What is Astrolabe?
Astrolabe tracks best restaurants in New York City (and elsewhere!) as they navigate their way through the COVID-19 pandemic.
To read more about why this particular group of restaurants is deserving of coverage, click here.
Who’s behind it?
Astrolabe is produced by journalist Gary He. (That’s me!)
My work emphasizes on-the-ground reporting and a multi-disciplinary approach to storytelling using copy, still images, charts, videos, and animations.
I’ve spearheaded this style of journalism over the years in the food world: a two-month long embed to document the Four Seasons Restaurant during its final days, which was James Beard Award finalist; a dispatch from Mosul, Iraq on the state of the restaurant industry during and after Islamic State control; documenting the dietary habits of presidential candidates on the campaign trail, which won a James Beard Award; and earlier this year, filing stories from the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, highlighting the essential workers whose lives were most at risk, and how the best restaurants in the city were coping with the pandemic.
That work continues here on Astrolabe.
(Disclosure: I have produced photos for Cote Korean Steakhouse in exchange for financial remuneration since before they were open, and before I was covering Michelin restaurants. As such, I try to not write about them, to avoid any conflict of interest. There may be instances where they are such a central character that this not possible. If so, readers will be alerted of this conflict. I have no other financial relationships with Michelin-starred restaurants.)
What do you get?
Dispatches are posted every week or so, with allowances made for breaking news. Astrolabe may also set its sights on other restaurants and topics of note.
For $7/month, you will support on-the-ground journalism and get access to all of the exclusive interviews and features. For the fiscally responsible, there is also the option to pay $60 for an entire year ($5/month).
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