In print, online and on the radio, he parlayed a savant’s mastery of his city’s restaurant menus and a love of the spotlight into a career that spanned five decades.
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Tom Fitzmorris, the prolific and persnickety New Orleans restaurant critic who spent three hours a day, five days a week discussing food on his radio show and wrote what by his estimation was America’s longest-running weekly restaurant review column by a single author, died on Feb. 12 in New Orleans. He was 74.
His wife, Mary Ann Connell, said the cause of his death, in a hospital, was complications of Alzheimer’s disease, which he had had for a decade.
Mr. Fitzmorris was one of those colorful only-in-New Orleans personalities who would have to be invented if they didn’t already exist. And invent himself is essentially what he did, parlaying a savant’s mastery of New Orleans restaurant menus and a love of the spotlight into a career that spanned five decades.
“If Tom was 30 years old today, he would be the No. 1 food influencer and have 30 million followers,” said Justin Kennedy, the general manager at Parkway Bakery & Tavern, where the po’ boys, the city’s favorite sandwich, rank among the best. Mr. Kennedy grew up listening to Mr. Fitzmorris, who eventually invited him to step in as an occasional substitute host of his radio show.
Mr. Fitzmorris ate out almost every day, always in a sports coat and tie. Many mornings, he would write 4,000 words before he headed out to do “The Food Show With Tom Fitzmorris,” on WSMB. (He began his radio career in 1978, at WGSO, but was hired in 1988 to start “The Food Show” at WSMB by the station’s program director, Ms. Connell, who would later become his wife.) For the next three hours, he would entertain callers, opine about food and joust with chefs who called in.
The political consultant James Carville, a lifelong New Orleanian, was a fan.
“Being the food critic in the early 21st century in New Orleans was like being the art critic in the late 15th century in Florence,” he said in an interview. “You had a lot to cover.”
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