Eating Food, Not Hype

If Robert Sietsema is wary of seeing his near-20-year tenure as restaurant critic for the Village Voice swallowed up by some upstart blogger with a point-and-shoot, he's not letting on. He is similarly unimpressed by the city's voracious embrace of food culture, precious restaurant trends, and cult of chef celebrity.

What is clear is his reverence for his trade's well-tempered history—an almost religious enterprise marked by a lineage of unflappable New York critics such as Craig Claiborne, Gael Greene, and Ruth Reichl, and the seemingly at-odds blend of public anonymity with outspoken judgment they injected into a once-unflashy beat.