Who

Bruni is the former restaurant critic for the New York Times and the author of Born Round.

Backstory

Bruni grew up in Westchester, went to college at UNC-Chapel Hill, and earned a master's from Columbia's j-school before taking a job at the Post in the late 1980s. He moved on to the Detroit Free Press, where he covered the Gulf War and worked as a movie critic, and returned to New York in 1995 to join the Times as a reporter at the metro desk. Three years later, he was dispatched to Washington to cover national politics and the 2000 presidential election (Bush's nickname for him was "Pancho"), then moved to Italy in 2002 to serve as the Times' Rome bureau chief. In 2004, Bruni was tapped to be the newspaper's restaurant critic, a job that had been previously held by William Grimes. (Amanda Hesser was the interim critic after Grimes stepped down in late 2003.) He officially started in April 2004 and tortured chefs and restaurateurs until August 2009 when he stepped down to promote his book, Born Round.

Of note

Like any Times restaurant critic, Bruni possessed the power to make or break a restaurant. Venues that tasted his wrath during his tenure included Ninja (a spectacularly bitchy zero-star review); Harry Cipriani ("food so undistinguished it wouldn't pass muster at half the cost"); Gordon Ramsay at the London (a drubbing that prompted the London Hotel's management to hide the Times from hotel guests the day the review was published); and Robert De Niro's Ago. Brutal Bruni reviews have both resulted in chefs getting fired as well as killed off restaurants altogether.

While every food critic in the history of the paper has generated controversy (Ruth Reichl outraged purists by moving beyond French and Italian restaurants, for instance), Bruni was a bit more controversial than most. His lack of professional food experience going into the job was a sore spot for some. (Prior to accepting his position, he'd never formally covered food.) Others accused him of playing favorites and holding grudges. But every once in a very great while he found himself delighted. During his tenure, he gave out a four-star review to six restaurants (three of which already had them): Per Se, Masa, Le Bernardin, Jean Georges, Daniel, and Eleven Madison Park. 

In May 2009, Bruni announced he would step down as the Times' critic at the end of the summer, a move that was largely expected since his memoir was scheduled to come out at the same time. In August 2009, he issued his final review (the aforementioned four-star review of Eleven Madison Park). The Times has since handed over the coveted job to Sam Sifton.

Drama

Most restaurateurs go off and fire their chefs (or simply break down and cry) when they receive a less-than-complimentary review in the Times. Jeffrey Chodorow struck back. After Bruni delivered zero stars to his Kobe Club in January 2007, Chodorow spent $40,000 on a full-page attack ad against Bruni in the paper. (Chodorow's ad claimed Bruni was "no more of a restaurant critic than any of us who eat out regularly.") He also launched a blog devoted to "following Frank" and temporarily "banned" Bruni from his establishments.

In print

Bruni's most recent book is Born Round, The Secret History of a Full-Time Eater, a memoir that recounts Bruni's lifelong obsession with food, bouts of childhood bulimia, and binge eating. He's also the author of A Gospel of Shame: Children, Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church. (In 1992, Bruni was nominated for a Pulitzer for a feature he wrote in the Detroit Free Press about a convicted child molester.) He's also the author of the 2002 book Ambling into History.

Personal

Bruni is gay. His past boyfriends include former Gawker managing editor Choire Sicha and Casper Grathwohl, the publisher of the Oxford University Press. He lives on West 74th Street.

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