Jonathan Gold (1960-2018)

Jonathan Gold (1960-2018)

Guest/Host, Good Food on the Road

Jonathan Gold was the restaurant critic and columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Gold also hosted KCRW's Good Food on the Road.

His love of all things gastronomical has taken him from the LA Weekly (where he started as a proofreader in 1982), to the Los Angeles Times (1990-1996, where he wrote his Counter Intelligence column), to Gourmet (where he was the magazine's New York restaurant critic) and back to the LA Weekly (where he worked for more than a decade). In 2012, he returned to the L.A. Times. If you follow the LA food scene, you know about Gold's ability to find and savor Uzbek, Korean, Peruvian and Islamic Chinese cuisine. He discovered the only Trinidadian restaurant in Inglewood.

In 2007 Gold won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism — the first win for a food writer – and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2011 as well. He has been honored twice as a National Magazine Award finalist in criticism by the American Society of Magazine Editors.

"He sees Los Angeles as 'the anti-melting pot' — the home of true, undiluted regional cookery — but also has a fondness for what he calls the 'triple carom': the Cajun seafood restaurant that caters to Chinese customers and is run by Vietnamese from Texas," Dana Goodyear wrote in a 2009 profile of Jonathan in the New Yorker. He is, Goodyear added, "sly and erudite, withdrawn in person and in print exuberant."

Photo Credit: Duston Todd

Jonathan Gold (1960-2018) on KCRW

Journalist Jervey Tervalon remembers his long friendship with late food critic Jonathan Gold in a poem.

A lifetime of friendship with Jonathan Gold

Journalist Jervey Tervalon remembers his long friendship with late food critic Jonathan Gold in a poem.

from Good Food on the Road

Zach Brooks talks about what it meant to read Jonathan Gold’s review of Vespertine, one of LA’s more controversial restaurant openings in recent memory.

Zach Brooks: The impact of Jonathan Gold's review of Vespertine

Zach Brooks talks about what it meant to read Jonathan Gold’s review of Vespertine, one of LA’s more controversial restaurant openings in recent memory.

from Good Food on the Road

Writer Tien Nguyen remembers when Jonathan Gold defended his love of the San Gabriel Valley noodle shops against critics.

Tien Nguyen: Jonathan Gold on Nha Trang

Writer Tien Nguyen remembers when Jonathan Gold defended his love of the San Gabriel Valley noodle shops against critics.

from Good Food on the Road

More from KCRW

"I look at the tortilla and work with its natural texture. It becomes a collaboration where the tortilla may suggest things."

from Good Food

California is investing millions to change the way kids eat at school. Learn how one SoCal program is turning kids on to fresh produce, one watermelon at a time.

from Greater LA

When detective-fiction devotee Karen Pierce couldn't find a cookbook devoted to Agatha Christie, she decided to write her own.

from Good Food

As he keeps racking up awards while shining a light on Native foodways, chef Sean Sherman hasn't forgotten his roots on the Pine Ridge reservation.

from Good Food

From "no one asked for this" to "put this in your face right now," we tasted a bunch of pumpkin spice foods so you don’t have to.

from Good Food

A taste of a "real" taco blows the mind and opens the heart of a sheltered, suburban teenage weirdo.

from Good Food

We tend to focus on new cookbooks, but older ones are a treasure trove of tastiness and history.

from Good Food

Through trial and error, KCRW recording engineer PJ Shahamat learns to cook biryani in the new video game, Venba.

from Good Food

Maggie Harrison describes the "maniacal rigor" with which she seeks out beauty through winemaking.

from Good Food