Celeb chef/restaurateur Mario Batali’s “What I’m Drinking Now” mini-column in the New York Times Magazine has ceased after a three-year run.
Jake Silverstein, the new editor of the magazine, said it was Batali’s decision to bring it to a halt.
“I absolutely did not can him,” said Silverstein. “He felt the column had run its course. He’d written everything he could about drinking, and it seemed a very natural end to it.”
Silverstein was the editor of Texas Monthly when former Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson recruited him for the magazine.
The New York Times insisted it had obtained approval to talk to Silverstein, who was under contract, but Emmis Communications CEO Jeff Smulyan felt differently and filed a breach of contract lawsuit, seeking $1 million.
Abramson made no secret of her disdain for the previous Times Sunday magazine editor, Hugo Lindgren, whom she fired in November 2013 with the expectation that a new replacement would be named shortly.
Instead, it dragged on for four months before Silverstein was announced and nearly two more months before he arrived.
Emmis is seeking compensation in the ongoing lawsuit, but it did not try to block Silverstein from leaving. He landed in New York in May, three days before Abramson was fired.
Silverstein said he plans a redesign at some point down the road, but has no plans to replace Batali’s column at the moment.