Eva Sandoval
Eva Sandoval is a food and travel journalist at the BBC whose work centres on how people eat, cook and experience place, with a particular focus on Italy. Her coverage blends practical guidance with cultural context, using everyday dining rituals and local dishes to explain the unwritten rules that shape a destination. She also runs and contributes to editorial projects that spotlight local experts and chefs, extending that focus on food culture beyond Italy to global tables.
Italian dining etiquette
Sandoval’s coverage of Italian dining etiquette turns the small social codes of eating into clear, usable rules. In her piece on “seven things you shouldn’t do when eating in Italy”, she walks readers through common missteps at the table and uses them to explain how Italians think about coffee, courses and timing.
The story opens with a scene in a Roman restaurant disrupted by a late-night cappuccino order, then expands into guidance on how to order, when to linger and what signals respect for tradition.
She treats etiquette as part of travel literacy rather than as novelty, showing how choices like drink orders, table manners and tipping intersect with local expectations. The tone is direct and explanatory, and she grounds her advice in personal experience and conversations with locals, positioning her as a guide for travellers who want to fit into everyday dining culture rather than chase only landmark dishes.
Italy-focused travel and food guides
Beyond etiquette, Sandoval writes extensively about Italian destinations, producing guides that combine logistics, landscape and food.
Her work on the Amalfi Coast covers itineraries, public transit options, budget strategies and key viewpoints, presenting the region as a place to be navigated thoughtfully rather than simply admired. Articles on routes like the Path of the Gods and on traveling the Amalfi Coast by public transport emphasise how to move through the area efficiently while still leaving room for slow meals and local specialties.
She also writes about specific food traditions tied to place, such as the practice of cooking in volcanic sand on the island of Ischia.
In that feature, she describes how restaurants manage “geothermic cuisine” and the know-how required to cook safely in fumaroles, treating the technique as both a practical method and a cultural ritual. Earlier guides, including a vegan’s guide to eating out in Rome, show the same blend of restaurant recommendations, ordering advice and cultural framing, tailored to travellers with particular dietary needs. Taken together, these pieces mark her as a specialist in Italy who pairs transport and itinerary planning with clear-eyed attention to how and what visitors will eat.
Global food stories and chef profiles
Sandoval’s remit at the BBC also includes global food stories, where she uses profiles and interviews to explore how chefs and travellers remember meals. In her feature on “the five meals Andrew Zimmern will never forget”, she structures the story around a handful of experiences that reveal the emotional and cultural weight of certain dishes.
The article hinges on Zimmern’s memories but keeps the focus on the places and people behind the food, showing her interest in how taste and narrative intersect.
Her work on Massimo Bottura’s “Not Barbecue” restaurant for the BBC’s World’s Table franchise similarly highlights the conceptual thinking behind a high-profile dining experience. In that piece, she reports on Bottura’s reworking of a familiar format and on how the restaurant plays with expectations of what barbecue can be, using detailed description and chef commentary. Across these features, she treats chefs as storytellers and cultural interpreters, using their voices to anchor broader discussions of craft, memory and innovation.
The SpeciaList and local expert perspectives
Within the BBC, Sandoval serves as a senior journalist in travel and editor of The SpeciaList column, a series of guides built around local experts and tastemakers. She commissions and edits SpeciaList guides in text and multimedia formats, shaping the column’s content and strategy while also contributing her own pieces. Calls for pitches show her seeking city guides that foreground food scenes - such as soul food in Georgia or Latinx food in major US cities - anchored by a single knowledgeable local rather than generic roundups.
Her role includes sub-editing BBC Travel features, writing headlines and metadata, and evaluating freelancer pitches, which positions her as both a writer and gatekeeper for food and travel coverage. The SpeciaList work aligns with her broader portfolio: it favours deep familiarity with a place, attention to everyday eating, and stories that emerge from lived experience rather than surface trends. This editorial focus complements her freelance and guidebook writing for outlets such as Condé Nast Traveler, CNN Travel and Fodor’s Travel Guides, where she continues to cover food, travel and culture with an emphasis on how visitors can engage with local life through what they eat.
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.