Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao is a writer living in Los Angeles. She is the first California restaurant critic for the New York Times, and a monthly columnist for the New York Times Magazine. Tejal was formerly a restaurant critic for the Village Voice, and for Bloomberg News, and has won two James Beard Foundation awards for her criticism. In 2019, she was awarded a Vilcek Foundation Prize for Culinary Arts for contributions to her field — writing, reporting and criticism.