William Grimes was the restaurant critic for The New York Times from 1999 to 2004. In his more than 20 years with the newspaper he has been a story editor at the Sunday magazine, a culture reporter, a Broadway columnist and a book critic. He is the author of “Straight Up or On the Rocks: The Story of the American Cocktail,” “My Fine Feathered Friend,” about a chicken that came to live in his backyard, and “Appetite City: A Culinary History of New York.”