foodblogging

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...