Pulitzer Prize-winning restaurant critic Jonathan Gold is leaving the L.A. Weekly for the Los Angeles Times.

Yesterday Village Voice restaurant critic Robert Sietsema confirmed that Gold would be leaving “despite fevered negotiations with Village Voice Media executive editor Michael Lacey.”

L.A. Observed’s Kevin Roderick reports:

When the popular food writer informed the LA Weekly and Village Voice Media’s Mike Lacey on Friday that he had accepted a job offer from the Los Angeles Times, the home office in Phoenix mobilized. Talks reportedly continued over the weekend, with Lacey apparently dangling money the chain had not previously shown itself willing to commit.

L.A. Weekly editor in chief Sarah Fenske writes: “Hell, we tried to keep him. But time marches on.”

Gold had a previous stint at the L.A. Times from 1990 to 1996, returning to the L.A. Weekly in 2001. He started at the Weekly as a proofreader in 1982, and won the paper its first Pulitzer Prize in 2007. He remains the only food critic, ever, to win a Pulitzer.