Sam Sifton To Replace Bruni As Times Restaurant Critic

Confirming rumors that the new New York Times restaurant critic—and Frank Bruni's replacement—will be a longtime Times writer promoted from within, the newspaper has just announced that food and culture writer Sam Sifton will take over the job starting in October. Executive editor Bill Keller sent a memo to staff members announcing the change of guard, writing, "We narrowed the list, and then narrowed it some more. We had some really impressive candidates, writers who know their food and have interesting things to say about the way we eat. Then we threw out the list and drafted Sam Sifton." Restaurants, fire up the Google Image cache now: Sifton, who lives in Red Hook, was most recently Culture Editor at the Times, but is also known for his writing about cooking at home as well as finding unusual food stories in the outer boroughs. He has also served as Deputy Food Editor for the newspaper. For the Magazine section, Sifton was last seen making meatloaf for Nora Ephron.