Home Business Ideas
Become a Food Critic
Becoming a
food critic can be a fun and
rewarding career. If you
like to eat out, appreciate
good food and wine and you
are a capable writer, then
this might be the job for
you. Becoming a food critic
can be a difficult field to
break into, so here are some
tips to help.
The Concept
The job of a food critic
is to evaluate the food at a
local restaurant and then
tell people about it.
Magazines often use food
critics, especially
epicurean centered
publications. But you will
need to do some leg work
before getting to write for
magazines.
The food critic has to be a
food expert. While it
certainly isn't necessary,
it is helpful to take
cooking classes or even
attend a culinary institute.
This will help you learn
about food and refine your
palate. It is also helpful
to learn about wine, though
you certainly don't need to
be a sommelier. The most
important part of being a
food critic is to dine at
restaurants. If you are a
homebody who doesn't like
crowded places or noisy
restaurants, then being a
food critic might not be for
you.
Startup Costs
Start up costs can be
minimal for a food critic.
Essentially if you already
eat out a lot, you're well
on your way. You will need
to have a computer with word
processing software as well
as an internet connection;
however most of us already
have these things. It may be
helpful to have a website or
blog where you can start to
review local restaurants,
but this will be talked
about in the section about
marketing yourself. You will
also need a digital camera,
so that you can take
pictures of the dishes at
the restaurants you are
writing about. Just try to
be considerate of other
diners with the flash.
Start up costs can certainly
be more if you decide to
take some cooking classes or
wine classes or attend a
culinary institute. Cooking
classes can be inexpensive,
less than 100 dollars in
some cases, where attending
a culinary institute can be
quite expensive, around
20,000 dollars for the
entire program. The
advantage to attending a
cooking school is that you
will lend credibility to
your work and learn valuable
information about food.
Information is always power.
How to Market It
Marketing yourself as a
food critic can be tough.
But it isn't impossible. Try
creating a blog about food.
There are a number of free
blog sites available, or you
can hire a freelance web
designer to create one for
you, relatively
inexpensively. You'll want
to include photos and as
much descriptive information
about your experience as
possible. You could also
hire a business writer on a
freelance basis, to produce
some interesting articles
for that site, to push it to
the top of search engines.
This will ensure that your
site is seen. After doing
this for a while, you can
start contacting various
magazines and newspapers to
find out how they hire there
food critics. It's important
to create a following or fan
base. Be prepared though. A
lot of people will send you
nasty emails if you happen
to write an unfavorable
review of their favorite
place. It just goes with the
territory and if you don't
have a thick skin, it can
get to you.
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