Frank Bruni is the anonymous food critic for the NY Times. This month he is slated to give up his post and move over to do some more food writing at NY Times Magazine. No word yet on who will be replacing him. However, he has been taking this transitional time to promote his new book Born Round which among other things, deals with his battle with bulimia.
However, the really super cool part is that he allowed a current photograph of himself to be released with an interview with Publishers Weekly. In the 5 years he has served as senior food critic, there have been absolutely no known photos of Bruni. Not even on Wikipedia. Until now. Now anytime he walks into a new restaurant he will likely be instantly recognized and of course, catered to. Or every chef who ever got a bad review will now know his face. And can start sharpening their knives.
Julie... Sam Sifton replaces Bruni in October. The New York Times made the announcement, and it's been heavily reported, this past week.
ReplyDeleteAlso, a simple search on Google will bring up several pictures of Bruni. Especially after restaruant mogul Jeffrey Chodorow banned the critic from his establishments:
ReplyDeletehttp://gawker.com/239995/bounty-on-bruni-continues-to-grow
Sam Sifton was announced last Wednesday. Sloppy journalism on my part. My apologies.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.slashfood.com/2009/08/05/sam-sifton-to-replace-frank-bruni-as-new-york-times-dining-criti/
The photo of Bruni was news-worthy for two reasons: (1) historical precedent of the anonymous critic being unveiled at the end of his tenure and (2) Bruni in particular has been much speculated upon, despite only being "anonymous" for a year. Older photos of him are available but don't actually look all that much like him. This is the first current one, hence why Chodorow offered a "bounty" on the hopes that his employees would be able to identify Bruni. While this may be a bit over-dramatized in the way of all NYC-centic news, (how much can one person really change in 5 years) I personally found it to be exciting and newsworthy (as did HuffPo, Eater, NY Mag, Village Voice...). The next piece of the story seems to be that Sam Sifton is so widely known as the Culture Editor that anonymity may actually now be a thing of the past for food critics. Discuss: http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/allyoucaneat/2009/08/10/restaurant_critic_get_out_anon.html