Gourmet Magazine, the storied Condé Nast food publication that unexpectedly shuttered in 2009, is being cooked up again – but not under Condé Nast.
A handful of young journalists who discovered that its trademark quietly lapsed in 2021 have scooped it up for a digital-only, newsletter-format reboot, set for Tuesday. The new venture is independently owned, subscription-funded and deliberately lean, with no advertising and no backing from a major media company.
Condé Nast, which publishes Vogue, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, had kept the Gourmet brand and its trademark alive for many years – until it didn’t. Sam Dean, a former writer for the Los Angeles Times and Bon Appétit (also a Condé title), told the New York Times that he stumbled upon the lapsed trademark while searching the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office database.
He and four collaborators — Alex Tatusian, Nozlee Samadzadeh, Amiel Stanek and Cale Weissman, all in their 30s — began the process of claiming the name and building a new publication around it.
Founded in 1941, Gourmet was known for its complex recipes and cosmopolitan tone, publishing writers such as David Foster Wallace, Annie Proulx and longtime restaurant critic James Beard. Under editor Ruth Reichl in its final decade, the magazine emphasized narrative journalism and demanding recipes aimed at serious home cooks.
Its test kitchen, high above Times Square in the flashy Condé Nast tower, was legendary, where in-house chefs endlessly tinkered with recipes and techniques to pass along to its readers.
The new founders say they intend to honor that legacy while adapting it to a smaller, writer-driven model. The revived Gourmet plans to publish one feature and one recipe per week, with additional content for higher-tier subscribers. Subscriptions will start at $7 per month.
“This isn’t about shortcuts or hacks,” Stanek told the Times. “It’s for people who want to spend an afternoon cooking something beautiful.”
Reichl, who edited Gourmet from 1999 until its closure, told the Times in an email that she welcomed the revival. “Gourmet deserves to rise from the ashes,” she wrote, adding that she liked “the idea of a new generation taking it on.”
The project joins a growing number of worker-owned media outlets, such as Defector, Hell Gate and 404 Media, launched as traditional publishers downsize or consolidate. Contributors will be paid per piece and receive a share of subscription revenue tied to their work.
The founders said they financed the launch with a few thousand dollars of personal funds and small donations from friends and have consulted legal counsel regarding potential trademark disputes.
Alongside the editorial relaunch, the publication unveiled a new lowercase logo, replacing the magazine’s classic script with a blockier, modern mark intended to signal a break from legacy food media aesthetics.
The post Gourmet Magazine to Be Reconstituted – but Not at Condé Nast – After Former Publisher Lets Trademark Expire appeared first on TheWrap.
