Luke Fortney is everything everywhere all at once.

October 8, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Luke Fortney Is Everything Everywhere All At Once

Luke Fortney writes the "Where to Eat" newsletter for the New York Times, which means he eats at roughly one restaurant or food vendor per day, visits three in a single afternoon when on deadline, and once went to two or three places daily when he first started the column. "It was too much," he tells host Jason Lee on this episode of Expense Account. "I just found myself... I'd lost the hunger for food reporting." The episode is a meandering, affectionate conversation between two friends who share an obsession with dining out, but at its center is a genuine question: How does someone who eats for a living keep finding things worth writing about, in a city with 25,000 restaurants, without burning out?

The Method: Curiosity as a Compass

Fortney describes his process as letting his curiosity guide him. He spends hours scrolling through Reddit, Instagram, and TikTok, "just waiting for the journalist part of my brain to perk up." The key signal is noticing what sticks out. "When you eat this much," he says, "one benefit is that it becomes a lot easier to notice what's different." He looks for restaurants "offering a new point of view, maybe serving a dish we haven't seen before."

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What you'll learn

1 (00:03) **Host Intro & Dilemma** - Jason explains he double-booked himself between a Daniel Humm mac-and-cheese dinner and a De La Soul omakase, choosing the latter.
2 (01:44) **Personal Food Philosophy: Dining Solo with Headphones** - Jason makes an argument for the purest way to taste food, though he admits it's "rude" and "weird."
3 (03:37) **Taste Test: The $60 Loaf of Bread** - Jason reviews a quarter of an expensive rye loaf from a bakery, describing its texture and value.
4 (06:33) **Guest Introduction: Luke Fortney** - Jason introduces Luke, a New York Times "Where to Eat" columnist, and jokingly calls him out for missing the podcast launch party.
5 (08:09) **The Best Meal: Sunset Park Plaza** - Luke describes his recent best meal: a massive tlayuda from a pop-up Mexican market in a Sunset Park parking lot.
6 (10:29) **Origin Story: From Local News to Food Writing** - Luke explains how he fell into food writing, starting with a college class and a desire to cover local news in New York.
7 (13:00) **Proudest Story: The Flower Tortilla Trend** - Luke discusses his early trend piece on flower tortillas in NYC, a story he feels was ahead of its time and has proven true.

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Show Notes

Luke Fortney is a friend of mine, a friend of the pod, but he missed our podcast launch party. I’m sure he has some reasonable explanation. He was probably somewhere eating a quesadilla. Or some momos. A cinnamon bun. Maybe some frozen yogurt. And this is a valid excuse, because this is Luke’s job. Luke Writes the Where To Eat column/newsletter for The New York Times. Nearly everyday Luke runs around the city, eating every delicious food imaginable, in every borough. Luke is one of just a handful of people who I trust to give me a restaurant recommendation. And of those few people, he’s the only one with a nose ring. I could talk to Luke all day about restaurants. This guy knows his stuff. He’s charming, funny, and incredibly handsome. To be honest, he mogs me in more ways than one.

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