The New York Times Names Pete Wells New Restaurant Critic

After months of speculation from the public, The New York Times has named Pete Wells as their new chief restaurant critic.

Wells was the paper's Dining editor for the last five years, and his position will be filled by Susan Edgerley, "the former Metropolitan editor who was most recently the paper's top editor for career development," The New York Times says.

Wells is a James Beard Award-winning writer; he wrote a column called "Always Hungry" for Food & Wine and was the articles editor at Details before moving to the Times.

At the Times, he also wrote a column called "Cooking with Dexter," which was discontinued after 16 months.

"We knew we were on the right track when more than one of the dozens of applicants around the country opened their queries by saying, 'Pete should be the critic, but I'm available if you don't pick him,'" the internal staff memo said.

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