Rachel Levin is a San Francisco journalist and author, who covers food, travel, and cultural trends, as well as the occasional Instagrammer hunter, speed-dating mother, and incarcerated marathoner. She has written about adult campers and audiobook narrators, bear whisperers and raccoon wranglers, uncrowded national parks and over-crowded mountain towns, posh motels, piano men, and more, for the New Yorker, the New York Times’ Travel, Styles, and Kids sections, Outside, Bon Appetit, the Wall Street Journal, the Cut, T magazine, and Eater, as its’ first San Francisco restaurant critic.

Her essay on grapefruit spoons was selected for the 2022 edition of Best American Food Writing. She has spotted societal stuff like pot suppers, iPad guilt-tipping, and booze-free happy hours before everyone else, and remains obsessed with restaurant regulars and the role restaurants play in the lives of the people they feed. (Which was the subject of a semi-regular column illustrated by George McCalman, for the San Francisco Chronicle — where she semi-regularly vented during the pandemic.)

As a senior travel editor at Sunset magazine, Rachel got to live the California dream, working at a desk surrounded by gorgeous gardens and roaring fireplaces, chickens and test kitchens, while assigning and writing features, curating listicles!, collaborating with designers and photographers, and doing her best to find a “best” burrito in Utah. She was an early contributing editor at an online magazine that shall remain nameless, where let’s just say she floated above the ultimately fraudulent fray and met some super-talented people, who also left long before anyone was indicted.

A 2018 recipient of the Karola Saekel Craib Excellence in Food Journalism Fellowship from the San Francisco Chapter of Les Dames D’Escoffier, Rachel has appeared on NPR Marketplace and KQED Forum, various podcasts, and performed at Pop-Up Magazine and Voices from the Kitchen, a live storytelling series from La Cocina, where she served as a member of its editorial committee.

She has published four books. Her first, LOOK BIG: And Other Tips for Surviving Animal Encounters of All Kinds  (Ten Speed, 2018), was described by the Wall Street Journal as “a nifty idea carried out with humor and a deft touch.”  EAT SOMETHING: A Wise Sons Cookbook for Jews Who Like Food and Food Lovers Who Like Jews, (Chronicle Books, 2020), coauthored with Evan Bloom, was named a Best New Cookbook by Eater, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Forbes. Taste wrote a very fun rave, too, titled “Where No Jewish Cookbook Has Gone Before”, which is true! STEAMED: A Catharsis Cookbook for Getting Dinner (and Your Feelings) on the Table, (Running Press, 2021), coauthored with Tara Duggan, was featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and included on Wirecutter’s list of Best Mother’s Day Gifts, because it really is. Rachel’s first children’s book, WHO ATE WHAT?, (Phaidon, 2023) was named a Best Kids Book of 2023, and makes her wish she was an illustrator.

Apart from a stint as a reporter for the Martha’s Vineyard Times, covering the Clintons and curb-cuts, Rachel has lived in San Francisco since graduating with honors from Colgate University, where she studied philosophy, which prepared her for both everything and nothing. She is a member of the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto and lives with her family at the top of a ridiculously steep hill.

She is occasionally on X-Twitter @rachellevinsf and has too many half-assed Instagram handles; she should probably just pick one  @offmenusf , @lookbigbook, @rachellevinsf