Beth D
Beth D’Addono writes about how new restaurants and bars shape the local food landscape, using detailed reporting to show the people, stories and global influences behind them. Her work for Gambit concentrates on chef-driven openings and neighborhood spots across the New Orleans area, with a consistent focus on independent operators and immigrant-rooted cuisines. Alongside pieces such as her feature on Japanese-inspired sandos on St. Claude, she builds a beat around openings, expansions and concept-driven venues rather than traditional criticism or consumer guides.
New Openings, Expansions and Neighborhood Spots
A defining strand of D’Addono’s coverage is close attention to new and recently opened restaurants and bars, especially those reshaping their immediate streets and neighborhoods.
She introduces readers to places like Casimiro, a Mexican breakfast and lunch spot in Bywater, by walking through opening timing, seating, and how the restaurant fits into the existing corridor. She treats Procida, a southern Italian restaurant in the Marigny, similarly as a destination for devoted eaters and travelers, tying its coastal Italian flavors to the character of the area. Her story on Bar 1865, a bar and restaurant tucked away on Lafayette Street, stresses its long history as a hospitality space and the way new ownership is reviving a hidden corner of the CBD.
She follows operators as they move or grow, documenting how established names adapt to new locations. Her piece on The Munch Factory tracks the restaurant’s 15-year evolution and the move to a larger Mid-City space, linking the new address to the family-run concept’s existing audience. She covers second locations and expansions with the same level of detail, such as Espiritu Mezcaleria’s growth into Mid-City and the shift from a single CBD bar to a two-venue operation.
In stories on smaller-scale openings like Cafe Malou, a cozy breakfast spot in Uptown, and Maria’s Oyster & Wine Bar in the Warehouse District, she anchors the narrative in the promise of the concept and the way each space aims to serve its immediate neighborhood.
Global Cuisines and Immigrant-Rooted Concepts
D’Addono’s restaurant coverage repeatedly returns to global cuisines and chefs drawing on immigrant or diasporic roots. She profiles Garibaldi’s as a traditional Mexican restaurant in River Ridge, explaining how the partners’ experience in Mexican fondas informs the menu and their pride in serving regional dishes. At Casimiro, she traces the Castro sisters’ path from Mexico City to Bywater, connecting their first restaurant and modern Mexican cooking to the new breakfast-and-lunch concept.
She also highlights Cuban flavors and heritage at Cafe Conmigo, where Cuban sandwiches, coffee and a compact menu serve as a tribute to the chef’s family and cultural background.
Her reporting brings similar depth to Asian and hybrid concepts.
In coverage of Pho Parish, she presents traditional Vietnamese cuisine in Chalmette through the chef’s rediscovery of basic dishes in Vietnam and his training in local kitchens. Her work on Nanami Sushi Diner & Onigiri describes a chef who imports fish from Japan and builds a sushi-focused diner informed by his upbringing in Okinawa and training as a sushi chef.
She follows Nikkei in two different stories: one on Social, a Nikkei and modern Peruvian restaurant that elevates the cuisine to fine dining, and another on Nikkei as a Japanese-style tavern at the Broadside that explores Japanese immigrant foodways with Louisiana ingredients. Across these pieces, international cuisines are not treated as trends but as lived experiences expressed through menus and restaurant design.
Chef and Owner Narratives
A second hallmark of D’Addono’s work is the depth of the chef and owner narratives woven into each restaurant profile. Her Garibaldi’s story recounts how the partners learned to cook in family fondas, ran a small operation at a flea market, and then took the leap to open a full restaurant during the pandemic, framing the business as the culmination of years of informal cooking and entrepreneurship. In her Pho Parish piece, she tracks chef Nhat Nguyen from working in a family corner store to studying culinary arts, opening and closing his own restaurant, and joining other kitchens before settling into the new venture. These biographies are presented as the backbone for why a restaurant looks and tastes the way it does.
She applies the same approach to bar owners and hospitality partners. At Bar 1865, she introduces Linda Novak’s history running lounges and venues, explaining how her experience and personal investment in the building’s past shape the new bar-restaurant hybrid.
Her Espiritu Mezcaleria coverage follows Haley Saucier and Grant Carey from staff roles at the original mezcaleria to ownership of a second location, highlighting Saucier’s growing passion for mezcal history and culture. In Lost Coyote, she outlines the management team’s prior work in New Orleans restaurants and how their backgrounds inform a concept that combines a pool, casual poolside food, and more refined indoor dining.
Stories like Cafe Conmigo and Maria’s Oyster & Wine Bar similarly foreground the founders’ personal motivations, family influences and previous restaurant experience as the context for each opening.
Format, Tone and Beat Focus
D’Addono’s pieces read as narrative profiles and reported features rather than formal reviews or roundup lists. Each article centers on a single restaurant or bar, building the story through owner and chef interviews, origin stories and concrete details about menus, decor and operations. She routinely includes specifics such as seating capacity, street addresses, opening dates, and signature dishes, giving her stories a practical edge while keeping the emphasis on people and place.
The tone is descriptive and precise, with a clear interest in how culinary concepts travel, adapt and take root in local neighborhoods.
Across her recent work, her beat remains consistent: independent and small-group restaurant openings, global flavors interpreted through local ingredients, and chef narratives that explain why a concept exists now and in that particular corner of the city. For food and drink stories that need a strong sense of origin, identity and neighborhood context, her coverage reflects a disciplined focus on the intersection of culinary ambition and everyday hospitality.
4 more food journalists.
Aaron Guerrero
Aaron Guerrero is head of the digital department at Miami’s Community Newspapers, where he pairs restaurant coverage with community-facing content. He focuses on how Miami-area restaurants evolve, celebrate, and experiment through new concepts, menus, and neighborhood-focused dining experiences. He reports on restaurant openings, such as an Italian food hall at Plaza Coral Gables, new executive lunch menus, and wood-fired Latin steakhouse brunches, explaining what sets each venue apart. He also covers awards, like a Wine Spectator honor for an Italian chophouse, and events that turn dining rooms into social hubs. His bylines extend to features on sports-themed gatherings, civic renamings, local visits to restaurant programs, sponsored community pieces, and official notices. His work is straightforward and descriptive, helping readers and local businesses connect around specific openings, promotions, and dining experiences.
Aarron Fleming
Aarron Fleming reports on how courts, jails and public safety systems work over time. He is a reporter at The Daily Memphian covering public safety, the local court system, suburban news and business developments in North Mississippi. His work follows trials, sentencing, appeals, plea deals and judicial decisions, including major cases tied to Tyre Nichols and rapper Young Dolph. He also covers jail conditions, inmate deaths, crime data, prosecution units, trafficking, shootings and public-order incidents. His suburban reporting examines cannabis businesses, restaurant openings and how commercial growth affects communities such as Olive Branch. Fleming previously covered education in the same newsroom. He uses clear, unadorned prose to explain legal steps, deadlines, institutional problems and the political, commercial and community effects of public-safety decisions.
Alana Al-Hatlani
Alana Al-Hatlani is a food writer and editor who treats recipes, restaurants, and food features as ways to explore culture, community, and the business of eating. She works on the food team at Southern Living, overseeing and contributing to print recipes and reported features. Her pastry-focused, restaurant-tested perspective comes from time in restaurant and bakery kitchens. She helps plan and write monthly food packages, including “The South’s Most Treasured Desserts,” and wrote “8 Summer Recipes Our Editors Make Every Year.” She also writes recipe tips, ingredient explainers, restaurant guides, and reported stories about workers, owners, and communities. Her subjects include regional specialties, dining scenes, kitchen basics, and food industries. Her work has appeared with OpenTable and Yahoo. She reports on the ground, explains techniques clearly, and connects specific dishes and places to larger stories about food and livelihood.
Alana Edgin
Alana Edgin is a business reporter whose strongest focus is food, restaurants and consumer-facing businesses. She works at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and has also had work syndicated across AOL and Yahoo News. She covers new openings, closings, expansions and franchise growth, along with retail, health, services, corporate news, data incidents, business support programs and sponsorships. Her reporting includes detailed roundups of new restaurants and businesses, coverage of El Pollo Loco’s opening, and stories on burger trucks, dessert shops, Vietnamese sandwich restaurants and gourmet markets. She also contributes to food and drink reviews, including fall coffee and jerky comparisons. Edgin reports with practical “what, when, where” details, structured comparisons and clear explanations of how offers, partnerships and business changes affect consumers and the local economy.