MICHAEL BATTERBERRY: 1932-2010 Gourmet, Journalist, Gentleman

Before Food Network, Top Chef or Yelp ... before the term “foodie" ... before tomatoes were heirloom and sushi was fast food... back when fancy restaurants were always French... Michael Batterberry and his wife, Ariane, were working to celebrate and elevate the status of American chefs and international cuisine. Julie Mautner, Food Arts' former executive editor, looks at the life and legacy of her late mentor, affectionately known as The Bat.

- 

The name Batterberry is instantly recognizable to most chefs, restaurateurs and food writers of a certain age in the U.S., and to many abroad as well. Through their magazines Food & Wine (founded in 1978, sold to American Express in 1980 and now published by Dotdash Meredith) and Food Arts (founded in 1988; M. Shanken Comm. Inc. purchased the magazine from Batterberry Associates and its partners Quarto Magazine Corp. in 1989 and published it until 2014) and their scores of good industry deeds, Michael and Ariane—the Batterberrys—changed the face of dining in America.

“I’ve often been asked how Michael and I decided on a career in the food world,” Ariane says. “But when we were young there was no ‘food world.’ There were no celebrity chefs and few true restaurant critics. There were food writers of course, but mostly they created recipes for ladies’ magazines and for the women’s page of the newspaper because there were no ‘food sections,’ and men never admitted going into the kitchen at home! Chefs, for their part, were still considered ‘domestic workers’ by the U.S. Department of Labor, right up until the 1970s. Basically that meant servants.”

America’s culinary coming of age happened relatively quickly, and the Batterberrys were there, not just reporting on it but also nudging it along.

“It’s hard to imagine how the fine-dining revolution in America could have happened had it not been for Michael and Ariane,” says Danny Meyer, founder of Union Square Hospitality Group, which counts New York’s Union Square Cafe and the Modern among its many restaurants. “Always looking behind for tradition, ahead for trends—and celebrating the best of the day.”

“The Batterberrys were as influential as James Beard was … and even Julia Child,” proclaimed the late Dorothy Cann Hamilton, founder of the French Culinary Institute in New York (later renamed the International Culinary Center).