This coming Friday, longtime dining critic John Kessler will bid farewell to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution with his final restaurant review in our weekly Go Guide section. John will review Little Bach, an intimate, fine dining room (it seats just 52 people) downstairs at the renowned Bacchanalia.
For 18 years, John has given readers a seat at the table at some of Atlanta’s best restaurants – and by best I don’t mean only fancy and expensive. Over the years, I’ve found myself dining at places for no other reason than a delicious prompt from a John Kessler review.
In 2009, my daughter and I shared a long, high table with a group of strangers while we feasted on pizza at Antico Pizza Napoletana. Because John said so. Last year, a fellow editor and I couldn’t wait to make our way to Buford Highway to try the to-die-for-wings at Nam Phuong after John brought some in the office while working on the spring dining guide. And every time I drive by the Crawfish Shack, I can hardly resist popping in for a shrimp Po’ Boy.
As a tribute to a writer who has brought so much to readers and food and dining throughout metro Atlanta and beyond, today’s AJC ePaper features the “John Kessler Extra.” There you will find a special column from John along with 18 vignettes – one for each year he spent at the newspaper – that are essentially a collection of John’s favorite stories.
This six-page special section is not so much a farewell as it is an opportunity to revisit some of the wonderful stories John has shared for almost two decades. With the ePaper, a replica edition of the printed newspaper, we’re able to add sections and update stories in ways that aren’t always possible in our printed newspaper. These bonus editions, including the John Kessler Extra, also allow us the chance to offer exclusive content on MyAJC.com and our Today’s Paper app. It’s part of our commitment to help readers make the most of their subscriptions.
If you’re a subscriber, full digital access is included with your subscription at no extra cost. Simply go to ajcdelivers.com to register for digital access.
So, many of you are wondering, what will the AJC’s food and dining coverage look like now that John is moving to Chicago with his family?
Since John announced he was leaving the paper several months ago, there has been much speculation about whether the newspaper would hire another dining critic or simply abandon food-and-dining coverage — at least on a staff level.
Without question, the food-and-dining landscape, as well as the way that readers consume food news, has changed dramatically in the last decade, thanks mostly to social media.
But rest assured that the AJC is committed to restaurant coverage in metro Atlanta. In fact, we hope our new approach will make food and dining even more accessible to our readers and give a wider picture of Atlanta’s impressive food scene.
This week, the AJC named Ligaya Figueras as our new food and dining editor. Ligaya, who will come to the AJC next month from St. Louis, is a veteran food journalist who has worked for the past 15 years as a writer and editor for newspapers and magazines. Under her innovative leadership, we will merge our food and dining strategy to create one seamless team for all things regarding food, entertaining, restaurants and dining.
Ligaya will not only bring a critic’s voice to dining out, she will be the visionary for how we cover food in Atlanta, leading a team of staff and freelancers who will enhance our digital footprint and reflect the growing presence of social media and a hungry younger audience that very much cares about food and dining.
We plan to refine our local strategy to better inform and engage readers and food enthusiasts with a stronger focus on best places to eat, timely news, recipes, at-home entertaining, video and trends — all the while continuing to give readers smart enterprise and a consistent dining presence in the Sunday print edition.
Certainly, it’s a tall order, but we are confident that we can serve a mass audience online, in print and on mobile.
If you’ve ever been to the bustling Barcelona Wine Bar on a Saturday night, or waited in line for a burger at Shake Shack (any day of the week), or mingled at Oak Steakhouse in Alpharetta’s new Avalon, you’ve only experienced a small taste of Atlantans’ relationship with food. We recognize that and will work to help you better navigate our vast food scene.
With John Kessler’s departure, this is a key moment for us to explore our food and dining approach in a way that will create deeper coverage with better use of our freelance resources and aggregated content, and move toward a model that responds easily to what people want and where and how they get their information.
This is a great time for us to inject more energy into food and dining – so that when people (out-of-towners and residents alike) come to the AJC’s websites, pick up our paper, or search Facebook on their iPhones, they’ll find smart, sophisticated and lively food content with bold and progressive voices, vivid photos and timely news.
Please join us in welcoming Ligaya to our team.
