Amy Cavanaugh

Location: Chicago, Illinois

Education: Mount Holyoke College, University of Maryland

Expertise: Cocktails, Spirits, and Wine, Food History

Amy Cavanaugh is the dining editor at Chicago magazine.
She writes about food, drink, travel, and cocktails for multiple publications.
Cavanaugh is a judge for Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards.

Experience

Amy Cavanaugh writes about spirits, food, dining, and travel from her home base of Chicago. She currently is the dining editor for Chicago magazine, and formerly was senior editor at Plate Magazine and restaurant/bar critic for Time Out Chicago.

She has written about wineries in Spain, night markets in Taipei, and what to eat at the Houston rodeo. Her work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Saveur, The Boston Globe, and more.

Cavanaugh is a judge for the Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards and was a fellow at the Wine Writers Symposium in Napa Valley in 2019.

What's your desert island food and why?

"I hope very much to be stuck on an island surrounded by waters filled with wonderful seafood, in particular, crabs. I can't think of a single better dish than a Maryland crab boil, with fresh crabs encrusted with ample Old Bay, and think it would make being marooned at sea much more bearable."

What's your favorite condiment and why?

"I live in a multiple mayonnaise household, so I'll have to go with that one—there are very different applications for Duke's, Kewpie, and Hellman's, and I think it's vital to have all three on hand."

About Serious Eats

Serious Eats, a Dotdash brand, is an award-winning food and drink website visited by over 7 million hungry readers every month. Our audience comes to us for rigorously tested recipes, science-driven cooking techniques, robust equipment reviews, and stories that offer cultural and historical context to the foods we love to eat.

Dotdash is among the largest and fastest growing publishers online, and has won over 50 awards in the last year alone, including Digiday's 2020 Publisher of the Year. Dotdash brands include Verywell, Investopedia, The Balance, The Spruce, Simply Recipes, Serious Eats, Byrdie, Brides, MyDomaine, Lifewire, TripSavvy, Liquor.com, and TreeHugger.