Sam Sifton New Restaurant Critic at 'New York Times'

By: E&P Staff Sam Sifton is the new restaurant critic at the New York Times. The appointment was announced by Times Executive Editor Bill Keller in an e-mail message to the staff that was posted Wednesday on the paper's "Diner's Journal" blog.

"The choice is both obvious and eccentric," Keller wrote in the memo. Sifton will officially take the post in October, after "some overdue vacation and a few weeks of warmup eating," according to Keller.

Sifton replaces Frank Bruni, who had held the post since April of 2004. Bruni announced that he was stepping away in May of this year to promote a memoir "Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-Time Eater." Bruni will become a writer-at-large for the Times' Sunday magazine.

Sifton has served as the Times' cultural editor since 2005, and worked at the Times since 2001. His previous positions have included deputy dining editor, dining editor, and deputy cultural editor "[A]s a brilliant editor of the Dining section, as an occasional essayist on food for our magazine, and as a writer of discernment and wit and erudition, he is the best candidate any of us can think of," Keller wrote.

Prior to his arrival at the Times, Sifton worked for the weekly New York Press from 1990 to 1998, where one of his duties was restaurant critic.