Rachel Levin is a San Francisco-based journalist who covers food, travel, trends — and the occasional rock star; tech CEO; crack addict-ex-con-ultramarathoner.
Her work has been published in the New York Times, where she contributes to the Travel and Styles sections, T magazine, Outside, the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker, The Cut, Lucky Peach (RIP), Slate, Food & Wine, AFAR, and more. She has been a senior travel editor at Sunset magazine, a contributing writer at San Francisco magazine, an early editor at OZY (WTF), and the first San Francisco restaurant critic for Eater.
She writes a semi-regular column for the San Francisco Chronicle about restaurant regulars, which looks at the role restaurants play in the lives of the people they feed, illustrated by George McCalman. The 2018 recipient of the Karola Saekel Craib Excellence in Food Journalism Fellowship from the San Francisco Chapter of Les Dames D’Escoffier, she is a member of the editorial committee for La Cocina’s live storytelling series, Voices from the Kitchen, and has contributed to Pop-Up Magazine, NPR Marketplace, and KQED Forum, and her essays have been anthologized multiple times in Best Food Writing.
Apart from a stint as an island reporter for the Martha’s Vineyard Times, Rachel has lived in Northern California since fleeing central New York’s snow-belt, where she graduated with honors from Colgate University with a degree in Philosophy. (Which prepared her for both everything and nothing.)
Her first book — LOOK BIG: And Other Tips for Surviving Animal Encounters of All Kinds — was published by Ten Speed in Spring 2018. The Wall Street Journal called it “a nifty idea carried out with humor and a deft touch” and Buzzfeed called it “hilarious but genuinely helpful”—which is exactly what she was going for. EAT SOMETHING: A Wise Sons Cookbook for Jews Who Like Food and Food Lovers Who Like Jews, coauthored with Evan Bloom, was published in Spring 2020 by Chronicle Books. Eater named it one of the season’s Best New Cookbooks, Forbes ranked it among the Top 10 Cookbooks of 2020, and Taste wrote a rave titled, “Where No Jewish Cookbook Has Gone Before”— which is true! STEAMED: A Catharsis Cookbook for Getting Dinner (and Your Feelings) on the Table, featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” was published in spring 2021.
Rachel is a member of the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto and the Ruby, and lives with her family at the top of an absurdly steep hill.
Follow her on Instagram @offmenusf (occasional restaurant musings), @lookbigbook (occasional animal encounter antics), and @rachellevinsf (occasional pics of her kids).
