Jonathan Gold Is Leaving the L.A. Weekly

• Nicely put. 

• Maybe if San Fernando poured in some ad dollars to LA Weekly... Sure worked wonders for Beer Belly and Koreatown.

• I just disagree with his taste in burritos

• OK - so how exactly was that Pulitzer given to him? You seem to suggest that people who don't know are naive.  I'm on eof thos enaive people.  So please tell me - ahem, "Guest" - how exactly did Mr. Gold receive the Pulitzer?  Most writers receive a Pulitzer for writing but you obviously think he received it another way.  Please tell me.  I'm waiting...

• He's good pals w/Nancy Silverton, hence the plug. I think Mozza deserves accolades, but the lack of a recusal makes me take J Gold w/a healthy skepticism.

• If you still go to Mr. Gold's articles for restaurant ideas or recommendations you probably have a broken palate like Mr. Gold himself. Mozza, Tasting Kitchen, top 99 restaurants? please. but if you really would like to see how clueless Mr. Gold has become is go to Good Girl Dinette in HP. If he thinks this is in the top 999 restaurants he would still be wrong. I will say I appreciate Mr. Gold's efforts to bring recognition to hole-in-the-wall joints and don't actually wish him any ill will or bodily harm. 

• There's a clear distinction between a glutton and a gourmet. A glutton is morbidly obese, while a gourmet can appreciate food without scarfing it down. Guess which one has the highly refined discerning palate that is required of genuinely talented food critics.

• Gold is a treasure and the Times is lucky to get the Gold standard. While the hate writers consider him a gourmand, which is a glutton, his followers think of him as a gourmet which means he's an excellent judge of food and wines. Oh, and he's a great writer. Verbila is neither a gourmand or a gourmet nor can she write. She's stuck in the past and serves a small minority of LA diners. Does she ever review a place where the bill is less than $200 for two people? 

• Aw, nobody reads your foodie wordpress do they?

• Hopefully this means his replacement will review a few more places outside the San Gabriel Valley and the west side. Even when in the Valley JG rarely ventured beyond Studio City. Does he even know that not only does San Fernando exist, it, like East L.A., has lots of great places to eat Mexican food? Is there still going to be a weekly Weekly plug for Mozza?

•  How naive can you be about why and how that Pulitzer was given to him... Which is why you probably don't even realize why certain ethnic restaurants (not the best in their class, genre or neighborhood) make it to his list. Valuable treasures??? Use your brain for once. There's a reason the "haters" scoff at his opinion... He doesn't pick the best or the representative of what's there... He and the LA Weekly have other criteria. And now the Los Angeles Times has a say in those criteria.

• Jonathan Gold is a fat-ass slob whose delusions of grandeur and reverse snobbery are enabled by a coterie of talentless a-holes who think they can own the scene by being his flunkies.

• And what a coincidence they're on Gold's list... and no one else's! Guffaw!!!

• I don't know... You don't see Red Medicine tossing Gold out their establishment.

• If only Jonathan Gold didn't have such a massive ego and believe his own hype (check his capsule review of Pizzeria Mozza), he wouldn't be bashed.

• what's with the hate? he can write. he won a pulitzer. that's no joke. and got hired by ruth reichle for gourmet when it was still around. the fact that he delves deep into ethnic foods, which is only proper in this town, is probably the reason for all the haters who think they know their own ethnic foods better. props to the LA times for showing some guts. their food section has been grey and dull as mexican food on the west side. "proper" dining has its place. and we have our (somewhat less) than fair share of it in our town. but that is not the soul of LA food. anyone who's ever eaten off of a truck or in a minimall could and should attest. and i dont necessarily mean greasy table top finger foods only. there are gems with table cloth service in some of these places. and no food critic in the rest of the country has had the cojones to go out there and explore these valuable treasures which we've been enjoying secretly than mr. gold. hats off to you.

• Have you considered that this may have less to do with ambitious writers than with the level of reimbursement LAW is providing their writers? The people who write these articles are essentially hobbyists, not journalists.  Amateur level pay equates to amateur level writing.   Hopefully, the Weekly can make good use of the massive budget surplus left behind by J. Gold and hire some professional level writers full-time.

• Gluttony is an actual disorder that affects certain parts of the brain. It is related to low self-esteem and other psychological problems.

• Mr. Gold is going for the Gold! Let's hope that his excellent taste (pun intended) is truly used in depth at the Times. Russ Parson's ....don't waste this guy by having him do the same old, staid reviews that we currently get from the "Paper of Record". Let him be ....unleashed!

•  Exactly right.  Gone, the ambitious writers from the 80s and 90s.  Gone, the great music writing.  Gone, the political analysis of the old, "real" LA Weekly. Gone Life in Hell, even.  All that's left these days is Gold.  I pick the paper up to kill time at lunch, quickly scan the movie reviews, read the Henry Rollins column (possible last reason to continue picking up the weakly going forward), and make sure I've left time to read through the Gold stuff. 

• There are fast becoming fewer and fewer reasons to even bother picking it up.

• You don't need to scarf down food in order to critique it.  In fact, scarfing down what you eat is an indicator of poor appreciation of food..

• JG may not understand burritos, but he's still a damn fine food critic. Sorry to see him leave LA Weekly, but I'll still be back for Squid Ink.

• Moderation? Not a quality one should look for in a critic. The critic must overindulge so that the rest of us may be indulge more gracefully.

• My weakly's better than yours, pendeja!

•  You do have to admit that he doesn't know what the word "annealed" means.....

• Probably true for a whole lot of folks. It sure isn't the music criticism.....

• So rarely do I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with you....now go get back to your own "weakly".....  

• Sad, one of the main reasons I still read the LA Weekly.

• Which direction is the LA Times heading? So disrespectful towards food and civilized society.   Have you seen him eat? I suppose he's the appropriate food reviewer for today's generation of Americans with their pervasive cynicism towards etiquette, moderation and decorum in dining. The last remnant of even a modicum of class and taste is Virbila... Such discouraging news if she's going to be eclipsed by this...

• you didn't know?

• First of all, where did you get the idea that people are "catching whoppers"? Just because someone says something is wrong does not mean something is actually wrong. Second, where did this idea that food critics must be 100% knowledgeable about every aspect of a cuisine in order to critique a restaurant come from? Third, the benefit of a food reviewer is in his voice and in his tenure. The longer a reviewer is in place, the more readers get to know his bias—and every reviewer has one—and the more you can gauge your likely reaction to a restaurant based on your differences of opinion. Bashing him because you don't like his reviews is one thing; bashing him because you think he's writing lies is the epitome of douchebaggery—and no, you won't ind that word in the AP Stylebook.

• But Jonathan Gold isn't a fictional character. 

• people bash God too. 

• what?

• Anyone who bashes Jonathan Gold is a loser of the lowest low.

• Yeah, but I get the LA times.  It isn't like he's going away, he's just leaving for a bigger paycheck.  I kinds hope he'll replace Virbila (please?)

• The thing I want to know is whether Anne Fishbein will be going with him... now that's food photography!

• If even unpublished amateur food critics can catch a whopper in every article he posts, that says a lot about his supposed "expertise" on the subjects he writes about.

• Quite a few bitter comments from unpublished amateur food critics.

• Is this a joke? Will the Los Angeles Times have him write about Peking duck and revisit that exhibition of know-nothing pretense? 

• Please. He's got a pretty awesome leather jacket. 

• Yuck. The LA Times is taking this emperor with no clothes? Yuck. 

TotalComments: 43