Soleil Ho is a young, queer, woman of color who wants to redefine food criticism
Soleil Ho, new food critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, tries dishes at a local bar. By Maura Judkis Maura Judkis Reporter covering culture, food and the arts Email Bio Follow March 8 at 10:00 AM This story has been updated.
“Should I go in there?” she asked her editor, Paolo Lucchesi. She’s nervous, but once the questions began, you would never have known it. The second wave brought writers and such personalities as Jonathan Gold, Anthony Bourdain, Tyler Cowen and Ruth Reichl: still male, still white; but for people who looked like them, they were the gateway to foods from other cultures. They wrote about immigrant foods with deference and sensitivity, and importantly, with specificity, distinguishing between regional customs and flavors, and incorporating history, culture and politics into their assessments.
“There’s this wonderful cosmic timing that’s worked out,” said Rao, who is friends with Ho. “We’re both establishing authority in these new cities and these new roles. We’re both millennial women of color. . . . We’re rooting for each other.” One of Ho’s first reviews is of La Calenda, Keller's Mexican restaurant. It’s exactly the type of place that longtime readers of Ho would expect her to skewer, since Keller is not Mexican. But the review subverted readers’ expectations; its headline called the restaurant “cultural appropriation done right.”
As Lucchesi, her editor, put it, “She's fresh eyes, so she has the ability and the opportunity to look at these conventions that have been in place for decades. She’s not going to have to do something because it’s been done.” “I think it wasn’t fair to say that a restaurant that has a philosophy of food that’s important is maybe getting old and tired,” Waters said. “That can never get old and tired. Supporting people who are taking care of the land is the most important thing we can do on this planet right now.”
“The bathrooms are so neutral, I didn’t even know where I was,” shouts Ho’s 26-year-old sister, visiting from Phoenix, over the din of a wine bar. The Post agreed not to use her sister’s name, because Ho uses it to make reservations for herself.“I never thought the name fit me. It’s a little too cute,” Ho says. “I don’t feel like a Soleil [pronounced so-lay]. My Vietnamese name is Vy, and that’s what most of my family calls me.
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