Books
(in reverse chron. order):

Note: see a more complete bibliography here

The Chowhound's Guide to SF, published by Penguin (author/editor)
The Chowhound's Guide to NYC, published by Penguin (author/editor)
The Slate Diaries, published by Public Affairs (contributor)
Travelers Tales: Food, published by O'Reilly (contributor)
The Adventure of Food, published by O'Reilly (contributor)
Travelers Tales: Japan, published by O'Reilly (contributor)
Travelers' Tales: The Fearless Diner, published by O'Reilly (contributor)
The Unofficial Guide to New York City (first and second editions), published by John Wiley & Sons (coauthor)
Best Food Writing 2002, published by Avalon (contributor)
Best Food Writing 2000, published by Marlowe (contributor)
The Eclectic Gourmet Guide to Greater New York City, published by Menasha Ridge Press (author)

Magazines and Newspapers

Columnist for Newsday, NY Press, Brooklyn Bridge Magazine (short-lived glossy), Beer Magazine (ibid)

Freelance articles for: NY Times, Newsweek, Slate, Time Out NY, Toronto Star, Wine & Spirits, NetGuide, Conde Naste Traveler, Fine Wine Folio, Simple Cooking, Beer Connoisseur Magazine, Ale Street News, many more.


Television and Radio

Restaurant reviewer for Bloomberg News Radio (WBBR-AM)

Food reporter/producer for New York Central (on NYC's Metro TV Channel)

Regular contributor to The Next Big Thing (NPR radio program)

Frequent guest on many public radio shows, Martha Stewart Radio, etc.

"GO", CBC Radio (contributor)

CBC New Brunswick (contributor)

Selected Press Quotes

Lengthy profile by Calvin Trillin in The New Yorker [PDF]

"Known worldwide for his edible expertise"
-- NY Daily News

"Jim Leff is one of the great food writers of our time."
-- Author and marketing guru Seth Godin, in "Free Prize Inside"

"Jim Leff is...renowned as New York City's ace chowhound. His column for Down the Hatch has brought him cult status...must reading for anyone interested in keeping tabs on the whereabouts of the Arepa Lady, Egyptian Grandma, and Charles' Mobile Soul Food Kitchen, or just wanting to read some of the best food writing on the continent."
-- John Thorne (author of Simple Cooking, Outlaw Cook, Serious Pig), Simple Cooking Magazine

"His taste is of the highest order. If Jim says take a subway, bus, and cab, then walk 10 blocks, I do."
-- Arthur Schwartz, food author and host of the popular NYC radio show "Food Talk" on WOR-AM

"The godfather of the New York underground food scene."
-- Anya Von Bremzen, Travel & Leisure columnist, in Fiesta, published by Doubleday

"Jim Leff is an evangelical food populist...passionate, talented, knowledgeable and committed."
-- @NY (www.news-ny.com)

"[Leff's writing has] featured culinary rambles to all corners of the city, free-form ruminations on the metaphysics of taste, blunt opinions, clever headlines, and at least one extended rhapsody on the omelets in the TWA departure lounge at JFK."
-- Brett Martin, Time Out NY

"I might have missed this out-of-the-way treasure had it not been for food expert Jim Leff. But when I did find it, I kept returning. I wanted to take all my friends there."
-- Sylvia Carter, Newsday

"Leff...is obsessed with the most obscure corners of the restaurant industry and writes about them passionately...you don't need to know a bourek from a lupke to be swept away on his search."
-- Eric Asimov, NY Times

"The city's most intrepid food writer...no stone is left unturned in a quest for the authentic, the exotic and, above all, the delicious."
--Chris Erickson, NY Daily News

"Jim Leff's review of tacos in Jackson Heights made me want to jump on the #7 train at 2 am. I'm now convinced of something I'd merely suspected before: Leff is the best writer on your staff and his love for his subject bubbles over in every piece."
--Letter to The Editor, NY Press


Press Quotes About Leff's First Book

"Perhaps the finest catalogue ever of our off-beat dining potential...it's marvelous!...The handiest thing since the heyday of the Underground Gourmet books and written in more detail...This invaluable paperback is full of places I never heard of to get the best this or that, with ratings for food, value, service, friendliness, and travel tips...It's the new laser pointer for unusual, out-of-the-way eats."
-- Bob Lape, WCBS Newsradio, NYC

"My favorite new guidebook...If you have an appetite for the unusual, you have to have this book."
--- Ruth Reichl, speaking on WQXR-FM

"Everything a chowhound could have wished for...If you've heard of even a quarter of the places he mentions, you're way ahead of the curve...There's nothing even a little bit like it on the market...Buy or Die."
-- Jonathan Gold (LA Weekly and Gourmet Magazine restaurant critic)

"Jim Leff's great new book is the favorite guidebook of all the local restaurant critics."
--Arthur Schwartz, WOR Radio

"A lively and insightful read."
--Rose Kim, Newsday

"Jim has applied a cardiac defibrillator to a moribund genre--the restaurant guide--and zapped it back to life....What Jim does--and brilliantly--is to redefine eating out from a passive, put-good-things-in-your-mouth, touristic experience into an active, risk-taking, intellectually and, yes, even morally demanding adventure....It's one thing to produce a guide to Cambodia or Peru that tells travelers how to "go native" and quite another that teaches New Yorkers how to "go foreign" in their own city....How many guidebooks have you read where you burst out laughing mid-review or compulsively read segment after segment to your bedmate...leaving you both ravenously, helplessly hungry?....Very few books of any sort offer their readers so much to chew."
--John and Matt Thorne, Simple Cooking

"For those nights when Zagat's choices seem a little, well, obvious, you can always turn to The Eclectic Gourmet Guide....The product of years of enthusiastic research...dense with information."
--Eve Claxton, Time Out New York



Press Quotes About Chowhound.com are here


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