Brianna Caleri
Brianna Caleri covers Austin dining as part of a wider culture beat, connecting restaurant news and chef stories to the city’s awards, events, and creative scene. She writes with a focus on how openings, closings, and culinary talent shape everyday eating, highlighting both the business realities of restaurants and their place in local life.
City editor with a food-forward culture brief
Caleri is the city editor for CultureMap Austin and also edits coverage for CultureMap San Antonio. In that role she oversees and contributes to culture reporting that frequently centers on restaurants, chefs, and food events. Her work reflects a broad culture lens, but food news — from new concepts to signature events — is a recurring anchor.
Restaurant openings, closings, and neighborhood food news
Caleri regularly covers movement in the local restaurant landscape, with roundups that gather multiple changes into a single, readable brief. One recent piece highlights “9 openings and closings to know about this April in Austin food news,” distilling new arrivals and shuttered spots into a concise update. She also writes focused news stories on individual restaurants, such as the closing of El Naranjo after more than 15 years, explaining the timing and significance of the decision for diners who followed the restaurant’s evolution. Across these formats, she treats openings and closings as both business updates and cultural milestones, emphasizing what each change means for regular guests and the broader dining scene.
Chef-driven dining and awards coverage
Caleri’s food coverage often foregrounds chefs and culinary leadership rather than just the venues themselves. In reporting on El Naranjo’s closure, she details the contributions of James Beard Award–winning chef Iliana de la Vega and the restaurant’s longstanding emphasis on authenticity in Mexican cuisine. She co-wrote a piece revealing “Austin's best restaurants and chefs” tied to the 2026 Tastemaker Awards, cataloging honorees across categories and spotlighting the teams behind them. Another feature, “These 8 rising star chefs are the future of Austin's food scene,” focuses on up-and-coming talent, positioning their work as indicative of where local food is heading. Taken together, these stories show a consistent interest in the personalities, accolades, and trajectories that define chef-driven dining.
Food events, collaborations, and experiential culture
Beyond static restaurant coverage, Caleri reports on food events and collaborations that shape how locals experience dining. A recent headline notes Texas Monthly’s “Community Meat-up,” announcing tickets for a Lockhart picnic featuring more than 30 top barbecue joints. In this kind of story she tracks partnerships between media brands and restaurants, large-scale tastings, and other gatherings that turn food into a shared cultural experience. Her editing and writing in this area show an emphasis on how special events, tastings, and awards nights connect diners with chefs and restaurants in real time.
Format and tone
Caleri works across formats including news briefs on specific restaurants, multi-item roundups, and feature-style profiles of chefs and award nominees. She writes in straightforward, accessible language that keeps the focus on what is new or changing in the food scene, while adding enough background to explain why a restaurant, chef, or event matters. Her food stories consistently place restaurant news within a larger culture narrative, making them useful for understanding both the immediate update and the longer-term direction of Austin dining.
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.
Alice Mannette
Alice Mannette blends service journalism with narrative reporting about everyday life, using local food and gathering places to tell broader stories about community. She writes for the St. Cloud Times, focusing on practical guides to ice cream shops, wineries and other neighborhood businesses. Her coverage turns questions like where to eat and what to do this weekend into portraits of local entrepreneurs, weekend plans and the social life of her area. She reports food and drink as usable guides while tracing local history, culture and public safety. She also covers how people record their lives, writing features on diaries, family history and new books that examine archives and memory. Alongside this, she reports civic and public safety news and produces USA TODAY Network service pieces that compile clear, concrete resources for people dealing with storms and other emergencies.
Amanda Mactas
Amanda Mactas links food news, pop culture, and practical consumer advice, showing how brands, products, and personalities appear in everyday eating. She is an associate editor at Delish, reporting news and feature stories that span celebrity-driven launches, competitive eating, value-focused roundups, and taste tests. Her beat covers food culture, event-driven food deals, brand campaigns, product testing, grocery finds, and shopping guides, all with a clear service angle. She reports through specific products, personalities, and major sports days or holidays, using them to explain broader trends, marketing tactics, and consumer value. Beyond Delish, she works as a freelance writer and editor across food, travel, health, and lifestyle outlets, profiling founders, public markets, restaurant culture, wellness, and travel, and tying everyday eating to place, wellness, and routine in accessible, utility-focused prose.
Amelia Jones
Amelia Jones is a Fox 4 News reporter who makes major moments in Texas life feel close by centering ordinary people, often through food, fandom and everyday routines. She now reports across web, on-air and social video, keeping the camera and narrative on fans’ faces, crowd noise and local venues as she covers World Cup visitors trying Tex-Mex, FIFA fan festivals and standout supporters whose energy defines the stadium mood. She explains state legislative debates on issues like abortion pills in clear, practical terms, breaking down complex bills and legal analysis into real-world consequences. She reports on trials, crime, explosions and traumatic incidents through witnesses, victims and families, and spends time with small business owners and neighborhood groups in East Dallas. She joined Fox 4 News in 2023 and links daily life to the larger forces that shape Texas.