The State of Food Writing in Tampa
May 13th, 2007
Since the last time I posted to this site, the world of food writing in Tampa has changed quite a bit. Yes, It’s been a while since you’ve heard from me, but I’m hoping you can cut me some slack. Brian Reis is still banging out solid restaurant reviews week after week for Creative Loafing. The Tampa Tribune still has a pretty weak and unknown food critic (I generally don’t waste my time reading them), but the biggest news is the retirement of Chris Sherman, the longtime restaurant critic and food writer for the St. Pete Times. It seems all of the dining out, eating and drinking got the best of him and he decided to step down into other writing roles that didn’t require him to eat as much. It’s probably the best for him, but with his retirement I’m afraid we may have lost the foundation for food writing in Tampa.
For several weeks, the St. Pete Times had several guest writers take turns writing restaurant reviews before they finally chose Laura Reiley, a local writer and author of Florida Travel books. I’ve only read a couple of her columns, so the jury is still out on her expertise in the food world. That being said, I realized that we’re in trouble after reading her glowing review of two brand new chain restaurants making their debuts in Tampa. Yea, you read me right, chain restaurants as a review in the paper. Is she kidding?
I can understand a review of a higher class chain restaurant, like Ruth’s Chris or Roy’s, but the fact that she chose to write a column so early in her tenure about two mediocre, mid priced chains is alarming. I’m not really sure where we are headed, but I don’t like the looks of it. Another noteworthy retirement is that of Matt Ragas, a New Orleans native who’d been writing the food reviews for Sticks of Fire, a popular Tampa blog. When I first moved here and was featured in the New York Times, Tommy at Sticks of Fire did a neat little article about me that created quite a buzz. Unfortunately Matt will be moving out of the area in a couple weeks and guess who has stepped in to write a weekly food column? Yes, it’s me. Check out the site often and keep an eye out for some exciting talk about food in the Tampa Bay area. Just in case you miss a post, I’ll re-post everything here as an archive of my food writing. See you soon!
