Faiyaz Kara
Faiyaz Kara is the long-tenured restaurant critic at Orlando Weekly, mapping the dining scene through detailed reviews and steady coverage of openings, closings and culinary trends. His work focuses on how individual restaurants express tradition, culture and neighborhood character, paired with clear verdicts on the food and experience. He moves easily between fine-dining omakase counters, live-fire steakhouses, Thai street food, vegan cafes and late-night eateries, treating each as part of a broader story of how the city eats.
Built on tradition, not trends
Kara’s core work is the restaurant review, where he writes with an emphasis on concept, history and craft rather than novelty alone. In his review of El Pueblo Mexican Restaurant, he frames the restaurant as “built on tradition, not trends,” underscoring decades of care, consistency and culture as the foundation for judging its food.
Similar attention to narrative appears in reviews of Mordisco Steakhouse, where he describes oak-fired meats with Venezuelan influences, and Jiang’s Kitchen, where he focuses on ambition folded into every soup dumpling. He gives equal weight to technique and setting, noting how places like Lert Thai, Zola Bar and Tables, and Cuca Libre reinterpret classics or evoke past eras through their menus and dining rooms.
His tone is direct and decisive, but he leaves room for detail, describing flavor, texture and arrangement in a way that lets the reader understand why a restaurant succeeds or falls short.
The range of kitchens in his review archive shows a sustained interest in global cuisines and how they are translated for local diners.
He covers modern Indian cooking at Tamara Modern Indian Cuisine, Brazilian fare at Cuca Libre, Thai street food at Sabai Thai Street Food and MetroWest’s Noods, and Med-Italian fine dining at Primo, often highlighting how chefs adapt regional traditions to their current menu. Even when he writes about more casual concepts, such as Nic & Luc All-Day Eatery’s cheffy spins on diner fare or Okonomi’s more accessible tasting of a high-end omakase pedigree, he keeps the focus on the kitchen’s intent and execution. Across these pieces, the distinguishing factor is how he builds a full picture of each restaurant before delivering a concise but firm judgment.
Orlando restaurant openings and closings
Alongside reviews, Kara maintains a steady pipeline of food news that tracks restaurant openings, closings and concept changes. He writes recurring roundups that gather multiple moves into one piece, such as coverage of Rye Row by Olde Hearth’s soft opening on Ivanhoe Row, new omakase and sports bar concepts, and the evolution of food halls and Lao flavors arriving in the market. These news items often include precise details - addresses, menu focus, ownership shifts and timelines - that make his coverage a practical reference for what is coming next.
His lists of “55 new restaurants, bars and sweet shops opening in Orlando this year” and “10 new restaurants from burgers to sushi to Turkish breakfast, plus two closures” illustrate how he keeps a close tally on both growth and contraction in the dining scene.
Closures receive the same structured attention.
Kara documents restaurants and bars that have shut their doors in pieces like “15 Orlando restaurants and bars that closed this summer,” noting notable names, reasons where they are clear, and what might replace them. He also follows rebrandings and relocations, such as Pig Floyd’s move to share space with Pigzza and the renaming of the Boheme restaurant to Libra as part of a hotel’s new brand identity. In weekly news columns, he reports on new pizza concepts like Daje Pinsa, additional locations for Kai Kai BBQ & Dumplings, and a Korean pub called Paper Kites from James Beard–nominated restaurateurs, again pairing brief descriptions with context about the broader shifts in local dining.
This blend of practical information and concept-level framing distinguishes his beat from generic listings of openings and closings.
Neighborhood gems and late-night eateries
Kara also produces list-driven features that surface patterns in how and where people eat.
His pieces on “Central Florida’s top 10 ‘neighborhood gem’ restaurants, according to OpenTable” and “Orlando’s 24 most essential late-night eateries that aren’t big chains” highlight small, character-rich venues and after-hours spots that might not be obvious to casual diners. These stories combine rankings or curated selections with short, pointed descriptions of what makes each restaurant worth attention, whether it is a standout dish, a particular atmosphere or a role in its immediate community. In a round-up of “All 33 Orlando restaurants we’ve reviewed so far this year,” he steps back to show the breadth of his review work, emphasizing that he has sought out both buzzed-about and under-the-radar eateries to “clean plates and deliver the verdict.”
Across these lists, Kara treats the dining scene as an ecosystem, not a collection of isolated places. Late-night eateries, neighborhood gems and destination restaurants are all mapped against each other, giving a sense of how different kinds of diners - night workers, families, enthusiasts - find their spots. His interest in variety extends to sweet shops and dessert-focused venues, as seen in coverage of new ice cream and shaved ice concepts and seasonal treat offerings.
These features serve as both navigational guides and lenses on trends, reinforcing his role as a critic who understands the scene as a whole as well as the specifics of any one kitchen.
Radio and podcast critic appearances
Kara’s work extends beyond the page into regular appearances on local radio and podcasts, where he serves as a restaurant critic and dining expert.
On Primetime Kitchen and segments of the Jim Colbert Show, he discusses his reviews and food news, including Best of Orlando Food & Dining selections, high-end steak houses, pho bars, mobile bakeries and unconventional pizza concepts. These appearances often mirror the breadth of his written coverage, touching on French bakeries, modern Mexican cooks, Iraqi kebab spots, Indian street food, Greek tavernas, dumpling specialists and Uzbek-Turkish kitchens.
He uses the audio format to summarize key judgments and flag emerging trends, while staying grounded in the same specific restaurant examples and dishes that define his print work.
His long tenure as restaurant critic since 2006 underpins this public role and reinforces his position as a stable voice on dining in the area. Whether in print or on air, Kara’s distinguishing trait is the combination of deep familiarity with the restaurant landscape and a commitment to clear, unadorned verdicts backed by detailed observation.
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.