John Kessler

Chicago criticism sits downstream of kitchen work, and John Kessler moved through both sides of that line: trained at Williams College and L’Academie de Cuisine, he went on to work as a restaurant cook and chef in Washington and Denver before shifting into criticism and reportage. That sequence matters in the trade, because it places tasting, timing, and kitchen pressure under the same frame as writing. After the kitchen, Kessler worked as critic at Westword and as a food writer at Atlanta Journal-Constitution in Atlanta. Today, he is restaurant critic at Chicago Magazine in Chicago.

Restaurant criticism, in Kessler’s case, is a reporting discipline built around restaurants rather than personalities. At Chicago Magazine in Chicago, John Kessler serves in that role while keeping the job definition exact: "I'm John Kessler, Chicago Magazine's dining critic." The work sits at the intersection of field reporting, palate work, and editorial judgment.

John Kessler's honors include James Beard Award and National Headliner Award.