ben-leventhal

How to Date a Web Celebrity

Sheila · 10/01/08 11:31AM

When your quotidian indiscretions can be photographed, Twittered, and uploaded before you've stumbled out of a cab and up the steps at the end of the night, extra precautions must be taken. Especially you're dating extreme lifestreaming oversharer Julia Allison. Yes, one brave gent has stepped up to the plate. Crazy we didn't hear about it sooner, because she usually shares all her important life decisions with us via her blog—and most men are therefore afraid to date her. "She realized this recently after three promising first dates abruptly called it quits," as her recent NYT profile put it. "In an e-mail message, Ms. Allison acknowledged that her chosen profession may have permanently ruined her social life." But not entirely. Eater's darkly handsome blogger-about-town Ben Leventhal has taken her on.Ohai, Ben! You have been fearing this day for a while, haven't you?

Foodblogger Catfight: Eater vs. Down By the Hipster

Sheila · 03/21/08 10:14AM

The world of restaurants, be it chefs or food writers, has always been fantastically bitchy: remember Jeffrey Chodorow's taking out a ranty full-page ad in the Times in response to Frank Bruni's no-star review of his Kobe Club? Thank goodness it's continuing the grand tradition, even on the web. Yesterday Eater, the restaurant blog that's part of the Curbed Network (Curbed, Racked, Eater), published by former Gawker Lockhart Steele, posted a rumination on their competitor, Down By the Hipster. Yeah, they got a little catty! "[Blogger] Scott Solish isn't making money on DBTH, has a day job, and has begun to talk of such things as book deals and joint ventures...Are Down By the Hipster's best days behind us?" DBTH's equally snide response ("Lil' [Ben Leventhal of Eater] secretly seethed, desperate to know why anyone dared challenge his authority as the ultimate insider") was inevitable. We'd go so far to suggest that public bickering isn't becoming to either party, but we're glad they did: the exchange is this morning's guilty pleasure...

What Really Happened in Amagansett This Weekend

Joshua Stein · 08/20/07 04:00PM

What follows is like aversion therapy for those who might want to go to the Hamptons. On Saturday night in Amagansett, as Jessica Coen reported today at New York mag, the sundry foodie blogging glitterati gathered for a burger cook-off. Coen was there to support her man Lockhart Steele, our (and her!) former boss at this very website. She looks really happy. That "typical summer share house" was Eater honcho Ben Leventhal's, and it is called "Southfork." Julia Allison was there too! She was cozying up with College Humor's Jakob Lodwick. Later they would have a huge knock-down drag-out fight but then go on to make up. Former Glamour blogger and Gawker enemy Alyssa Shelasky was munching on Doritos poolside, as was weirdly attractive photographer Jessica Craig-Martin. Hampton's Style editor Deb Schoeneman was there, as was College Humor millionaire and (coincidence!) Hampton's Style Contributing Editor Ricky Van Veen. His pictures can be found here; the one above is the only one of Julia Allison topless, just to save you time searching.

'Restaurant Girl' Claws Her Way From Blogger To Food Critic

Joshua Stein · 08/14/07 10:15AM

Danyelle Freeman, food blogger Restaurant Girl, has been tapped to become the New York Daily News' next food critic. As many an Eater commenter has remarked, the only problem is that Freeman—an alumna of both Harvard and Duke, as she notes on her website—can't write. She cadges free meals from PR people—and she's oft-photographed and therefore never incognito. She also closes her correspondence with, "Until we eat again." She can be thought of as the Julia Allison of the food world: Cheaply attractive, ethically limber and relentlessly successful.

Doree Shafrir · 07/16/07 11:58AM

Contributing editors at Deb Schoeneman's Hampton Style: sometime Times travel writer Julia Chaplin, Lucky and Paper and Time Out vet Kristina Dechter, UK Observer New York contributor Edward Helmore, former "Topic A With Tina Brown" gal and Radar contributor Sarah Horne, photographer Noah Kalina, Eater king Ben Leventhal, celeb photog'er Patrick McMullan, former High Times editor Annie Nocenti, Daily Candy lass Pavia Rosati, former Glamour blogger Alyssa Shelasky, College Humor honcho Ricky Van Veen, pothead socialite Arden Wohl, Deb's former Observer co-worker Alexandra Wolfe. No wonder everyone loves it so much. [Hampton Style/The Beach]

Internet People Dine At Balthazar, Talk Trash

Josh · 04/19/07 04:37PM

A summit of angry internet types took place last night; it may have ended in a lasting peace. Not since Yalta have three leaders as large as Lockhart Steele (who is at least technically our boss) and Ben Leventhal from Eater and Abbe Diaz, the Koreshian mercurial leader of PXthis (the forum-land for nightlife, hospitality, and seedy underbellyness) been in the same place at the same time. Diaz, who bears a grudge against Gawker ranking somewhere between Mayweather v. De La Hoya and Red Sox v. Yankees, met the two for a late dinner at Balthazar. Later she triumphantly reported on the evening to her minions.