Frank Bruni is done at the NYT…The Associated Press has the goods:

NEW YORK (AP) — Check please!

The New York Times announced Thursday that restaurant critic Frank Bruni has decided to leave his influential position after five years.

Bruni will step down as restaurant critic after a book promotion and vacation but will continue writing for the Times’ Sunday magazine.

The editor of the food section didn’t say when Bruni would pen his last review. A successor has yet to be named for what’s widely considered the most important restaurant critic job in the country.

“I have not even started to think about it,” said Trish Hall, who oversees the paper’s dining, real estate and home coverage and will be leading the search for a replacement.

While Hall said she didn’t even have a short list, there are some obvious contenders including Alan Richman of GQ magazine, author Bill Buford, Michael Bauer of the San Francisco Chronicle and Jonathan Gold of LA Weekly, who in 2007 became the first food critic to win a Pulitzer Prize.

Bruni will be turning in his restaurant-critic credentials when his memoir, “Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-Time Eater,” is published in late August.

Bruni loved many restaurants in New York City and hated quite a few. He also wrote about restaurants all over the country and world. Bruni, the paper’s former Rome correspondent, frequently ladled praise on Italian restaurants, leading some to believe he was partial to pasta and prosciutto.

He despised gimmicks. His memorable takedown of a poorly conceived restaurant called Ninja will surely end up in the hall of fame for snarky criticism. Bruni wrote that the restaurant confused “the point of a restaurant with the mission of a ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit.”

Bruni has an adventurous appetite, trekking to Queens for spicy, authentic Sichuan cuisine or a Manhattan strip club for a steak. He enjoyed both experiences.

When he first got the job, many were surprised.

“He lacked what the foodie establishment would regard as suitable credentials,” Times editor Bill Keller wrote in a memo to newspaper staff. “He was not the obvious choice.

“Five years later, the choice seems not only obvious, but inspired, proving that sometimes editors get one really right.”

Bruni is known for a cutting writing style and never met a metaphor he didn’t love.

He inspired much chatter on the Internet and had an admirer named Julia Langbein who once mocked him lovingly on her blog, poking fun at his over-the-top prose every week.

But like any critic, Bruni had enemies.

Chief on that list was restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow. After Bruni gutted his Kobe Club — a pricey steakhouse — a fuming Chodorow took out a full-page advertisement in The Times deriding Bruni.

“I’d like to see The New York Times have a food critic that has no agenda and has culinary experience, which is not Frank Bruni,” Chodorow wrote in 2007.

Bruni survived Chodorow’s ire. The Kobe Club recently closed.

Huffington Post received this memo from the NYT  Executive Editor Bill Keller

Dear Colleagues:

When we recruited Frank Bruni from the Rome Bureau to be the restaurant critic of The New York Times, there was a quizzical buzz in the food-o-sphere. Sure, Frank had shown himself to be a gifted reporter on subjects domestic and foreign. Yes, he was indisputably an exquisite writer. And there were unmistakeable clues to his affinity in his travel pieces, with their vivid evocation of Italian food, and in other features — the profile of the makers of Italian grappa, the visit to the University of Gastronomic Science in Polenzo. But he lacked what the foodie establishment would regard as suitable credentials. He was not the obvious choice.

Five years later, the choice seems not only obvious, but inspired, proving that sometimes editors get one really right. Not content to review his way around New York with authority and brio, not content to blog discoveries that do not yet merit a fullblown review, he has also performed more ambitious feats of criticism: his unforgettable cross-country tour of the iconic fast food joints of America, for instance, and his quest for the best brand-new restaurants in all of America.

In his spare time, between aerobic eating and the requisite gym time to burn it all off, he has managed to produce a memoir of his lifelong, complicated relationship with food. Recognizing that the book is certain to seriously compromise his ability to be a spy in the land of food, Frank picked this as a natural time to move on. He will be turning in his restaurant-critic credentials when his memoir, “Born Round: the Secret

History of a Full-Time Eater,” is published in late August.

After a break for book promotion and some overdue vacation, Frank will become a writer-at-large on the staff of our Sunday magazine, where he will have license to follow his appetites — his journalistic appetites — whereever they lead him. Jill and I have insisted on the right to draft him occasionally for projects large or small, but the magazine will be his base and main outlet. Readers are in for some great reading.

As for the restaurant beat, the search for a successor begins now.

Bill

My phone has yet to ring. They’re so coy.