Gourmet to relaunch as independent newsletter after trademark lapse

Gourmet, the once-defunct food magazine long owned by Condé Nast, will be relaunched as an independent online newsletter on the platform Ghost, operated by five 30-something journalists after the magazine’s trademark lapsed. The founders say the new Gourmet will prioritize longform writing and complex recipes and will be run without the infrastructure of a media conglomerate.

The effort began after the writer Sam Dean discovered the Gourmet trademark had not been renewed in 2021 and he worked with four others on the application. The team shared a new lowercase logo and said the project is intended for home cooks who want to spend an afternoon in the kitchen rather than for people seeking quick weeknight solutions.

The founders said contributors will be paid and receive a portion of profits from new subscriptions, which will start at $7 per month. They said they will not sell advertising, had not sought investment, and funded the launch with “a couple thousand dollars” of their own money and donations from friends.

The newsletter plans to publish one feature and one recipe per week, plus bonus content for higher-tier subscribers, and the co-founders dismissed immediate plans for video or podcasts, with Nozlee Samadzadeh saying, “Good writing is really cool.” Condé Nast did not respond to requests for comment, and the co-founders said they “feel confident” in their legal position after consulting a lawyer.

Key Topics

Culture, Gourmet, Ghost, Sam Dean, Amiel Stanek, Ruth Reichl