The 17 Most-Followed Food Critics On Twitter Slideshow

Bringing up the rear is Los Angeles Times food critic S. Irene Virbila with 5,034 followers. She follows 313 lucky people.

Handle: @sirenevirbila

Philadelphia Inquirer critic Craig LaBan has 5,192 followers and follows 506 people.

Handle: @CraigLaBan

Walsh, critic for The Houston Press, pulls in 7,083 followers and follows 227 people.

Handle: @robbwalsh

Bloomberg reviewer Ryan Sutton's 7,710 followers often receive a healthy dose of honesty on subjects like bad deals, price hikes, and the man's love of caviar. On the flip side, Sutton follows 724 people.

Handle: @qualityrye

The head restaurant critic at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has 8,420 followers who log in to read his musings. He's a generous fellow, following 3,044 people in return.

Handle: @AJCFoodandMore

The Village Voice's outspoken critic Robert Sietsema, aka The Man in the Goofy Mask, has 9,309 followers (up from 5,069). He follows a measly 163 people.

Handle: @robertsietsema

The New Orleans Times-Picayune restaurant writer is currently on hiatus, but has been invited to resume his post after a fellowship with the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Perhaps then he can add to his 11,071 followers (up from 5,404). The man follows 1,207 people.

Handle: @BrettAndersonTP

The Houston Chronicle's restaurant critic has 11,261 followers (up from 6,434) and follows 1,161 people.

Handle: @alisoncook

The Atlantic's senior editor has a Twitter audience of 13,855 (up from 6,130) and follows a mere 177 people.

Handle: @CKummer

New York Magazine's voluminous restaurant critic has 16,441 followers (up from 6,227) and follows 1,013 people. Presumably, he follows the friends who populate his reviews, like "The Steak Loon", "The French Snob," and "The Restaurant Vulture".

Handle: @plattypants

Vogue restaurant writer and grumbling Iron Chef judge Jeffrey Steingarten has 17,762 followers (up from 7,304) and only follows 52 people.

Handle: @jsteingarten

Food and Wine Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, Michael Bauer counts 21,028 followers in his Twitter posse (up from 11,382). As for his own following habits? 27 lucky people are followed by the man.

Handle: @michaelbauer1

Bon Appétit's restaurant and drinks editor clocks in at 22,401 followers while following 622 people. One guess as to the high figure? Knowlton cut his then-signature long locks last year, to much applause from the food community.

Handle: @AndrewOKnowlton

Tom (no relation to Robert, #12), The Washington Post's resident food critic, has 22,889 followers (up from 12,257) and follows 200 people.

Handle: @tomsietsema

As befits such a majorly visible position as "restaurant critic for The New York Times," Pete Wells has 32,878 followers and follows 419 people.

Handle: @pete_wells

At the opposite end of the spectrum from his colleague S. Irene Virbila, Los Angeles Times critic Jonathan Gold holds court with 37,153 followers (up from 18,850), and follows 269 people.

Handle: @thejgold

Grand dame of food and sexuality (and the many ways in which the two intersect), Gael Greene, aka The Insatiable One, dwarfs all of her competitors with a mammoth 139,848 followers (up from 69,230), while only following a meager 88 people in return — talk about being a selfish lover.

Handle: @GaelGreene