1st Pulitzer-winning restaurant critic

LOS ANGELES — Jonathan

Gold, who became the first restaurant critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for criticism, has died. He was 57.

The Los Angeles Times, where Gold most recently worked, reported that he died Saturday after being diagnosed earlier this month with pancreatic cancer. Gold’s reviews first appeared in L.A. Weekly and later in the Los Angeles Times and Gourmet. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 while at L.A. Weekly. He was a finalist again in 2011.

“There will never be another like Jonathan Gold, who will forever be our brilliant, indispensable guide through the culinary paradise that is Los Angeles,” Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a statement. “Jonathan earned worldwide acclaim as a food critic, but he possessed the soul of a poet whose words helped readers everywhere understand the history and culture of our city.”

The Times noted that Gold’s reviews, appearing in his column called Counter Intelligence, focused on “hole-inthe-wall joints, street food, mom-and-pop shops and ethnic restaurants,” which he preferred to call traditional restaurants.

Ruth Reichl, who edited Gold’s work at the Times and at Gourmet, called him a trailblazer.

“Jonathan understood that food could be a power for bringing a community together, for understanding other people,” she said. “In the early ’80s, no one else was there. He was a trailblazer, and he really did change the way that we all write about food.”