Corby Kummer (born c. 1956) is a journalist who writes primarily about food. He is a senior editor at The Atlantic magazine, where he writes a monthly food column, restaurant critic for Boston magazine. He has been called "a dean among food writers in America" by The San Francisco Examiner. Julia Child once said of him, "I think he's a very good food writer. He really does his homework. As a reporter and a writer he takes his work very seriously." He lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
Kummer attended high school at Loomis Chaffee, a private boarding school in Windsor, Connecticut until 1974 and Yale University from 1974 to 1979. In 1981, he joined The Atlantic, where he still works. In 1995 and 1996, he was a restaurant critic for New York magazine, leaving in 1997 to write restaurant reviews for Boston. From 2014 through 2016 he was also restaurant critic for Atlanta Magazine. He is also a columnist on food and food policy for The New Republic and editor-in-chief and publisher of IDEAS: The Magazine of the Aspen Institute. Kummer appears frequently on television and radio programs, including as a judge on The Food Network's Beat Bobby Flay and a weekly appearance on WGBH's Boston Public Radio o.
Kummer is the winner of five James Beard Journalism Awards, presented by the James Beard Foundation for food writing. His most recent was in 2008. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Awards. He is a program advisor for Yale Publishing Course.