In 2007, Jonathan Gold became the first food critic to win the Pulitzer prize.
But long before that, loyal readers of his reviews knew what a talent he is.
Gold travels far and wide to find the best, hidden restaurant gems of Los Angeles.
And he does more than write about food. His pieces get at the heart of why living in LA is such a fabulous, wild ride.
When she first moved to the city, Laura Gabbert was a unsure about how much she would enjoy living in LA. But, she says, Gold's writing helped her learn to appreciate the city.
When Gabbert met Gold in person, she eventually convinced him to participate in a documentary about him entitled "City of Gold."
The film opens in theaters this weekend.
Gabbert on how Jonathan Gold's writing helped her learn to love LA
"I had moved to Los Angeles in the mid-90s to go to grad school and had a lot of reservations about moving here, even though i had never lived here. I struggled with it for the first couple of years. And then I started reading Jonathan. And slowly it sort of changed the way I saw Los Angeles. I began to understand that in order to appreciate Los Angeles, you had to explore what it had to offer."
Gold on what he thinks is most important in food writing
There are definitely moments when your eating with me that I will be in a trance state. I'll be trying to think about things and think about how the way that things get put together... But one of my problems with a lot of food writing is that so much of the music of it gets buried in the details of the ingredients or the preparation of someone trying to puzzle out how a certain dish gets put together. It's like going to the philharmonic and going to hear Mahlor and worrying about his use of the suspended second. Maybe it's part of it, but it doesn't really tell you anything. You're better off just listening to the music.
Gold on whether he enjoys the positive effect a good review from him can have on a restaurant.
It's always nice when people who are doing really good work become prosperous and become able to do the things they do even better than they did before. But in a certain way it's also like reading the movie grosses to see how the movie you liked last week is doing.
Audio coming soon