Burt Wolf

Burt Wolf’s work brings together food, travel, publishing, and media. He trained at The High School of Music & Art, New York University, and New York University Law School, forming a base for close observation, clear structure, and attention to context. Publishing was part of his earliest toolkit, and he later founded Double Elephant Press, extending a long commitment to books and communication. Food retail and hospitality entered his career in 1975, when he worked as designer and manager at Cook’s Kitchen in the United States. The role connected display, product, and service, and it moved his practice from the page into the material side of the trade. From 1979 to 1982, he wrote as a weekly columnist for The Washington Post, bringing regular cadence and a consistent point of view to readers. In 1989, he served as restaurant development consultant at Brennan Restaurant group in Memphis, adding commercial strategy to a career already moving between editorial and culinary worlds. From 1982 onward, Burt Wolf has worked as a journalist, writer, and editor of various books and publications, and as producer of television segments and programs for CNN, ABC, The Discovery Channel, and public broadcasting. He is also the creator and host of Travels & Traditions, the central signature of his body of work. The title reflects his method, joining movement, place, and memory in a format that can travel across broadcast and page. Across these projects, his work has shown a steady interest in how people eat, travel, and organize memory, and in how those subjects can be translated into usable media. From 2000, he has also contributed to Salon.com, continuing his editorial practice on another platform. His professional scope has included marketing and public relations client services for Procter & Gamble, eBay, ConAgra Foods, Federated Department Stores, and various governments, as well as product development consultant work for Procter & Gamble, General Foods, McCormick, and Estée Lauder’s Origins division. These roles broadened a career already shaped by writing, editing, and production, while keeping him connected to the practical work of reaching audiences across different forms of media. Burt Wolf remains active as the creator and host of Travels & Traditions, as a restaurant operator, as a writer and editor of books, and as a travel industry worker. His career reflects an unusual range, but it remains anchored in the same core concerns: food, travel, publication, and the disciplined presentation of experience. He has received the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Television Food Journalism, recognizing work that joins food writing to broadcast storytelling and observation to the wider field of travel and culture.