International food and travel writer Sylvie Bigar was born in Geneva, Switzerland, and is fluent in three languages: French, English, and Italian. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Departures, Travel & Leisure, Town & Country, National Geographic Traveler, Time Out New York, Saveur, Food Arts, Air Canada, Passport Magazine, Narratives, The Southampton Press, and New York Resident, for which she has also served as food editor. She has also contributed, in French, to her hometown newspaper, Geneva’s Le Temps.

Always seeking the most rewarding experiences to share with gourmands and globetrotters alike, Sylvie’s many adventures have led her to explore the hidden paths of Crete’s ancient cities, the casbahs of Morocco, the fortified city of Carcassonne, the remote Swiss village of Mund with its seductive saffron, the culinary revival in post-Communist Prague, the cultivation of sugar by early Jewish settlers on Barbados, and the longtime French quest to make the perfect cassoulet, to name only a few.

Online, Sylvie contributes regularly to Time Out New York’s eating and drinking blog The Feed, where, among other things, she interviews the city’s top chefs — including Daniel Boulud, David Bouley, Gabriel Kreuther, Eric Hara, Philippe Bertineau, Ralf Kuettel, Pierre Schaedelin, Jeremy Bearman, and Floyd Cardoz — as well as industry tastemakers like former Gourmet Editor in Chief Ruth Reichl. She is a frequent contributor to food writer Gael Greene’s website, Insatiable Critic, and her restaurant reviews and food stories are featured on Gayot and Wired Berries, among other sites. She is also on Twitter (as Frenchiefoodie), and she maintains her own food and travel blog at sbigar.com.

In 2007, Sylvie’s palate was put to work as a recipe taster for New York Times food writer Florence Fabricant’s three most-recent cookbooks: Park Avenue Potluck, Volumes I and II, and the 2009 edition of The New York Restaurant Cookbook (all published by Rizzoli). In 2010, she co-wrote the book Living Art: Style Your Home with Flowers with renowned floral artist and designer Olivier Giugni, which includes a forward by actress Catherine Deneuve (Atria Books).

Prior to working as a writer, Sylvie enjoyed a successful career in public relations. Sylvie got her start at Carnegie Hall, then went on to five years as the associate director of public relations for the New York Philharmonic, where she secured media coverage for the orchestra on television programs such as CBS’s 60 Minutes and Late Show with David Letterman, and in newspapers including The New York Times, France’s Le Monde, and the U.K.’s The Guardian, among many others. Sylvie is also the founder and former president of Sylvie Bigar International Public Relations, where her clients included cultural institutions, travel destinations, and gourmet-food purveyors.

After moving to the United States in 1984, Sylvie earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from New York University. She studied travel writing at Gotham Writers’ Workshop, and food writing with James Beard Award-winning journalist Alan Richman at The French Culinary Institute.

A dedicated traveler and gourmande, Sylvie is based in New York City, where she lives with her husband, two children, two dogs, and three passports.