Our recipes and stories, delivered.

July 1, 2025
This Is TASTE 616: Meet Your New New York Times Restaurant Critic, Ligaya Mishan
LIGAYA_ARTICLE

We’ve all long been major fans of Ligaya Mishan, who last month was named co–chief restaurant critic at the New York Times. Working alongside Tejal Rao, Ligaya will be reviewing restaurants in New York City as well as around the country—and compiling the now iconic (and much-debated) 100 Best Restaurants in New York list. So what does it feel like to take over for Pete Wells? We went right to the source for this wonderful conversation. We discuss personal taste, mining history books, and what exactly makes a one-star restaurant. We also go back to Ligaya’s days writing the Hungry City column and talk about how this big job was truly more than a decade in the making. We love this fresh direction for the NYT Food section and were happy to have one of its new chief critics in the studio.

Read some of Ligaya’s memorable writing:

Get your tickets to our live event on July 23 at the Bell House in Brooklyn. Featuring conversations with Padma Lakshmi, Hailee Catalano & Chuck Cruz, and a live taping of Bon Appétit Bake Club with Jesse Szewczyk and Shilpa Uskokovic. Ticket sales benefit One Love Community Fridge.

Matt Rodbard

Matt Rodbard is the editor in chief of TASTE and the author of Koreaworld: A Cookbook, Koreatown: A Cookbook, a New York Times Bestseller, and Food IQ, a Publishers Weekly Bestseller and winner of a 2023 IACP Cookbook Award (Food Issues & Matters)