Food & Wine

The magazine offers a wide-ranging, monthly look at several topics: home; travel; restaurant overviews; general cooking info with recipes and tips on quick meal prep; healthy eating/lifestyle; and a few wine-related articles, including food pairings and an insights into wine types and varietals.

The layout of the magazine is easy on the eyes. The design (photography and text) is in keeping with other magazine of this genre; in short, it is high-quality, but not groundbreaking. For the visually-challenged, though, the font size selection is definitely on the small side. As for the writing, it is neither better or worse than the competition. At between 100 and 120 pages, "Food & Wine" is perhaps a bit skimpy page-wise, but still average for the cover price. And while there are many ads for upper crust products, the magazine wisely clusters them in such a way that articles are less broken up over scattered pages than some other magazines - a nice touch.

The recipes reflect the current trends - multi-ethnic, Puck-ish, and with a bent for unusual pairings of ingredients. But to their credit, a simple scan of the recipes shows few of the bizarre, impossible-to-find ingredients that are the bread and butter of some other gourmet magazines.

Good magazine for a decent price that makes it worthwhile for even us "commoners".


the most over-rated food magazine   July 14, 2003
Tina Morris (Rockville, MD USA)
27 out of 31 found this review helpful

I subscribed to Food & Wine for a while and was continuously disappointed. The articles are on the superficial side and more importantly a lot of the recipes and product reviews are not as well researched as they should have been. I experienced more than one flop trying their stuff. The magazine tries very hard to be trendy and pick up the latest and greatest in the cooking and restaurant scene without being careful enough in deciding what is actually an important or meaningful trend rather than a fad. This magazine can't hold a candle to "Bon Appetit" or "Gourmet".


Appropriate for the genre, I suppose. . .   October 30, 2001
20 out of 25 found this review helpful

My husband got me this magazine because he knows how I love to try new dishes and wines. Unfortunately, this magazine has a very different audience than what we expected. In any given issue I might find one or two recipes that catch my interest. The others are too "food and wine snobby" for me. In addition, the magazine tries to capture that jet set feeling by telling you all about Boston, New York and Napa Valley five star restaurants. As a working mom, I doubt that I'll be able to try them in the near future. In general, this one reminds me of the magazines you get at the airlines.


Shallow, Pretentious, Trendy   May 13, 2005
An honest cook (Virginia)
16 out of 22 found this review helpful

The editor's gratingly smug and breezy monthly letter sets the pace for this vapid Lifestyle magazine, which you'll enjoy only if you're like her -- rich, creepily entitled, self-absorbed, and interested merely in the accoutrements of opulent dining, but not really food or actual cooking itself.


Subscription Savings   January 18, 2005
Super Saver (San Francisco, CA USA)
15 out of 16 found this review helpful

You may get a Subscription for $19.99 if you pull out a loose insert from one of the magazines on the shelf at the books store or super market.