ever restaurant critic

This woman was New York magazine’s first ever restaurant critic. She had no culinary training and zero restaurant background.

Gael Greene wrote a freelancer article for the Herald Tribune about a French restaurant opening. The founding editor of the New York Magazine read it, and saw a unique fly-on-the-wall style. He tracked her down and while the salary wasn’t great, it offered unlimited free dining, so she said yes.

Having no critic’s training, she approached it like any other reporting, who, what, why, where, when.

To keep herself anonymous, she wore big hats pulled low and made reservations under fake names. It was a completely new way to write about food.

The Chicago Tribune called it “the industry standard for sensuous, brilliant and bitchy food writing.”

She did that for 40 years, transforming the style of the genre. Before her restaurant criticism was matter-of-fact. She made herself a character in the reviews, writing about food the way she wrote about everything else in her life.

In 1981, she read a Times article about elderly New Yorkers going without food on weekends, so she called some contacts. She raised $35,000 in days and co-founded Citymeals on Wheels with James Beard.

Citymeals now delivers two million meals a year.

She changed how New York thinks about food. Then she made sure New Yorkers got to eat.

Видео This woman was New York magazine’s first ever restaurant critic канала She Shapes History NYC