Florence Fabricant’s work has shaped the food media establishment. She’s been writing about food and restaurant news for the New York Times since 1972, largely through the now-defunct Front Burner column as well as the ongoing Off the Menu column, in addition to writing 12 cookbooks. Meanwhile, Keith Lee, who got his start as a mixed martial arts fighter, is one of the most recognizable faces of food media’s new guard. His food review videos have earned him over 17 million followers on TikTok. Despite their differences in medium, during a recent conversation with Eater, the two found common ground in their approach to criticism and the changing food scene.
Florence Fabricant: What drove me into a food career — and I wasn’t thinking of it as a career, I was thinking of it as a megaphone — was the notion of farm-to-table. I was out in East Hampton for the summer. I was between jobs and I would see people buying these dreadful, pink, hard things called tomatoes and iceberg lettuce wrapped in cellophane — when you could go half a mile away and there, on somebody’s card table, were delicious, gorgeous homegrown tomatoes and beautifully ruffled lettuces. I said, “Somebody has got to set people straight.”
I proposed a food column for the weekly newspaper called In Season, mainly about seasonal produce. Within six months, I was getting assignments from the [New York] Times. And lo and behold, I had a career — at a time when a food career was really not something that people with a college education would have strived for, but there I was and I never looked back.
“I had this career at a time when a food career was really not something that people with a college education would have strived for.“
Keith Lee: I’ve been a professional fighter for 10 years; I turned pro at the age of 18. I dropped out my freshman year in college and went directly into professional fighting. But food has always been extremely important to me.
MMA and wrestling are the home of foodies, because everything revolves around weight. Back when I was fighting, I would be anywhere from 160 to 175 [pounds] and whenever they would call me, I would have to drop from whatever weight I was to 135 [pounds]. The way I would do that was by focusing and dialing in on my food, whether it be through meal prepping or getting a food scientist or dietitian. Eventually, one thing led to another, where I was recording myself to get comfortable in front of the camera so I could do MMA interviews. That sparked me being on social media.
FF: There was no social media when I got started. My social media was the newspaper and to a large extent, it still is.
KL: It’s pretty similar. Like you said, you just went and got a job at the local newspaper; I pretty much just started recording myself and talking about food. At first, it was me cooking for my wife when she was pregnant, and me cooking for myself when I was going to practice because I would make myself eat anywhere from three to four meals a day.
FF: Food was not always at the center the way it was today. When I started at the New York Times, people on the foreign desk or the Washington bureau would say, “Why are we reporting on food? That’s not important.” Well, guess what? Food is driving the profit center at the Times these days. Food is important and everybody wants to cover it and it’s an incredible revolution.
KL: I’ve always been a foodie. I don’t really have the experience of somebody who didn’t grow up with that [mindset] because I was born in ’96. I was on Vine; I was on Instagram when Instagram first started first rolling out videos. Food has always been a corner of the internet.
“Food has always been a corner of the internet.”
FF: Keith, you and I do share a certain background in that regard. My parents were foodies. We lived just north of the city. My parents went to new restaurants all the time and took me along as a kid. My mother was a good cook. I grew up in a family where food was really important, but not too many people of my generation — unlike yours, where everybody is obsessed — were foodies, so to speak.
Now, in my columns, I know what the guardrails are: what’s expected and what the editors and the New York Times want readers to know. As much fun as it might be to give a negative critique of a product, you have to take into account that you have X number of words or lines to fill, and why waste it on something you’re not recommending? I did reviews at one time. If it was a little hole in the wall and it was terrible, why bother?
There isn’t a mandate to only do good news, but at the same time you have to take into account you’ve got a limited amount of space, and you have to fill this space with stuff that’s worthwhile for the reader. If it’s a very big, well-known restaurant or an important product with important people behind it, and it is something I wouldn’t recommend, in a circumstance like that, yes, I would cover it. But something inconsequential that isn’t worth recommending is not something that I would waste copy on.
PEDEN+MUNK
KL: In a similar sense, we go to mom-and-pop shops, but we also go to places that are staples in the community, and we go to places that are from different cultures and different backgrounds. All of those are either recommended or places where we’re personally invited. My intention behind that is to avoid the “nobody invited you” response, because if we just go to random spots and we give our unsolicited opinion, that’s normally the response that’s warranted.
I choose to not post about something if I can’t give what I feel like is constructive criticism. Even if it’s deemed negative but I feel like I have some constructive criticism, then I’ll still post it. But if it’s a mom-and-pop shop or if it’s a small restaurant that I don’t personally like, there’s no point in sending negativity their way for no reason, especially if I feel like it can’t be constructive.
FF: Something else that drives my decisions: I’m in the business of news, and I love discovering stuff [that’s new to me], and I love being first to write about something. I had an opportunity to try Thomas Keller’s food when he had this restaurant, Rakel, in Soho [opened in 1986]. It was a time when chefs were scattering blueberries all over everything with no meaning, and I found his food had real purpose in terms of its flavors and choices that he made and technique and so forth. I proposed writing about him for the Times magazine. While I was interviewing Thomas, he said to me — and he remembers this — “Why do you want to write about me?” I said, “I think you’re talented and I want to write about you before anybody else does.” That kind of drives my approach.
“I choose to not post about something if I can’t give what I feel like is constructive criticism.”
KL: See, I don’t necessarily have that same drive. When we were only going to mom-and-pops that were unknown, a lot of people in the community felt like we were going to places that didn’t encapsulate what the city’s food scene had to offer. We started going to places that other people have gone to before.
My initial driving force in doing mom-and-pop shops is because we don’t charge restaurants [for coverage]. The very first restaurant to ever reach out to us said that they were on the verge of closing and they had no idea where they were going to get the next month’s rent, because they were getting two to three customers a day. [People were] trying to charge them anywhere from $3,000 to $4,000 to make a video, with no guarantee of what was gonna happen. We decided to do it for free and continue that model whenever we go to restaurants.
Initially it was the mom-and-pop spots, but my approach has changed to highlight the food scene in a city, not necessarily saying if it’s good or bad. Some people take it like that, but for me, I just take it as showing places that might be in food deserts or might not get recognition the way that it deserves. We also just left Portland and Portland has an amazing food scene. Have you been, Miss Florence?
FF: No, I have to confess that Portland, Oregon, is one of the few cities that has escaped me. We were supposed to go and something happened and we have not gotten there. I’ve been to the Pacific Northwest and to the Seattle area. I’ve been to wineries deep into the state of Washington and Colorado and California. Somehow we’ve missed Oregon and it’s still on the list.
KL: Oregon has an amazing food scene. It’s in my top three for sure. Houston was my No. 3, but Oregon has taken over that spot. I think that’s what people have come to expect from us now: highlighting the food scene within each city.
FF: It’s interesting. When I started, very few cities had a food scene and it’s now reached a point where every city, it seems, has one. It’s amazing to see what’s happening. Of course, being in New York, we’re kind of in a hotbed. But I’ll say this, when I started, you could name maybe three restaurants in Brooklyn. Now, Brooklyn is a food scene unto itself and it’s exciting and really interesting to see. It’s happening everywhere, wherever people are interested in food. Chefs, they’re all driven and they want to do their best and be creative and I appreciate all of that. Sometimes the effort falls flat, and whether or not I write about it depends on circumstances.
KL: I would say the evolution of what we cover changes based on more feedback and personal experience. It’s all just a natural evolution. Social media and food in general is always, forever changing. The people who can change with the system and not get stuck in one specific way [of doing things] are the ones who are able to continue to have longevity. I feel like that’s everything: not only food, but with life. As long as you can adapt, longevity is almost guaranteed.
FF: Well, at the moment, I think I’m pretty well-set with what I do. I’m not looking to spread my wings in a great measure. My focus, of course, is how the New York restaurant scene is evolving and changing. What I’ve seen, for example, this year, is a number of high-end Caribbean restaurants. Caribbean food, particularly in Manhattan, was sort of limited to certain neighborhoods and the outer boroughs.
Now you have important chefs who are born in the islands, who may have gone to culinary school, who are opening restaurants of prestige and featuring Caribbean food. I think that that’s fabulous, because it doesn’t have to all be French, Italian, fancy Chinese, or “American,” if you will. I think that broadening, as I’ve seen it, the palate in all kinds of neighborhoods with all kinds of cuisines is going to continue, and it’s going to flourish even more than ever.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Shot on location at the Blue Room at the Nine Orchard Hotel in New York City
Featured ceramic artwork by Marc Calello, Lindsey Lou Howard
Prop stylist: Sarah Smart
Food stylist: Judy Kim
Hair & makeup artists: Lauren Bridges, Tiffany Patton
Wardrobe stylist: Marcello Flutie
Retoucher: Tomika Davis
Props: Bordallo Pinheiro, Houses & Parties
