After two decades, I'm dropping my anonymity

Going faceless has a shelf life, and I've hit mine

- BILL ADDISON RESTAURANT CRITIC

I raced into adulthood intent on fame.

I was a vocal performance major at Berklee College of Music in Boston, and halfway through my sophomore year I transferred to nearby Emerson College to earn a BFA in acting. My modest goals: Make it as a pop star, and then break into film.

Instead, in the great tradition of creative types with little idea how to make their outsized dreams a reality, I turned to work in restaurants. A decade whizzed by. Staring down 30 with little progress toward superstardom, I pivoted my ambitions to a different seemingly impossible career path — one with tenets that demanded the exact opposite of celebrity. A tribe for which inconspicuousness was the ultimate accomplishment.

I became a restaurant critic.

Anonymity remains braided into any conversation about food criticism, a lingering mystique in the collective consciousness that conjures wigs and spycraft and debate about how long one can pull off the masquerade. It was the original North Star precept for reviewers aiming to have everyman dining experiences, part of a job conceived in the 1960s when tiny cameras were fantastical Bond gadgets.

For nearly a quarter-century, through critic positions at six publications, I've known my photo finds its way onto collages of food writer pics that chefs hang on their kitchen walls, but thankfully no one was ever vindictive enough to splatter my face across the internet.

Facelessness has a shelf life in this niche line of work, and I've reached mine.

After seven years as restaurant critic for The Times, I'm voluntarily dropping any pretext of anonymity. It's time, for lots of reasons.