Amiel Stanek still recalls the crush of learning that Condé Nast decided to shutter Gourmet magazine back in 2009. He shared a subscription with his college roommates and writing for the publication had been one of his dreams.

“I was beside myself. It was like hearing your hometown baseball team had been traded away,” Stanek said. He thought to himself: “Where will I write now?”

More than a decade and a half later, the answer to Stanek’s question is in fact Gourmet, but this time with a different spin. After Condé Nast’s trademark lapsed last year, the New York Times first reported, a group of five journalists including Stanek decided to relaunch Gourmet as their own worker-owned magazine. The publication intends to send out at least two newsletters a week and is already generating delight from fans of the original publication.

“That magazine just looms so large for multiple generations of writers and editors,” said Elazar Sontag, the food critic at the Washington Post. “I think a lot of us had almost a physical reaction to just seeing even a version of Gourmet come back to life.”

For decades before it closed, Condé’s Gourmet magazine published work from luminaries in the food world such as Madhur Jaffrey and James Beard as well essays and fiction from writers including David Foster Wallace and Annie Proulx. The recipes it published were thoroughly tested, often elaborate and always held to the highest standards.

Ella Quittner, a journalist and the author of a forthcoming book of recipes and essays, said she learned the art of hosting from reading the magazine while growing up. Gourmet is still a reference point in her family for something especially lavish, like when her sister recently sent a photo of her holiday ham party to the family group chat.

“LOOKS LIKE A GOURMET SPREAD,” her parents wrote back.

That sense of luxuriating in cooking can be missing from popular food content today, such as 30-minute meals or five-ingredient recipes that are designed to appeal to busy people in a low-attention economy, she said.

“As someone who loves food, I’m excited at the prospect of them bringing back something like the all-day culinary project,” said Quittner, before adding: “I want them to encourage me to make a croquembouche,” referring to an elaborate tower of French pastries.

Nozlee Samadzadeh, another founder, is keenly aware of how the original magazine is a touchstone for many people. But he also points out that before it shuttered, Gourmet was around for nearly 70 years and continually evolving. While the founders are admirers of Gourmet’s legacy and the writers who have come before them, they don’t feel necessarily confined by the past, either.

“The nostalgia does not mean that we are trapped into only doing the things that have been done before,” said Samadzadeh.

In this new era, Stanek and Samadzadeh said they hope to appeal to people who enjoy cooking and love spending time in the kitchen. Instead of chasing eyeballs and publishing recipes that appeal to the greatest number of people, they’re OK with being a little more niche.

That’s attracting writers like Jaya Saxena, a journalist and author who previously wrote for Eater and will contribute to the site. She recalled growing up not just with Gourmet, but also Food & Wine and Bon Appétit, and each had a slightly different perspective. Yet, the media consolidation in recent years has left both readers and writers with fewer options of outlets.

“Rather than trying to get to a point where every single person is reading your publication, it seems much smarter to try to talk to people who actually care about the subject that you’re talking about,” Saxena said.

Independent news sites may offer an antidote to the sometimes dragnet approach of corporate media, she pointed out. “You have a lot of journalists who have been laid off or have faced the precarity of the media industry and are really trying to figure out: ‘Well how can we build something different?’”

Gourmet joins a slate of other independent outlets such as Defector, Hell Gate and 404 Media that operate as worker-owner cooperatives, where they write and edit the content as well as manage and own the business. The decision about the business model came easily once they decided to launch, said Stanek. All five of the founders are around the same age and the hierarchical structure of a typical newsroom didn’t make sense. The lean structure also lends itself to a more nimble publication that can adapt while it grows.

“We’re in a really special, weird time of media, with a lot of pain but also a lot of opportunity,” said Stanek. “We don’t need a million subscribers in order to make this thing.”

The publication has sent out two newsletters so far and already has the playful irreverence that has come to characterize some of the most pleasurable writing to read on the internet. Still, the founders aren’t shy about the fact that it is still finding its voice. They swap their favorite pieces of food writing and are open with sharing feedback on each other’s work before hitting send.

Together, they’re building the plane while learning to fly it, said Stanek.

“The jokes that we come up with, when we’re really jamming, when we’re really riffing, are just better than the jokes that we’re coming up with individually,” said Samadzadeh.

“It turns out that we riff really well together.”