Maura Judkis

Reporter, The Washington Post

Washington, D.C.

Maura Judkis is a reporter for the Washington Post, covering culture, food and the arts. She is a 2018 James Beard Award winner whose work has been recognized by the Association of Food Journalists and the Virginia Press Association. Maura has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, PBS, NPR and Al Jazeera. She is a 2007 graduate of the George Washington University, and a 2011 arts journalism fellow with the National Endowment for the Arts and the University of Southern California.

Maura Judkis

Reporter, The Washington Post

Washington, D.C.

Featured
Soleil Ho is a young, queer woman of color who wants to redefine food criticism
Soleil Ho is here, and she doesn’t want anyone to know it. But the San Francisco Chronicle’s new restaurant critic could pass for younger than her 31 years, so when a server asks her for ID after she orders a cocktail, she winces imperceptibly. She’s not truly anonymous — after years of posting photos on social media, never expecting to get a job as a critic, that ship has sailed — but she doesn’t want special treatment.
The Washington Post
Media Food
Featured
‘The man who attacked me works in your kitchen’: Victim of serial groper took justice into her own hands
Nearly six years ago, on an unseasonably warm April night in Washington, Lauren Clark was cooling down from a jog when she spotted a man in the distance. She quickened her pace, hurried past him and, for a moment, considered crossing the street. Her fear seemed irrational — paranoid, even — until the threat became real.
The Washington Post
Culture Food
Featured
‘Someone else’s problem’: Six women learn the confusing, ambiguous reality of confronting an alleged harasser
Everyone else was posting their #MeToo stories last October, and that’s when Ann Elise Trafford realized she had one to tell, too. “#MeToo for the first time when I was 17, by the manager of the restaurant I worked at,” she wrote on Facebook, but it was so much more complicated than that, in ways she would soon understand.
The Washington Post
Culture
Featured
Mike Isabella’s restaurants used nondisclosure agreements to silence sexual harassment accounts, lawsuit alleges
Chloe Caras’s lawsuit asks the court to declare the NDAs unenforceable — which could free many more employees to speak about their experience working for the company.
The Washington Post
Food Culture Business
Featured
‘Grandma’s food’: How changing tastes are killing German restaurants
When you think of the quintessential German restaurant in the United States, you’re thinking of a place like Karl Ratzsch. Ever since it was founded by German immigrants in 1904, it had a menu full of schnitzel, spaetzle and hearty Bavarian staples. The interior was dark wood, with German coats of arms, hand-painted beer steins, a beautiful Bavarian cuckoo clock and servers in dirndls.
The Washington Post
Business Food
Featured
‘I want to see you naked’: When alcohol flowed, Mario Batali turned abusive, workers say
The theme of the party was Magic, Martinis and Mario, and there was an awful lot of the latter two. It was at Mario Batali’s buzzy Los Angeles restaurant Osteria Mozza, the week of the Oscars in March 2010. Vanity Fair publisher Edward Menicheschi was hosting a private dinner for advertisers, and the restaurateur and chef was the main attraction.
The Washington Post
Culture Media Food
Featured
Rape in the storage room. Groping at the bar. Why is the restaurant industry so terrible for women?
In interviews with dozens of women, a picture of rampant assault and harassment emerges. And not just by powerful chefs.
The Washington Post
Food Culture
Featured
I used every pumpkin spice product I could find for a week. Now my armpits smell like nutmeg.
Pumpkin spice is not a flavor, it’s a lifestyle. Its mantra is the crackle of fallen leaves and bonfires. “Sweater weather” is its holy creed. The pumpkin spice life, like its coffee, is sweet, and you are always #thankful for your #blessings. It was never really about that particular blend of cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, ginger and allspice, but how it makes us feel: warm, nostalgic, loved.
The Washington Post
Business Humor Culture Food
Featured
Another restaurant closes. That doesn’t mean the industry is headed for a crash.
Ripple was the kind of warm, welcoming place that bred regulars like rabbits. It was both upscale and casual, and not overpriced. It won awards and was fondly reviewed. It was filled with people until, gradually, it wasn’t. “Our sales were down, and they’ve been down over the last couple of years.
The Washington Post
Food Business Culture
Featured
Can smart kitchen devices actually make you a better cook?
In the kitchen of the future, it was time to make some salmon, and the reporter of the present day — that’s me — had several choices. I could put it in my smart pan, which would notify me via cellphone alert when it had reached the precise temperature — 375 degrees Fahrenheit — at which the fish should be cooked, and when to put it in the pan, and when to flip it, too.
The Washington Post
Technology Food Business
Featured
Sous vide is couture convenience food. Is this the year home cooks finally embrace it?
To help the harried cook, there have long been promises of dinner at the touch of a button. But a San Francisco start-up has gone one step further: It has eliminated the button. With a device that debuts next month, the contents and precise cooking directions of a pouch of food — tagged with radio frequency identification — can be determined with a mere pass in front of its small screen.
The Washington Post
Food Technology Business
Featured
Brands want to capitalize on 4/20 munchies. Pot advocates say it’s time to grow up.
When you and your buds get the munchies on April 20, the high holiday for marijuana users, a small army of marketing professionals is working to ensure that in your haze, you’ll reach for their brand of blazed, er, glazed doughnuts. Or Totino’s Pizza Rolls. Or Burger King. Or any other brand of junk food — even from a wholesome, family-friendly company — that suspects its biggest fans may be spending the day more flame-broiled than a Whopper.
The Washington Post
Business Culture Food
Featured
Is their crossroads cuisine ‘the next big thing’? Uyghurs hope so.
Uyghur people are “really hospitable,” said Erkinay Abliz. So that’s why, when a recent visitor to her brother-in-law’s Cleveland Park restaurant, Dolan Uyghur, struggled to pull a piece of lamb off a nearly sword-length skewer, Abliz picked up her own kebab and bit the meat directly off the metal.
The Washington Post
Food Culture
Featured
Snap a selfie inside Yayoi Kusama’s mirror rooms. But take a moment to reflect.
The first time I walked into a Yayoi Kusama mirror room, I spent a minute in isolation, pondering the infinite. I was surrounded by mirrors — on all sides, even the ceiling — and the floor was covered in the Japanese artist’s characteristic neon dots. I looked into the horizon and saw thousands of versions of my own reflection, growing smaller and smaller until I disappeared.
The Washington Post
Food Culture
Featured
‘There’s a dignity to this place’: Inside the world of pay-what-you-can restaurants
When the check hits the table after a three-course meal at the homey EAT Café, it looks a little unusual. The receipt slip reads: “The total above is only a SUGGESTED price. Please write here the amount you wish to pay.”. The meal is valued at $15, plus $1.20 in tax. Some pay it. Some pay more.
The Washington Post
Culture Food Business
Featured
Miss World is the biggest beauty pageant you’ve never heard of. What’s it doing in Washington?
There is no swimsuit competition at Miss World. Miss Universe, sure: More body than brains. But Miss World? She’s all about charity and humanitarianism and talent. Let alone that the global pageant — which is considered more prestigious than Miss Universe — is happening right now, on the Maryland fringe of the nation’s capital, with a crowning Sunday at the new MGM National Harbor casino.
The Washington Post
Culture Media

About

Maura Judkis

Maura Judkis is a reporter for the Washington Post, covering culture, food and the arts. She is a 2018 James Beard Award winner whose work has been honored by the Association of Food Journalists and the Virginia Press Association. Maura has appeared on local and international TV and radio, including MSNBC, CNN, PBS, and Al Jazeera. She is a 2007 graduate of the George Washington University, and a 2011 arts journalism fellow with the National Endowment for the Arts and the University of Southern California. She has also written for U.S. News & World Report, TBD.com, ARTnews, the Washington City Paper, and the Onion A.V. Club.