New York City Officially Has a New Food Critic

New York restaurants will soon have another critic in the ranks: The New Yorker magazine announced Monday that the website will be expanding its food coverage, including hiring writer Hannah Goldfield as a food critic.

The magazine already runs a column called “Tables for Two” in print, a brief dispatch from restaurants around the city from rotating writers. But Goldfield will be a dedicated critic for the website, along with the addition of writer (and Eater alum) Helen Rosner, who will be a reporter and essayist, according to the announcement.

NewYorker.com’s editor Michael Luo tells Eater that the team anticipates Goldfield will most likely primarily write about New York City restaurants, but she may travel for criticism as well. Restaurant criticism at NewYorker.com may also encompass multiple restaurants at once to discuss broader ideas, Luo adds.

It will not be an expanded version of “Tables for Two,” and they’re also purposely not calling her a “restaurant critic,” though that will compose most of her duties, Luo says. Goldfield could write about food items, too. “I’m just riffing here, but if Trader Joe’s has a new candy bar that is all the rage, I could see Hannah (and Helen, too) writing about that as well,” Luo says.

The team plans to “experiment” with what the new food coverage will look like; currently, plans regarding standards — such as how many times she will dine at restaurants and the kinds of restaurants she will visit — are still in flux, Luo says.

But from the looks of it, anonymity — or whatever semblance of anonymity that any major NYC critic has — does not seem like a huge priority. Goldfield has been writing in New York for years, including for the New Yorker, the Times, and Grub Street. Her picture’s also already pretty easily Googleable. Eater has reached out to Goldfield.

“It’s a crowded field,” Luo says of restaurant criticism. “We’re trying to figure out where The New Yorker will fit in.”