Cathy Chaplin
Cathy Chaplin covers the Los Angeles dining scene for Eater LA, blending chef-focused restaurant reports, opening news, and service-driven guides into a consistent picture of how people eat in the city. Her work follows restaurants over time, from long-running institutions to first-day debuts, with attention to how menus, neighborhoods, and diners evolve together. She writes as a former senior editor at Eater LA, a James Beard Award–nominated journalist, and the author of Food Lovers’ Guide to Los Angeles, bringing a long view of the region’s food culture to each piece.
Destination dining reports from La Copine to Bar Cecil
Chaplin’s dining reports focus on restaurants that reward the effort it takes to reach them, whether that means crossing town or driving out of the city. In her piece on Yucca Valley’s La Copine, she writes about diners traveling the extra mile to eat at a desert restaurant that has become a destination in its own right. Her report on Bar Cecil describes Palm Springs’s toughest table and argues that the wait is worth it, pairing reservation logistics with close attention to the food and the room.
Similar dispatches from Encino’s Pasta Bar and the all-day Mexican restaurant Maleza show her interest in places that build regulars through distinctive menus and a clear sense of atmosphere. In her coverage of the Japanese American fine dining restaurant n/naka at 15 years, she treats longevity and craft as central subjects, connecting a tasting menu format to the story of the restaurant and its chef.
She tends to structure these pieces around what it feels like to dine there now, while situating the restaurant within a broader arc of local dining history.
Tracking new restaurant openings from Zozo to Backbone
Chaplin regularly reports on new openings and chef-driven projects, with a focus on how each addition fits into the existing landscape.
Her coverage of chef John Sedlar’s Zozo explains how the restaurant opens inside Maison Midi and details the concept and hours alongside the news of its debut. In pieces on the Lomi Lomi hand roll bar from the mastermind behind Pijja Palace and the sunny all-day spot from the team behind Betsy, she connects new ventures to the teams’ prior work, outlining what their reputations mean for the latest project.
Articles on Zira Uzbek Kitchen bringing Central Asian flavors to the border of West Hollywood, Backbone opening as a New American restaurant in the suburban foothills, and Ettore Vino e Cucina inside a 90-year-old landmark show her habit of tying geography and architecture to the story of an opening.
She also covers closures when they mark the end of a significant run, as in her piece on Animal shutting its doors after 15 years, which treats the closing as a milestone in the city’s restaurant timeline. These stories balance timely news - who is opening what, and where - with clear, direct summaries of why the restaurant matters to the broader dining community.
Maps and guides from drive-thrus to Taiwanese restaurants
Alongside narrative reports, Chaplin produces service-oriented guides that help readers navigate everyday eating decisions. Her feature on 16 of the best drive-thru restaurants in Los Angeles highlights places that go beyond standard fast food, emphasizing quality and variety while preserving the convenience of the format. A guide to 17 treats for serious sweet tooths in Los Angeles focuses on cookies, pies, cakes, and ice cream, presenting delivery and takeout options that span the city.
Her map of 20 marvelous Taiwanese restaurants in Los Angeles organizes a wide range of spots into an accessible list, showing familiarity with both long-standing institutions and newer players. Across these pieces, she writes in clear, concise sentences, prioritizing location, key dishes, and practical details so readers can quickly decide where to go.
The result is a body of work that connects aspirational dining with everyday cravings, using lists and maps to make a complex restaurant scene usable.
Spotlighting global cuisines and bakers from Panamanian seafood to vegan Filipino ube buns
Chaplin consistently highlights the breadth of global cuisines represented in Los Angeles, often centering stories on specific cultural foodways. Her coverage of Si Mon restaurant brings Panamanian seafood in Venice to the foreground, explaining how the menu translates a coastal tradition into the local context.
A separate piece on Si!
Mon’s fried chicken frames the dish as some of the city’s best new fried chicken, again tying a familiar format to a particular chef and background. In Long Beach, her article on San and Wolves Bakeshop introduces the city’s first vegan Filipino bakery, spotlighting ube buns and pandan cinnamon rolls as a way into the bakery’s perspective on plant-based Filipino baking.
She writes about a pop-up that celebrates Indigenous and Mexican foodways, modern Mexican dining at Maleza, and the arrival of one of Japan’s most popular mochi shops to its first U.S. location in Los Angeles, treating each as a chance to show how specific traditions adapt in new settings. Together with her Taiwanese restaurant guide, these stories underline an interest in how diasporic and regional cuisines find space in the city’s restaurants, bakeries, and pop-ups.
Her consistent return to these subjects, across formats and neighborhoods, distinguishes her coverage from more generic beat reporting on openings alone.
Across this work, Chaplin writes with a steady, descriptive voice, favoring plain language and concrete details over opinion or flourish.
She moves between destination reviews, opening announcements, historical closures, and curated lists while applying the same structured approach: establish the place, describe the food, and explain why it matters now. Her long tenure with Eater LA and recognition as a James Beard Award–nominated journalist and book author reinforce that she is a long-term observer of the region’s dining culture rather than a short-term trend chaser.
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.