Bon Appétit needs to change. Its new editor-in-chief is up to the challenge

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This friend, a restaurateur, suggested that Davis throw out his name for review, but the book’s editor hesitated.

“And I was like, ‘Sure’, thinking, ‘Well, that won’t work because I don’t have any magazine experience. It just won’t work, ”Davis told CNN Business in a phone interview earlier this month.

“Dawn is thinking 30,000 feet. You’ll see it through the content,” Samuelsson told CNN Business. “It’s going to change drastically. It’s going to be a lot more inclusive, and then it impacts the industry and it forces our competition to look at this space. It’s necessary.”

The food media industry has long been accused of promoting a “white aesthetic” that supports white chefs and personalities, as Navneet Alang wrote for Eater. This summer’s record of racial injustice has prompted many to examine and speak out against the complicity and prejudice in their own industries. Those in the food media have seen Rapoport, who apologized for his “failures,” and Los Angeles Times food critic Peter Meehan lose their jobs over allegations of toxic or discriminatory behavior. Meehan apologized, but also said a number of the allegations against him are not true. Just before the summer, The New York Times put food columnist Alison Roman on leave after criticizing successful women of color Marie Kondo and Chrissy Teigen. Roman apologized and said she was “deeply embarrassed” by the comments she had made.

Davis joins Bon Appétit as something of an outsider – not only because she’s the magazine’s first black editor, but also because she comes from the publishing world, where she worked for 25 years. But Davis is no newbie to food. She has written and edited books on food, and as a passionate home cook, she is known to be on the “live to eat” rather than “eat to live” side. Will this be enough to renew the confidence – of employees, advertisers and readers – in Bon Appétit?

“If you can’t see it …”

After graduating from Stanford, Davis began his career on Wall Street. His job as an analyst in an investment bank was demanding, not what Davis considered “satisfying to the soul.” Despite the long hours, Davis found time to relax by taking cooking classes at the French Culinary Institute.

“Everyone was on the trail to Harvard Business School, and everyone was going – and continued – to have these very successful jobs on Wall Street. I just had to follow this passion of learning to cook and playing in the kitchen, and I did, ”Davis said.

Dawn Davis attends the 'The Photograph' World Premiere at SVA Theater on February 11, 2020 in New York City.

In 1989, she won a scholarship to study literature in Nigeria. Davis said she enjoyed reading books at a young age, but didn’t know it was possible to have a career in the book industry until this flight to Nigeria where she sat next door of a book publisher on the plane.

“They say, ‘If you can’t see it, you don’t know you can be,’” Davis said. “I had never met anyone who published books.”

But moving from Wall Street to publishing books was financially risky. Davis said the career change meant cutting his pay in half. She still took the leap, even after her friends and family questioned her decision. But she loved the job so much that at one point she thought, “When they find out how much fun I’m having, they’re going to cut my pay.”

“I lived to see my memorial”

Davis rose through the ranks and worked at some of the world’s most famous publishing houses, including Random House, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster. Although she is new to the field, she quickly gained confidence in her ability as a publisher.

“I knew I could be an advocate, a great advocate for any book that interested me,” Davis said. “I never doubted that an author would have someone more passionate, who would put more points on me and cross more T than me and just edit it to the Nth degree.”

In the 1990s, while working at Random House, Davis met Jonathan Karp – the managing editor who would later recruit her from Simon & Schuster, where he would then become CEO.

“We both share a deep interest in non-fiction cultural works,” Karp told CNN Business. “Dawn has a great presence. I loved her the minute I met her.

He recalled that they tried to buy Eric Schlosser’s “Fast Food Nation” together but didn’t get it.

Davis has since edited Pulitzer Prize-winning books like “The Known World” by Edward P. Jones and “The Pursuit of Happyness” by Chris Gardner, which was made into a movie starring Will Smith. She is commended for promoting black authors and amplifying the stories of marginalized people, which have become the focus of 37 Ink, her own brand at Simon & Schuster.

“I think a lot of people would say she’s probably the main black woman in the editorial world of publishing. There are other black editors out there, though, and I don’t want to ignore them in any way, but Dawn holds standing, “Karp added.

(LR) Dawn Davis, Michaela Angela Davis, Tatyana Ali, Eunique Jones Gibson, Jazmine Sullivan and Beverly Bond on stage for the Black Girl Magic panel during BGR! Fest - Day 2 at the Kennedy Center on March 09, 2019 in Washington, DC.

Karp said he considered her success “remarkable” and that he hoped she would continue the rest of her career with Simon & Schuster. But in August, Davis shared the news of his departure with his boss, colleagues, and writers.

“I feel like I lived to see my memorial,” Davis said. “I’ve heard this more than once:” It’s great for you personally, and it’s great for Condé Nast, and it’s great for magazines. But that’s a loss for book publishing. “I had been a champion of black voices in particular and people of color in general and just quality editing for a long time.”

But the editor of Bon Appétit was a role she could not refuse.

“Always talk about food”

The earliest memories of Davis’ food revolve around the family. She recalls going to Marie Callender’s in Los Angeles with her family – a weekly ritual that gave her mother and aunt a break from the kitchen. She loved Christmas Eve when her aunt was baking okra, inviting not only her family but also neighbors and friends to enjoy it.

“The joy and selflessness my Aunt Stella gave to cooking for others,” Davis said. “I link food and community and celebration and being together.”

Later, living and working in New York City, Davis was exposed to a vibrant restaurant scene. She became a regular customer of the Scandinavian hotspot Aquavit, where she began a long-standing friendship with executive chef, Marcus Samuelsson.

“She wasn’t just a regular customer,” Samuelsson said. “She said, ‘Why are you doing this? What’s in the food here? ‘ She had questions about the food. ”

Bon Appétit Editor-in-Chief Dawn Davis at home in her kitchen.

Davis said her husband teases her to remember specific details of a meal – but not what they discussed while eating it. “I’m going to say, ‘Oh my God, yeah. You had the pork chops with the sage butter and the blistered green beans, and I had …’ In the meantime, I won’t be able to remember anything. great, super important. It’s a funny look at how I prioritize food. “

Although Bon Appétit is Davis’ first magazine job, it will not be his first experience in food journalism. She interviewed celebrity chefs including Edna Lewis and Bobby Flay for her 1999 book, “If You Can Take the Heat: Tales from Chefs and Restaurateurs”. Karp said he was unaware of Davis’ love of food, but “might have guessed” since she had recently acquired a cookbook for the publishing house.

“No preconceived idea”

Davis isn’t the only recent addition to the Bon Appétit team. Besides Samuelsson as an advisor, Condé Nast has hired Sonia Chopra, former director of editorial strategy at Vox Media’s Eater, as editor-in-chief. Chopra’s hiring announcement came on the same day that three color journalists resigned from Bon Appétit’s Test Kitchen videos.

Chopra said Davis, whom she had not met but heard about, was a welcome choice.

“I think the media is an industry that can be very insular,” Chopra said. “Dawn – someone who was such a leader and such a powerhouse in publishing – comes into the industry truly with clear eyes, with no preconceived notions of how a magazine should be billed or what a magazine is. book cover. I think this is going to be so refreshing. ”

Davis was on a listening tour at his new job, answering questions and comments about the culture and treatment of people at Condé Nast.

“Some of the people I spoke to were people of color who felt they were listened to, that they were respected, that there was obviously work to be done,” Davis said. “But these challenges did not scare me off this opportunity. Honestly, most American companies of a certain size and length of existence have this job to do.”

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