The LO Times is a food media newsletter tailored for New York's great restaurant comeback — an era that also coincides with rising prices, sky-high rents, and mass layoffs in media, finance, tech, and elsewhere. We publish reviews, news reports and analyses, best of lists, food media roundups, and other stories. The LO Times is a Substack "featured publication" and bestseller. As the founding editor I'm fully responsible for all social and SEO strategies, as well as integrating Substack metrics with Google analytics to make actionable decisions on content.

I teach students the foundations of food journalism, food business journalism, and restaurant criticism, including the basics of sensory-based writing (olfactory, tactile, auditory, visual, and gustatory imagery), with guidance on how to taste food and understand basic flavor pairings. Equally importantly, my course teaches students how to grapple with pressing issues in the food world, diving deep into readings and debates on appropriation, representation, gentrification, race, privilege, ethics, labor, harassment, and sustainability.

I reviewed restaurants for Eater. I authored numerous op-eds about policy and labor issues impacting bars and restaurants. I reported on inflation, pricing, COVID, legislative developments in the hospitality industry, and I published cultural criticism, features, essays, and trend pieces about the larger culinary world. I also developed an editorial strategy for our Michelin coverage and edited labor stories.I won the James Beard Craig Claiborne Award for distinguished restaurant criticism in 2015 and I was nominated for that same award in 2016 and 2020. My review of Arpege helped secure Eater an Ellie award (ASME) for our France package in 2017; my essay on beef jerky helped Eater win another ASME in 2022 as part of our gas station package. In 2020, I received the criticism award from the national Association of Food Journalists. My profile of Phillip Foss was selected as an entry in Best American Food Writing 2015.

I tracked restaurant prices throughout the country, interviewed chefs on inflationary pressures, and reported on efforts to rethink tipping and gratuities. The Price Hike had over 28,000 Tumblr followers. I also founded a criticism-based website called The Bad Deal that had nearly 200,000 Tumblr followers.

I reviewed restaurants in print and on the radio. I also wrote food-related columns for Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Businessweek. I frequently spoke on Bloomberg Radio and WNYC/National Public Radio as part of my duties, and served as the lead editor on the Lewis Lapham podcast.In addition to my responsibilities as a food critic, I was also a senior writer at Bloomberg Pursuits, the company's global lifestyle publication. For Pursuits, I authored long-form restaurant pieces about Gustu in Bolivia, vegetable tasting menus in California, as well as features about the impact of technology on cocktail culture.

Reported on company earnings calls, focusing on financial and retail sectors, and also reported on major government news conferences/hearings related to finance and economic data. This occurred concurrently with my food criticism, which did not start full time until 2012. I also regularly served as the chief editor of the Lewis Lapham podcast until 2014 or thereabouts.

I wrote and edited reports on landmines, an issue that straddles international humanitarian law during wartime, traditional rights during peacetime, and economic and social rights throughout. I worked with on-the-ground researchers throughout the Eurasian continent and corresponded with them in Russian.

I was a staff writer for the famed television show, pitching and writing voice-over scripts on a variety of issues related to politics, foreign policy, economics, sports, and culture.