Iconic and award-winning New York Times food critic, Gourmet editor, chef, and bestselling author of cookbooks, memoirs, and The Paris Novel.
Iconic and award-winning New York Times food critic, Gourmet editor, chef, and bestselling author of cookbooks, memoirs, and The Paris Novel, to take the SVAF stage in May
Trailblazing food writer and legendary restaurant critic Ruth Reichl came of age with the American food revolution in the 1960s and 1970s. As chef and co-owner of The Swallow Restaurant from 1974 to 1977, she played a part in the culinary revolution that was taking place in Berkeley and beyond. She wrote her first cookbook at age 23 and has been writing about food ever since. Reichl was the restaurant critic for the LA Times and then the New York Times. She joined Gourmet magazine as editor-in-chief for 10 years until it closed in 2009. She has written 12 celebrated books, including several cookbooks, five memoirs, and two novels.
Reichl’s latest book, The Paris Novel, takes readers on an adventure of food, art, and fashion in Paris in the 1980s. The New York Times bestseller was named A Best Book of the Year by Saveur and Food & Wine magazines.
Reichl is considered one of the nation’s greatest food writers. She has been honored with six James Beard Awards, and in 2024, she received the James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award. She served as co-producer of PBS’s Gourmet’s Diary of a Foodie and host of PBS’s Gourmet’s Adventures.
Reichl’s other books include the memoirs Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table, Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table, Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise, Not Becoming My Mother, and Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir. Her book, My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life, was a memoir of recipes prepared in the year following the shuttering of Gourmet. Reichl’s landmark cookbook, Gourmet Today, is 1,000 pages and features more than 1,000 recipes.
Reichl holds a B.A. and an M.A. in art history from the University of Michigan and lives in New York City with her husband, Michael Singer, a television news producer.
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