Who is The Food Maven?

This is me in my Connecticut kitchen. © Photo Don Heiny

    The New York Times Magazine called Arthur Schwartz “a walking Google of food and restaurant knowledge.” As the restaurant critic and executive food editor of the New York Daily News, which he was for 18 years, he was called The Schwartz Who Ate New York. Nowadays, he is best known as The Food Maven, the name of his website. Whatever the sobriquet, he is acknowledged as one of the country’s foremost experts on food, cooking, culinary history, restaurants, and restaurant history.

    Over the 37 years of his career, he has written five award-winning cookbooks, including his latest, “Arthur Schwartz’s New York City Food: An Opinionated History with Legendary Recipes,” which was named 2005 Cookbook of the Year by the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP), as well as best book on an American subject. It was also nominated for a James Beard book award.

    His previous book, “Naples at Table: Cooking in Campania,” not only hit the Los Angeles Times “Hot List,” the nation’s only cookbook bestseller list, and won awards, but made Schwartz the acknowledged U.S. expert on the cuisines of the Italian south. The Italy-America Chamber of Commerce recently honored him as such at a gala dinner, and he has been honored several times, including at New York City’s City Hall, for his contributions to the Italian-American community of his city. He has a cooking school in Paestum, Italy, just south of the Amalfi Coast where, at least four times a year, he conducts weeklong classes that also include cultural touring. He is now working on “The Big Book of Southern Italian Food & Wine” for Clarkson Potter, and he just finished writing “Arthur Schwartz’s New York Jewish Food,” the publication date for which has not been set.

    His other books are: “Cooking In A Small Kitchen” (Little Brown, 1979, out of print), “What To Cook When You Think There's Nothing In The House To Eat” (HarperCollins, 1992, out of print), and the best-selling paperback “Soup Suppers” (HarperCollins, 1994), which contains more than 100 recipes for main-course soups, with accompaniments and desserts to round out the menu.

    He is also the author of numerous articles for a wide range of magazines, including Saveur, Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, Cuisine, Vintage, French Vogue, German Lui, Playbill, and Great Recipes. He has been the New York restaurant critic for Travel-Holiday magazine's annual Good Value Dining Awards, and a New York restaurant critic for Food & Wine magazine. Most recently, he was the restaurant critic for BKLYN magazine, until it ceased publication in mid 2006.

    Schwartz also teaches both hands-on and demonstration cooking classes at all the major venues in New York City, on Long Island, and in New Jersey and Connecticut. He has been a visiting lecturer in both Southern Italian cooking and food writing and editing at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), at Greystone (CIA campus in Napa Valley, CA), New School University, New York City Technical College, and at the Institute for Culinary Education (ICE).

    You might say Schwartz was born with a wooden spoon in his mouth. His paternal grandfather was first a professional chef, then a food manufacturer, then a curmudgeonly waiter in a Jewish dairy restaurant. His maternal grandmother's home cooking was the envy and despair of the neighbors. His father could spend an entire day shopping for just the right ingredients for one dinner. In short, he grew up in a food-obsessed Brooklyn family that went, and still goes, to any length for a good meal.

    Although he writes and teaches extensively, Schwartz may be best known as a radio personality. For 13 years, he broadcast daily on WOR radio, one of New York’s premiere talk stations, and in that capacity received the IACP’s Award of Excellence in Electronic Media. He was also named Cooking Teacher of the Year by the New York Association of Culinary Professionals. He left the station last year to pursue other interests.

    As for TV, he was the food critic on Fox network's (WNYW-TV) local morning show, Good Day New York, and he has appeared on the nationally broadcast Good Morning America, Today, and Live With Kathie and Regis, as well as many local morning shows. At one time, he was the national spokesman for the National Dairy Council. He continues to make frequent TV appearances on PBS and the Food Network.

    Schwartz is now in demand as a restaurant consultant and lecturer. He has lectured extensively before library and museum audiences, including the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of the City of New York, as well as at private clubs, including the Princeton and Columbia Clubs, the Yale Club and the very social Century Club. He has also lectured at metro New York libraries and synagogues, as well as at events benefiting many charities, including Jewish Federation, Hadassah, National Council of Jewish Women, Rotary Clubs, and Chambers of Commerce. His lecturing style is casual and entertaining. Indeed, San Francisco radio personality Gene Burns said, “Schwartz is actually a stand-up comic, not the informative lecturer he pretends to be.”

    He is listed in Marquis Who's Who in America.

Arthur Schwartz's Resume

Articles About The Food Maven:

	When One Kitchen Won't Due New York Times - Real Estate - Audio 8/17/05
	Start Spreading the Scmeer By Sylvia Carter - Newsday 12/8/04
	History to Devout (Recipes Too) By Kim Severson - The New York Times 12/6/04
	New York Illustrated: Books to Stuff in Those Christmas Stockings By Michael Pollack - The New York Times 12/5/04
	My Pick - The Year's Best Book By Sue Perkins - Commuter Week 11/24/04
	Culinary Celeb on a New Course By Patricia Mack - Bergen Record 11/24/04
	Talk Show Host (Subject, Food) Opens His Telephone Lines and His Heart By Molly O'Neill - The New York Times 2/5/92
	Talking Cooking and Fielding Questions By Susan Pearsall - The New York Times 1/17/99