''Eater'' is a food website by Vox Media. It was co-founded by Lockhart Steele and Ben Leventhal in 2005, and originally focused on dining and nightlife in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. Eater launched a national site in 2009, and covered nearly 20 cities by 2012. Vox Media acquired ''Eater'', along with two others comprising the Curbed Network, in late 2013. In 2025, Eater operates sites in 23 American cities, as well as its national site. The site has been recognized twelve times by the James Beard Foundation Awards.

Description and history

The food and dining site ''Eater'' is a brand of the

digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, an ...

company Vox Media. It serves as a local restaurant guide, offering reviews as well as news about the restaurant industry. The property earns revenue via advertising, sometimes displaying content generated by Vox Creative. ''Eater'' was co-founded by Lockhart Steele and Ben Leventhal in July 2005, and initially focused on New York City's dining and nightlife scenes. The blog was one of three comprising the Curbed Network, founded by Steele in 2004, along with the real estate and fashion networks called '' Curbed'' and '' Racked'', respectively. By 2007, ''Eater'' was receiving tens of thousands of readers per day. After expanding into Los Angeles and San Francisco, the network went national in 2009, and covered approximately 20 cities and one U.S. state (Maine) by mid 2012. Vox Media purchased the Curbed Network for approximately in November 2013. Traffic to ''Eater'' increased by 250 percent following the acquisition. In early 2014, '' Business Insider'' reported that Eater was generating approximately 2 million of Vox Media's 45 million unique monthly visitors, according to the analytics company comScore. The site began using Vox Media's content management system, Chorus, and producing more video content. Steele said he sold ''Eater'' partly to observe Chorus' influence on the site. The platform allows ''Eater'' to enhance map, journalistic, and visual features, and improves user engagement via forums. In mid 2017, ''Eater'' launched a London site, the network's first outside North America. ''Eater'' hosted 23 sites for cities in the United States and Canada at the time. It has since closed its London and Montreal sites. In 2021, Vox Media acquired drinks website ''Punch'' as a brand within ''Eater''.

Programming

''Eater'' may be best known for its maps, which serve as guides to readers on where to eat in specific cities. In 2022, ''Eater'' launched their ''Eater 38'' maps, which share 38 essential restaurants in each ''Eater'' cities. Other ''Eater'' maps include ''Eater'' heatmaps which spotlight the newest restaurants in cities; as well as maps focused on certain cuisines or certain neighborhoods. The majority of ''Eater'' maps showcase restaurants across the 23 US cities for which it has dedicated sites, but there are also maps identifying the best restaurants in popular national and international destinations including St. Louis, Honolulu, Kansas City, Barcelona, Rome, Paris, Tokyo, and Florence. In addition to written content, ''Eater'' has a team devoted to video. The site produced a web series called ''Savvy'', which featured chefs, restaurateurs, and sommeliers discussing dishes and cooking techniques. The program's second season aired in 2015. In 2017, Vox Media greenlit the series ''Cult Following'' and ''You Can Do This'' for ''Eater''.''Eater’s'' video program is currently focused on mid-form docu-style video, with series such as ''Mise en Place, The Experts,'' ''Smoke Point,'' and ''Vendors.'' The program has earned five New York Emmy awards, including two for ''Vendors'' (one in 2022, another in 2021), and four Daytime Emmy nominations. ''Eater'' and PBS collaborated on a six-episode documentary television show about the cuisine of immigrant neighborhoods throughout the U.S., hosted by chef and restaurateur Marcus Samuelsson. The show, ''No Passport Required'', marked ''Eater'''s first television production project. Vox Entertainment produced the show, which premiered in July 2018. Vox Media executives Jim Bankoff and Marty Moe serve as two of several executive producers. In January 2018, ''Eater'' and '' SB Nation'' aired an online three-episode celebrity cooking competition series sponsored by PepsiCo. The show featured National Football League players Greg Jennings, Rashad Jennings, and Nick Mangold as competitors, as well as chefs Anne Burrell and Josh Capon. In 2020, ''Eater'' debuted its first TV series in partnership with Hulu, ''Eater’s Guide to the World''. The seven-episode show was hosted by Maya Rudolph and explored unique dining experiences across the world, with episodes spotlighting Los Angeles, Costa Rica, Casablanca, and more. ''Eater'' has a robust digital footprint and presence across the most influential social platforms, including Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook, reaching over 30 million people a month across digital platforms. In 2022, ''Eater'' announced its first book deal in partnership with Abrams publishing. In 2023, ''Eater'' released its first cookbook featuring restaurant recipes, edited by former ''Eater'' restaurant editor Hillary Dixler Canavan. In 2024, travel guides to New York City and Los Angeles. In 2024, Eater launched the Eater app for iOS, featuring all of the maps from all 23 of the website’s cities and Eater.com—in total 10,000 maps from over 100 cities worldwide.

Leadership

''Eater'' was initially led by co-founders Leventhal and Steele, who also served as president of the Curbed Network, ranked number 34 in '' The Daily Meal'' 2011 list of "America's 50 Most Powerful People in Food", for his role as a founder of ''Eater''. In 2014, Amanda Kludt was named ''Eater'' first editor-in-chief, and Robert Sietsema was hired to be a New York-based food writer. In March 2022, Stephanie Wu became ''Eater’s'' second-ever editor-in-chief, succeeding Amanda Kludt. In 2024, Jill Dehnert, Eater's former GM, was named the group publisher of the lifestyle publications at Vox Media, comprising ''Eater, PS, Punch'', and ''Thrillist''.

Editorial Staff

* Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief * Erin DeJesus, executive editor * Jess Mayhugh, managing editor * Lesley Suter, special projects director * Ellie Krupnick, executive director of editorial operations * Nat Belkov, design director * Lille Allen, designer * Nadia Q. Ahmad, senior copy editor * Amanda Luansing, copy editor * Jill Dehnert, publisher * Allison Hamlin, director - network development * Patty Diez, senior manager - network development * Monica Burton, deputy editor * Rebecca Flint Marx, home editor * Nicholas Mancall-Bitel, senior editor * Jesse Sparks, senior editor * Kayla Stewart, senior editor * Jaya Saxena, correspondant * Bettina Makalintal, senior reporter * Kat Thompson, associate editor, home * Ben Mesirow, associate editor, travel * Amy McCarthy, reporter * Missy Frederick, cities director * Nicole Adlman, cities manager * Brenna Houck, cities manager * Kaitlin Bray, director of audience development * Terri Ciccone, deputy director of audience development * Frances Dumlao, associate director of audience - special projects * E Jamar, associate director of audience - engagement * Avery Dalal, social media manager - analytics * Zoe Becker, social media manager

Reception

'' Food & Wine'' has called ''Eater'' "required reading". In 2006, the magazine included Steele and Leventhal in their "Tastemaker Awards" list, recognizing fifteen people who had significant impact on the food and wine industries by age 35, for their "ingenious" posts. The network's content has been recognized twelve times by the James Beard Foundation Awards, established to honor excellence in cuisine, food writing, and culinary education in the United States. James Beard Foundation Awards: * * ''Eater'' has also won six awards from American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) and five Emmys. On the local level, various Eater cities have been recognized by local chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists including the SPJ Northwest, SPJ Chicago, and SPJ DC as well as the New York Press Club and Los Angeles Press Club. ''Eater'' has also appeared in popular culture, cited in TV shows such as ''The Bear'' and ''The Morning Show.''

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Eater 2005 establishments in the United States Vox Media Websites about food and drink Internet properties established in 2005