Richman began his career as a sportswriter in Philadelphia in the 1970s, covering the 76ers for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin.[4] He later worked as a sports columnist and, using a pseudonym, as restaurant critic for the Montreal Star. Richman began writing for GQ in 1986.[5]
Richman has won 16 James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards for excellence in culinary writing,[6] including two in 2009 for Magazine Feature Writing Without Recipes and Writing on Spirits, Wine, or Beer.[7] He won a National Magazine Award in 1995 for three articles that appeared in GQ.[8]
In 2004, HarperCollins published Fork It Over: The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater, a collection of Richman's essays about food and dining.[9]
Richman served as the dean of food journalism at the French Culinary Institute in New York City, teaching "The Craft of Food Writing".
In 2006, Richman caused a controversy after criticizing the cuisine of New Orleans and questioning the existence of the Creole ethnicity.[10]
In 2009, celebrity chefs David Chang and Anthony Bourdain criticized Richman for "his insistence that celebrity chefs actually cook in their own restaurants."[11] Bourdain's 2010 book, Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook, contains a chapter entitled "Alan Richman Is a Douchebag" expounding on his view of Richman. In the same chapter Bourdain also said, Alan Richman is so loathsome he lacks "the gravitas required to be called an asshole".[12]
