Reviews

Restaurant review brand Zagat is set to change ownership from Google to restaurant discovery platform The Infatuation and get rejuvenated.

If you're not familiar with Tasty's cooking videos, you're not on Facebook. If you are familiar with their new cookbook, we're sorry.

This was an incredible year for cookbooks of all types. We’ve been devouring them ravenously and regularly, and the list of favorites just keeps growing.

Many media outlets recently have attempted to peek behind the thin veil of secrecy surrounding powerful New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells, from NPR's examination of his influence and emotional writing style to Thrillist's rollicking attempt to catch the anonymous reviewer in the act. But none have been so revealing as this in-depth New Yorker profile by writer…

Alexia had the opportunity to attend a dinner last week as part of Kid's Table, hosted by chef Claus Meyer. The younger sister of Food Republic's associate editor George Embiricos, Alexia recently turned 13 years old. Here's her (unedited) take on the experience.Last Tuesday, my friend and I had the amazing opportunity of dining at one of New York…

[embedImage=https://www.foodrepublic.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/PicMonkeyCollage2-700x469.jpg] The Food Republic office is made of cookbooks. There are walls of cookbooks, stacks of books next to the walls and a precarious pile wobbling on my desk no matter how often I pare it down. There is a cookbook for everyone, specifically this year, fans of dumping ingredients into one pot and calling it…

I lose all impulse control when I’m in a kitchen-supply store. The myriad cooking vessels and specialized tools trigger all my consumer pressure points and send me into an aspirational frenzy. During one of these recent bouts, I discovered a beautiful, clam-shaped pan known as a cataplana. Oddly shaped, made of copper and featuring locking…

A few years ago, music executive turned food blogger Steve Plotnicki set out to devise an all-new rating system for restaurants. He envisioned it as a more accessible alternative to the aloof views of the anonymous professional reviewers at Michelin Guide, but also better informed than the common gripes of the average joes on Yelp.…

[caption id="attachment_76624" align="alignnone" width="700" ] Yelp — with its “real people” and “real reviews” — might soon be up for sale.[/caption] Andrew Zimmern once called it “a forum for uninformed morons.” But the forum is also raking in visitors — over 140 million of them each month, to be exact. And perhaps most importantly, it…

My friend Rocom, master of the Game of Thrones T-shirt and all things In-N-Out, had a salad so bad he went right home and recorded a review just for Food Republic from his predictably untidy bedroom! And by golly, he's right. According to the menu on their website, Umami Burger's truffled beet salad is very…

Hans "The Ramen Rater" Lienesch has reviewed a lifetime's worth of instant ramen noodles.[/caption] Fun fact: instant ramen can also come with a laksa broth.[/caption] We’ve all grabbed a bowl or two of instant ramen noodles as we’ve run late to meetings, or suddenly found ourselves short on cash. It’s safe to say, however, that…

I interviewed Ruth Reichl yesterday for a podcast I do, "New Books in Food." Amongst the many interesting things she talked about on the occasion of the release of her first novel Delicious! was how long Bobby Flay might continue to cook nightly at his new downtown New York restaurant Gato while awaiting a visit…

In our last installment of Totally Serious Reviews On Amazon, we tackled what appeared to be a fundamental problem with sugar-free Haribo gummy bears. While unfortunate to the consumers, it was hilarious to us, which is why we're moving on to something else you should think twice about before attempting to digest: ghost chili hot…

New York City’s ongoing sushi transformation was officially validated yesterday, as Pete Wells of The New York Times awarded newcomer Sushi Nakazawa four stars (out of a possible four). The review marks the first four-star praise from the acting critic, and only the sixth restaurant in NYC to currently hold this highest grade. No small…

[caption id="attachment_70686" align="alignnone" width="700" ] This simple, lightweight machine churns out homemade pizzas in as little as five minutes.[/caption] First things first: there is no definitive answer to the question of what constitutes a proper pizza. My husband, a Midwest native, alternates between cracker-thin crusts and doughy deep-dish pies. As a New Yorker, I crave…

Yelp has been on a roll lately. Well, it’s not necessarily the site itself that has been garnering attention, but rather the strong opinions that have been voiced by both critics and proponents alike. Let’s take a look at some of the headlines that Yelp has made in the past week alone. Bizarre Foods host…

Whoever said that grilling season ends on Labor Day probably never lived in Las Vegas. Temperatures here are still in the 90s, and snow is our equivalent of a natural disaster. So when Bodum — yup, the coffee people — released its latest barbecue grill, I wasn’t going to wait until next summer to give…

Food Republic, like every other media outlet, gets lots of free junk sent its way. Publicists hope that if somebody who works there accidentally tries their products, it’ll get written about. Well, they are now right. The editors gave me a mystery box of food-related swag. I tried all of it. Agro Dolce (For Fast…

For a certain segment of the food-loving public, chefs — heck, line cooks — have surpassed rock stars as the people we idolize. These days, food writers, restaurant reviewers, vintners, purveyors and even caterers ride the wave of culinary stardom directly into the hearts, minds and reality TV casting couches of a hungry American public.…