It feels surreal to write this. Sitting at a table by myself at Balthazar, where many infamous New York writers have found inspiration or finished their manuscripts, the imposter syndrome feels worse than it’s ever been. Worse than when I had the idea of starting Fritto Editions, worse than when I was writing some of the pieces.

Fritto Editions was born out of my frustrations with food media. The abundance of trendy newsletters and chef focused publications is getting out of hand, you have to admit. I am not a native New Yorker, but I’ve lived here long enough to notice that reservation culture has destroyed people’s relationships with restaurants, and food in general. I would get started on social media’s effect on the fabric of food culture in this city, but that is a whole different story — a book, if you may, that I hope to write one day. 

What started out as an idea turned into reality very quickly when I went to London last December and had dimsum with my friend at Royal China Club. At the time, I explained to him what Fritto was going to be, but it didn’t even make sense to me. Where we landed in format and context in the global food media axis was still a question mark. Soon enough I realized that some of these questions could not be answered until we took the first step and put something out into the world.

Now, I can confidently say what Fritto Editions is. We are an independent media and publishing company that moves across disciplines. Our magazine is the first leg of the many projects we will continue to grow into.

Without further ado, I would like to introduce the first issue of our magazine, Artisan. As a concept, it made sense to highlight individuals and companies that still value human labor over machinery in our inaugural issue. In the timeframe that we were working on the content, rapid developments were made in the integration of AI into the food and beverage world. A handful of legacy restaurants and bakeries shuttered their doors, simply because they could not keep up with the costs of running an honest and human focused business. 

At a time like this, the message of our issue feels evermore poignant. So much generational knowledge is being lost to the hyper-industrialization of the food industry. Craft based and vocational skills are no longer of interest to younger generations. Yet there is always a glimmer of hope. A group of people who are desperately holding onto the human nature of making something with your hands and giving it your all. In this issue, we highlight some of the people who belong in that community — who know that whatever a machine can make will never be as valuable as what their hands can create. I want to extend my gratitude to them for letting us into their world, and our cameras and computers along the way. 

I would also like to thank the exceptional writers who took a chance and agreed to be part of our issue: Mennlay Golokeh Agrey, Carmen Perr, Paige Nickless and Karissa Simchick. Sharing your writing with a new publication with no accolades is not easy, as most would understand. I hope that your support, dear reader, makes them proud to be part of something that wants to do good.

Ebru Eltemur

Founder and Editor in Chief of FRITTO Editions