The instinctual notion about food writers is that they’re elitist. Judgmental. On a perpetual soap box lofted ever higher by their espoused disdain for culinary imperfection. Think the aptly named Anton Ego from the movie “Ratatouille.”
Then there’s Francesca Bond, food and drink reporter for The Buffalo News, whose writing warmly invites readers to look at even the most familiar wing and weck through a creative new perspective.
Carrying the torch
Like the News food writers that came before her, Francesca is making the role her own. Where Janice Okun was a critic and Andrew Galarneau a foodie, Francesca is a gumshoe journalist whose beat is food and beverage.
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She orders from menus based on a lot of prior research and what’s unusual or culturally significant, not what she likes. She observes, asks and digs in to find an appropriate and often unexpected lens through which to tell a story—especially for traditions that happen every year.
For a fresh take on Lenten Friday fish fries, Francesca turned to church basement kitchens, bustling with parishioner cooks crisping haddock filets, to find out why this small-town tradition has gone by the wayside in many communities.
To cover 2024’s Buffalo Chicken Wing Festival, she not only took a deep dive into its history but also a literal dive, face-first, into a kiddie pool full of blue cheese at the event’s wing-bobbing competition.
Often, her stories center around the characters rather than the cuisine. For instance, to beckon readers deeper into the Cherry Blossom Festival, Francesca sat down with Atsuko Nishida-Mitchell, who moved to Buffalo from Kanazawa, Japan—the sister city that gifted Buffalo the celebrated cherry trees—for a traditional tea ceremony Atsuko hosts during the festival.
Sometimes, dining and drinks serve as portals into other topics entirely.
She has covered the silent death of Buffalo’s infamous 4 a.m. last call, how ICE raids are impacting the restaurant industry and how Saturday Bills games curtail fine dining reservations. Earlier this year, she spent countless hours at downtown restaurants and cultural institutions to see what March Madness crowds were doing away from the courts.
“Reporters shape people’s understanding of the food scene,” Francesca says. “It’s a big responsibility. I feel that, and I don’t take for granted people sharing their work and passions and livelihoods.”
Honing her craft
Francesca is a constant student of her industry. She studies the work of literary journalists, digs through The Buffalo News archives for legendary stories written at the pinnacle of print and still sits with actual newspapers over a cup of coffee.
She devours food coverage in the New Yorker, New York Times, Eater and The Atlantic and takes frequent, productive passes through blogs, Instagram and podcasts. She even pulled the reading lists from course syllabi in New York University’s journalism master’s degree program and read everything on them. The work is her hobby, and her hobby is this work.
As a newspaper reporter in a digital age, Francesca regularly employs a multimedia storytelling approach with video components that serve as complementary content or behind-the-scenes glimpses of stories that appear in the paper and online.
“Print is complicated,” she says. “I love it and I believe in it, but I’m realistic. We have to be digitally engaged to survive, reach a broader readership and stay relevant among young people.”
It’s something that comes naturally as a storyteller whose first audiences were over the internet.
Dreams realized
Francesca didn’t start her career covering food—but she did start writing professionally very, very early. At just 28, she’s a seasoned soul who has been writing for nearly two decades.
She launched her first blog at age 10 to report on new Build-A-Bear releases, then switched to a fashion focus in her teens, putting together outfits and roping her dad into helping with photography. Her work caught the attention of Teen Vogue in the early 2010s, which regularly featured her blog on its website as the magazine began to experiment with digital content.
With dreams of becoming a magazine writer, Francesca went to SUNY Buffalo State, majored in journalism and worked for the school paper. Throughout her studies, she heard loud and clear that only a select few make it as a paid member of the press. As classmates leaned toward writing in more profitable positions, she went all-in on journalism, determined to believe in her own byline.
At a student public relations club panel she organized and moderated, Francesca met Tim O’Shei, who at the time was traveling the country writing feature stories of famous people with Buffalo connections for the News. Intrigued by his career, Francesca asked Tim to coffee, and later, to mentor her.
Shadowing him, she soaked up the “how” of literary journalism, learning about the time, detail and choices that tell a well-rounded story.
“She has a natural curiosity, and she’s instinctively observant,” says Tim. “It translates into the natural ability to recognize and tell a story, how to take a unique look or approach. It was true ten years ago, and it’s definitely true now.”
The summer before her senior year, she landed a freelance gig in the News’ Gusto culture section and an internship in local broadcast news, then earned a part-time online feature writing position with the paper. She called her dad and shrieked, “I made it!”
After graduation she spent three years at the Hamburg Sun writing hard news full time and honing her reporting chops during a period she calls “journalism bootcamp,” then leaned back toward feature writing during a year of freelancing (including for Buffalo Magazine).
When the News food reporter position opened, she told herself, “If I get this job, I will spend every single minute of every single day being the journalist I want to be.”
In April 2024, she got the job—and has been doing exactly that ever since.
Follow Francesca on Instagram at @GustoEats.
Buffalo's 40 best restaurants
It started with a request to name the top 25 places to eat. But the list kept growing.
Through lunch and dinner reservations every day for weeks and countless hours of legwork, Francesca diligently curated this comprehensive guide featuring her take on the 40 best sit-down dining destinations in Western New York.
Check out the list, available without a Buffalo News subscription through June 30.
