14 Facts About Jonathan Gold

Jonathan Gold was an American food critic and music critic.

Jonathan Gold was for many years the chief food critic for the Los Angeles Times and wrote for LA Weekly and Gourmet, in addition to serving as a regular contributor on KCRW's Good Food radio program.

In 1982, while studying art and music at UCLA, Jonathan Gold began working at LA Weekly magazine as a proofreader.

Jonathan Gold met his future wife Laurie Ochoa there, and the couple followed each other to later jobs at other publications.

In 1986, with the reluctant support of Weekly founder Jay Levin, Jonathan Gold started his first food column "Counter Intelligence", reviewing under-the-radar restaurants in ethnic neighborhoods of Los Angeles.

The column eventually moved to the Los Angeles Times, where Jonathan Gold worked from 1990 to 1996, while writing reviews of more upscale restaurants for California and Los Angeles magazines, as well as music stories for Blender, Spin, Rolling Stone, and Details.

In 2001, when Ochoa was named editor of the Weekly, Jonathan Gold moved back to Los Angeles, reviving Counter Intelligence for the Weekly while continuing to contribute to Gourmet.

Jonathan Gold was the subject of the 2015 documentary film City of Jonathan Gold, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

Jonathan Gold was born in Los Angeles into a middle-class family as the eldest of three boys.

Jonathan Gold's father was Jewish and worked as a probation officer, and his mother was a high school teacher and librarian who converted to Judaism.

Jonathan Gold married Laurie Ochoa, currently an editor at the Los Angeles Times and former editor-in-chief of the LA Weekly; they had two children.

Jonathan Gold's younger brother Mark Gold was the long-time president of the Santa Monica-based non-profit organization Heal the Bay and then moved on to become associate director of UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, but now is an employee of the state of California in Sacramento at the Ocean Protection Council as the executive director.

Jonathan Gold died on July 21,2018, at St Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles at the age of 57, a week before his 58th birthday.

At the annual ceremony in April 2019, Jonathan Gold was posthumously given his ninth career James Beard Foundation Award.