Getting paid to eat is a dream job. Just ask Mike Sutter, lead food critic for the Austin American-Statesman. He’s been at the newspaper for 25 years, and was serving as art director of their entertainment magazine when he made the leap to food writing two years ago.

A vital part of a burgeoning food city (the Austin metropolitan area has 1 million people and counting), Sutter, 47, takes his responsibilities seriously. Sometimes that means visiting up to six restaurants in a day. Or trying seven doughnut shops in one night. Or eating 30 tacos in 30 days. Or consuming five Reuben sandwiches in five hours. Whatever his readers want to know about — whether it’s a new five-star restaurant, a new Five Guys location, or how the KFC Double Down sandwich tastes — Sutter must investigate, chow down, and report his findings.

For a man who loves all types of food, this could be the greatest gig in the world — and an express ticket to needing a reinforced bathroom scale. So how does Sutter fulfill his journalistic mission and still fit into his pants?

The land of Tex-Mex and ‘cue

Standing 6-feet-tall and weighing about 195 pounds, Sutter says he’s gained a few pounds since becoming a food critic, naturally. But gaining just a few has been a victory, considering his eating schedule — and the fact that Austin is known for its barbecue and Tex-Mex options. While Sutter cautions against painting Austin with “too broad of a barbecue brush,” he admits that the city’s delicious staples do make staying slim a hefty challenge. “A bigger danger for me is Mexican food, particularly when it’s focused on tortillas and corn and cheese.”

The biggest threat to Sutter’s waistline, however, isn’t on any menu. It’s the cyclical need to report on the cheap eats in his city. In addition to highbrow fare, Austinites want to know where to get the tastiest low-cost foods, such as pizza slices, breakfast tacos, sesame noodles and enchilada combos. It’s his job to sample the local options, and he recently spent several months focusing on the inexpensive foods in Austin. While he loved doing the fieldwork — what guy wouldn’t? — his pants aren’t too happy about it.

“I’ve done this job for two years now, and I’ve gained as much weight in the last four months as I did in all the months leading up to that,” he says. Thankfully, he’s emerged from the cheap-eats cycle — at least for the time being. “Right now, we're in a period of high-end restaurant expansion in Austin, so I'm writing about a string of upscale places.”


How a food critic stays trim

Sutter has learned to employ a few strategies to prevent his weight from skyrocketing. One is quite simple: He avoids full-calorie sodas. “Those are calories I’m not willing to spend,” he says. “Plus, you don’t need me to translate for you what a Coke tastes like.”


More importantly, he’s learned to practice moderation when most mortals would lick their plates clean. Every sumptuous meal is an invitation to overeat, and each day, he’s presented with incredible food that would cause most men to gorge. But Sutter eats enough to write a thorough review and then puts the fork down.

“When I have a fantastic dinner in front of me, I just have to restrain myself,” he admits. “When I’m reviewing, everything’s on the table. Buttered, fried, glazed, smothered with cheese. I grew up in a home where you cleaned your plate, but I’ve trained myself to eat just enough to get the sensory impression. Then I share it or take it home.”

Given all the starchy foods he has to eat for reviews, Sutter limits his intake of carbohydrates at home — even when it means saying no to his wife’s delicious pasta dishes. “My wife is half-Sicilian. She grew up cooking at her grandmother's side, so I have to deprive myself of some world-class marinara and meat sauce, at least on pasta. And don't get me started on homemade pizza.”

Fresh-baked bread is another indulgence Sutter gave up when he started eating for a living. “A French bakery just opened down the street from our house. They have croissants like angel wings, and baguettes that set you in search of the right bowl of soup to go with them,” he says. “I can eat those things, or I can wear my size 34 Wranglers with boots. I can't do both.”

Finally, staying active helps Sutter keep pounds off. He stays hands-on around the house, doing yard work and chores. And he’s adopted a sneaky strategy to get his heart moving during a busy work day: He walks to the restaurants he reviews. Of course, that’s not always a comfortable proposition in the heart of Texas. “Generally, I walk if the weather’s not to the point where I’m going to be soaked like a dish towel when I get there.”


Keeping his cover

Eating for a living without ballooning to 400 pounds might seem like a superpower, but there’s another one Sutter would love to have. “I wish I could be invisible,” he says.

Obviously, a food critic needs to stay under the radar while critiquing a restaurant, to ensure he doesn’t get special treatment. So Sutter takes precautions to stay anonymous.

“I don’t let anybody outside of my editor and the people I’m going with know where I’m eating on any given night,” he explains. When the dinner bell rings, his companions must follow two rules: Choose something different than Sutter’s order and let him taste everything at the table.

Of course, he has been made before. (Hey, it’s bound to happen when you try to sneak a digital pic.) But getting spotted by an observant waiter won’t necessarily ruin a review. “Sometimes you’ll get clocked as a critic, but there’s only so much a restaurant can do to make food dance on short notice,” Sutter explains. “If I walk into a place, it’s not like they can suddenly have better produce. Maybe they chose the bigger scallops, but they’ve still got to apply the skill to make them taste good.”

Ultimately, while eating delicious food is what Sutter’s job is all about, it isn’t his favorite part of being a food critic. “I like restaurant people — the camaraderie they build from working under fire, the trash talk, the way a beer tastes after working eight hours in a kitchen,” explains the vet who spent several years in the culinary trenches during his teens and early twenties. “I miss the rush, but this job lets me get close to it again, close to the people who do it for a living.”

About the Writer: Mike Olson is a writer based in New York City who writes for Maxim, Men’s Journal and Wired.