Gourmet is Back. Who’s Next?
Here are three food publications that we believe deserve the same second chance
In weird niche news you probably missed: Gourmet is back, and this time, it’s not under the Condé Nast umbrella - and also, not a magazine.
This story is particularly interesting to me. Not only have I been in the food media for 15-plus years, but I also work in corporate naming and branding. I have a weird amount of knowledge in the naming and trademark space, and honestly, this seems to me like, more than anything, someone from Conde’s legal team fell asleep at the wheel.
To catch you up: a group of five journalists (including alumni from Bon Appétit and the LA Times) announced they’re rebooting the Gourmet brand as a worker-owned co-op newsletter. Their lead, Sam Dean, was apparently browsing the U.S. trademark database and realized Condé Nast - the same company that abruptly “murdered” the print magazine in 2009 - let the trademark expire in 2021.
Now, as someone in the naming world, I see companies walk away from trademarks all the time. But do I really think these guys were just casually perusing the USPTO and “stumbled” upon Gourmet being canceled? No. That’s insane - nobody does that for fun. It’s far more likely they were looking up names for this project and realized the biggest name in food history was just sitting there…. expired and up for the taking. They grabbed it, and now the brand is back in a new way (not going to lie, sort of kicking myself for not doing this).
I’ve been in this business a long time, and I’ve watched a lot of really great food publications come and go. If we’re really in the era of reclaiming dead brands, these are the three I’d actually want to see resurrected.
1. Lucky Peach
When Lucky Peach first hit the scene in the early 2010s, it was like gospel. I don’t know how else to even explain it. This was peak food media - a time when Food Network was taking off but before social media fully encapsulated the restaurant scene and before “food influencers” were even a thing. Back then, “foodie” was a dirty word. If you used it, you were seen more as a pest than a welcome guest.
It was a cutthroat, reckless, and gluttonous era in the food world, and Lucky Peach was the center of it. They’d do these single-topic issues that were absolutely insane—200 pages just on things like ramen or chicken or even gender (!!), wrapped in a design that felt more like a comic book than a magazine. It pushed the restaurant narrative in a way we hadn’t seen before, plus it won nine James Beard awards. And then like most media stories, the fun came to an end and it vanished in 2017 due to “colliding visions.”
But lemme tell ya, I’d trade a thousand 15-second TikTok restaurant recs by 25-year-olds who can’t say ‘salmon’ properly to have that weirdo, magazine energy back.
2. DailyCandy
The friggin’ chokehold DailyCandy had on me 15 years ago was incredible. Before social media took over our brains, this was the end-all-be-all morning newsletter for finding out about cool restaurants, events, and parties. Think of it as an email from your most in-the-know friend telling you where to eat and hang out before the rest of the world found out. During its height, I was working in PR, and landing a client hit in there made my entire week.
I’m lucky enough to know a few of the editors from the Miami edition - damn, do I miss that one. And because I couldn’t help myself, I actually went and checked the USPTO database: the DailyCandy trademark is officially listed as expired in 2022 and dead. Someone needs to pull a Gourmet, snatch up the name, and bring it back immediately.
3. Tasting Table
I really loved the original Tasting Table. Before it became the massive, SEO-driven recipe site it is today, it was basically “Daily Candy for food nerds.” Launched around 2008, it felt almost like NPR for food lovers—the writing was always smart and witty, and possibly a bit high-brow for some, which is why I liked it.
It was a daily email that focused on one specific dish, one chef, or one new opening that felt essential (wait, this sounds familiar….😂). It didn’t try to cover everything, it just gave you the ability to focus on the one thing you actually needed to eat that day. They even had an app, that aggregated reviews from actual critics instead of random internet commenters - something way ahead of its time, and to be honest, something we need today. It was an outlet that sophisticated without being snobby, which is a fine line to balance.
So we want to hear from you — which food publication would you love to see make a comeback? Drop your thoughts in the comments below.