New York's New Food Critic Is An 11-Year-Old Kid On Instagram

When I was 11, although I dearly wanted to be a writer, I wasn't actively pursuing my career yet, to put it mildly. I was much more concerned with reading every single Nancy Drew mystery and developing crushes on various members of The Bad News Bears. 11-year-old me pales next to the likes of Luca Marconi, the fifth-grader who has already racked up nearly 20,000 Instagram followers with his brutally honest takedowns of neighborhood foods.

For the record, Marconi is a fan of all foods, as his mom tells New York's PIX11: "I remember asking him one time I gave him choices of what he wanted for dinner and he looked at me and said 'well what kind of question is that? I want all of them.'" Now he offers weekly reviews of local restaurants. Loves: An authentic slice of pepperoni from Carmine's. Hates: School food at the cafeteria.

In a documentary video from the New York Post, it appears that self-esteem is not one of his issues: "I am a kid, I am adorable, and I am one of a kind, ya know?" The manager of Anthony & Son Panini Shoppe in Williamsburg calls Marconi "a 30-year-old stuck in an 11-year-old's body." His rating system ranges from 100 to 1,000 thumbs up; a recent chicken and waffle plate scored an 850.

Perhaps Marconi could start some kind of a salon (in the European-artist sense) with fellow young professionals like 14-year-old theater critic Ada Grey or 12-year-old reporter Hilde Kate Lysiak.

Marconi's IG is gaining such traction, he has even attracted admirers like celebrity chef Rachael Ray. At the young age of 11, his future seems unlimited. As he posted a few days ago, "gonna take thus further than I could've ever imagined." Still, he tells the Post, he wants to be a lawyer when he grows up to give back to the community. In his free time, of course, he'll be "a food reviewer."