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How to become a food critic
Does tasting and writing about delicious (and not so delicious!) food sound like a dream job? Well, being a food critic involves just that. But the job is competitive and not well paid.
However, if dreaming up snarky take-downs for terrible restaurants or creative praise for amazing grub sounds like your ideal role, read on to find out how to be a food critic.
'Being able to write clearly and creatively is the most important skill for a food critic. Here's how to become one'
What is a food critic?
A food critic tastes and tests lots of different dishes and drinks at restaurants, cafes, takeaways… any establishment serving food, really. They then produce written and video reviews capturing their opinion on the experience.
They consider elements like food quality, how it’s presented, the restaurant service and the atmosphere. Readers use these reviews to figure out whether they’d like to try a particular food joint for themselves.
What do food critics do?
review
Some of the tasks of a food critic could include:
- Writing (or increasingly, filming) original, creative content that accurately represents a restaurant.
- Meeting deadlines.
- Filming or photographing food and restaurant.
- Researching different restaurants and keeping up to date with new chefs and food trends.
- Attending promotional events.
There are some full-time food critic jobs but these are very rare. It’s more common that food critics work on a freelance basis, meaning they sell their articles to websites, blogs and magazines on a contract basis.
What skills do I need? Is being a food critic right for me?
Being able to write clearly and creatively is the most important skill for a food critic. Here are some other abilities that will come in handy if you want to be a food critic…
- Communication skills.
- Time management
- Organised and able to meet deadlines.
- Creative thinking skills.
- Persistent, adaptable and outgoing: you’ll have to be determined, pitch your ideas to editors, and bounce back in the face of rejection.
- A real love of food and a good palate!
When considering if becoming a food critic is the right path for you, remember that it tends to be badly paid, at least in the beginning. It’s very competitive. It’s hard to break in to: you have to build a brand around your writing so that editors recognise your work and want to hire you to write more reviews. It requires a lot of persistence and dedication.
How do I become a food critic?
important tip is to develop your own writing
There’s no one path to becoming a food critic. Some have a journalism background, others have a background in food. Here are some tips for getting started…
- Practice and develop your own writing in any way you can – maybe that’s a blog, social media or even TripAdvisor. Try to develop your own style and tone of voice rather than copying others.
- Eat! Try lots of different restaurants and eateries – it doesn’t have to be fancy high-end places.
- Contact publications and websites you like to see if they accept freelance restaurant reviews. Send them a pitch or an idea. Be creative and take the initiative!
Here are some words of wisdom from one of the country’s top food critics, Jay Rayner:
“Learn to write. Become a journalist. Train. Take a course. Freelance. All of that. Write about anything and everything and later on you might be able to move sideways into food writing. But let me be clear: the restaurant critic’s job is very hard to come by. Most of us – me, Giles Coren, Matthew Norman, AA Gill, John Walsh, Tracey McLeod – wrote about anything and everything before being offered the post, and still do. There are fewer than a dozen of those jobs in the country and only a couple pay a proper wage. My column is about 20% of my income. The rest comes from general feature writing/ books/ TV etc. And it has taken me 25 years to get here. There are no easy solutions.”
And a few more tips from leading restaurant critic Marina O’Laughlin…
“Write, write and write some more. Create a blog and put it in front of people whose opinion you respect – much easier now that you can contact people via social media. Make sure it’s in your own unique voice rather than trying to ape any heroes. And read too – all you can get your hands on. Pitch regularly, and don’t be deterred by rejection – it happens to all of us. But also remember that there are only about five people in the whole of the UK who make a living out of being a restaurant critic (I'm not keen on the expression ‘food critic’ as it makes me think of people who sniff plates, and I'm more about restaurants as a whole). So, if that’s your heart’s desire, prepare to create your own niche rather than chase one of the existing ones. I’m afraid those of us lucky enough to have a regular gig are holding onto it for dear life.”
