Senior Food & Beverage Editor
Bret Thorn is senior food and beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality in Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group and is responsible for identifying and reporting food and beverage trends across the country for both publications, as well as leading all coverage of the food and beverage industry.
He is the host of the podcast “In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn,” which features interviews with chefs, food and beverage experts, and other food service professionals.
From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sunreports on restaurant openings and career paths of chefs in New York City.
He joined Restaurant news of the nation in 1999, after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles on economics, banking and finance, as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for manager Magazine and Asia Times Newspaper. He joined Hospitality in the restaurantHe joined the staff in 2016 but retained his position at NRN.
A magna cum laude Thorn holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his third year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Peking University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and final crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Thorn’s monthly column in Restaurant news of the nation won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best editorial or opinion column written by an editor.
In 2005 he was President of the International Foodservice Editorial Council (IFEC).
Thorn wrote the entry on Comfort Food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2and Edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.
He was admitted to the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.
Thorn is a native Coloradan and originally from Denver. He lives in Brooklyn, NY
Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, and restaurant operations and service trends.
Bret Thorn’s experience:
Nation’s Restaurant News, Food and Beverage Editor, 1999-present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008
Asia Times, Deputy Editor, 1995-1997
Manager Magazin, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, Runners, May-July 1989
Education:
Tufts University, BA in History, 1990
Peking University, Study of Chinese Language, Spring 1989
Nanjing University, studying Chinese language and culture, fall 1988
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986
E-mail: (email protected)
Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary
