The Gourmand, #11
Our latest page 23 is from the brand new issue of The Gourmand.
Known for its gorgeous photography and illustration, the biannual has honed an editorial direction that underpins the art direction and reflects its tagline, ‘A Food & Culture Journal’. Page 23 of the new issue perfectly sums up this direction.
It’s a simple, unfussy, page, the end of an eight-page interview with Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo. Aside from one small photograph of Ranaldo – the last of a series of portraits by Ben Rayner – it is a page of text, including the final leg of the interview.
Ranaldo is the perfect Gourmand interviewee: effortlesly cool and thoroughly comfortable sharing stories of food, New York and the Sonic Youth years over a meal at a favourite Brooklyn restaurant. Celebrity Q&As in restaurants are far from a new idea, but The Gourmand do it well – this is their signature piece, food and culture in a single serving.
We also see the magazine’s tidy typography, sense the smooth feel and off-white colour of the matt paper, and enjoy Ranaldo’s wife Leah Singer’s list of food-related songs. Another mag might highlight ten songs: here we’re given a column-filling 29 titles, from They Might Be Giants to the Jackson 5 via Bob Marley.
Elsewhere in the issue there is time for more flambouyant Gourmandness: beautiful photography of seagulls (and chips), jazz musicians (with candy) and burnt foods, plus a celebration of design icon Alan Fletcher’s love of food. It’s another excellent issue of the magazine.
Editors-in-chief: David Lane & Marina Tweed