Gilles Pudlowski (born 15 November 1950 in Metz, Moselle) is a French journalist, writer, literary and gastronomic critic of Polish descent. He writes the blog les Pieds dans le Plat, writes for Saveurs, Cuisine et Vins de France and Les Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace. He is also the author of the Pudlo guides.
Gilles Pudlowski was born in Metz, Moselle to a family of Polish immigrants. His grandfather, Józef Pudłowski, was a laborer at Solvay and voted for Polish United Workers' Party. His parents were both born in Poland, his father in Łódź and his mother in Zamość. At the age of nine, in 1959, Gilles began to actively practice Judaism. The day after May 68 Gilles joined New Socialist Party.[1]
After graduating from the Institut d'études politiques de Paris[2] and a history degree, he made his debut at Le Quotidien de Paris founded by Philippe Tesson before joining Les Nouvelles littéraires. Jean-François Kahn, who took up the latter magazine, entrusted him with responsibility for the literary pages and asked him to take charge also of the gastronomic chronicle.[3]
Christian Millau, who spotted him in 1979, offered him to collaborate with the Gault Millau, promising him a career of rigorous criticism in these terms: "In this job, people know how to eat or write, rarely both, sometimes none of the two. If you can do both, you're sure to succeed".
He latter wrote for Paris Match, Cuisine et Vins de France, (where he created the category of "plates", awarding one to three plates to good restaurants, the pot with good quality / price ratio and the broken plate, which will make much of his reputation as "the Zorro of the critique" at the disappointing tables). He has worked with Panorama du Médecin, Parcours, Le Figaro, Cuisine TV, France Inter, Bon Voyage, Air France Madame.
His reputation is notably linked to the weekly Le Point, of which he was the official columnist from 1986 to 2014. He was a senior reporter and was responsible for the pages of tourism and gastronomy, while actively collaborating on the literary section.
From 1990 to 2016, Gilles Pudlowski gave a weekly column to Les Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace and, from 1992 to 2015, to Le Républicain lorrain, for, if he is Lorrain by birth, he is an Alsatian at heart.
For the magazines Saveurs et Cuisine et Vins de France, he made major reports on the regions of France and portraits of the chefs in Europe and in the world. He also contributed to the magazine Service Littéraire of François Cérésa. Since 2016, he has been a member of the j ury du prix du premier roman.
After a few piecemeal trials (including several editions of 52-week-ends autour de Paris or le Guide de l’Alsace heureuse, he created, in 1989, his own "global" guide. It is first of all the Pudlowski Guide of the Gourmet Cities (Albin Michel) which obtained the Gutenberg of the practical book in 1990. The Pudlo Paris is published every year from 1990, like the Pudlo France, since 2000, by Michel Lafon.
Gilles Pudlowski has also published "Pudlos" in pocket format devoted to Parisian bistros, Brittany, Alsace, Lorraine, Corsica and Luxembourg. Since 2007, the "Pudlo Paris" and the "Pudlo France" have been published in New York by the Little Book Room, editorial emanation of The New York Review of Books, which also published (in 2008) small Pudlos "Brittany-Normandy", "Alsace" and "Provence Côte d'Azur". The US press sees it as the "best kept secret of French gourmets" and in particular, like the New York Times, that "his plates are more reliable than Michelin stars".
As a confirmed writer, Gilles Pudlowski published autobiographical essays on the theme of attachment to France, such as Devoir de Français, L’Amour du pays (Flammarion), crowned by the Prix Jacques Chardonne and the Prix Maurice Genevoix, but also Les Chemins de la Douce France (Plon) as well as a novel, Le Voyage de Clémence (Flammarion, 1987) and Le Dictionnaire amoureux de l'Alsace (Plon).
He is also responsible for the preface of the Larousse gastronomique (2007), literary anthologies (L'Année Poétique, Le Goût de Strasbourg),art books (Les Grandes gueules, Elles sont chefs, Les Trésors gourmands de la France, France Bistrots, Les Plus belles tables de France), As well as a handbook of good manners: Comment être critique gastronomique et garder la ligne, which he will update a few years later with À quoi sert vraiment un critique gastronomique, which became the reference work on this domain.
Pudlowski won the prize La Mazille for lifetime achievement at the gourmet festival Périgueux in 1992 and the price Amunátegui – Curnonsky, awarded by the Association professionnelle des chroniqueurs et informateurs de la gastronomie et du vin (Professional Association of chroniclers and informants Gastronomy and wine]), in December 2008.
Pudlowski was awarded the second Prix des Écrivains gastronomes on 7 March 2015 for Le Tour de France Gourmand at Éditions du Chêne.
His blog Les Pieds dans le plat, obtained La Gastronomie Numérique award at "Gastronomades 2015".
