Jungmin Seo
Jungmin Seo is deputy news editor at The Caterer, covering the hospitality industry with a particular focus on how restaurants, hotels and food businesses respond to pressure from workers, critics and changing conditions. Her reporting blends operator testimony, industry appointments, obituaries and executive interviews to show how decisions in the food and hospitality sector play out on the ground. Alongside editing responsibilities, she continues to write widely across the beat and shapes the masthead’s online food coverage in the UK.
Staffing and working conditions in hospitality
A core strand of Seo’s work examines the realities of working conditions in restaurants and bakeries, especially when external pressures make operations “unfair and unsafe”. In her coverage of venues forced to close amid soaring temperatures, she focuses on how extreme heat affects staff safety, kitchen operations and the viability of trading, drawing detailed experiences from operators and bakers to anchor the story in day-to-day practice. She uses social channels to seek out case studies on staffing pressures and recruitment, including underhand staff poaching tactics, and brings those accounts back into formal reporting on the hospitality labour market. Across this line of coverage, she treats staffing not as a generic challenge but as a set of specific behaviours, policies and workplace conditions that directly determine whether food businesses can stay open and keep people safe.
Food media, restaurant criticism and the people behind it
Seo reports closely on the relationship between hospitality and the media that covers it, with a particular attention to restaurant critics and food writers. Her piece on Camilla Long’s appointment as restaurant critic at The Sunday Times is framed as industry news, tracing how a prominent television critic moves into restaurant reviewing and what that signals for the dining scene and its coverage. In her obituary for food critic Richard Vines, she writes about “the man who knew everyone and everything worth knowing”, documenting his role as a former chief food critic and a connector within the restaurant world. By reporting both on new appointments and on the deaths of major figures, she builds a picture of the personalities who shape public opinion about restaurants and food, and how their careers intersect with chefs, restaurateurs and the wider hospitality trade. This focus on critics and commentators distinguishes her food beat from purely menu- or venue-led coverage.
Executive interviews and strategic insight
Seo also conducts in-depth interviews with senior hospitality executives, using Q&A formats to draw out strategy on food and beverage operations. In The Caterer’s interview with Emma Banks, vice-president of F&B strategy at Hilton, she leads a conversation covering a more than 20-year hospitality career, global experience and the thinking behind contemporary food and drink offerings. Her questions connect day-to-day restaurant and bar management with longer-term brand positioning and guest experience, giving readers both operational detail and strategic context. This executive-facing work complements her frontline reporting, allowing her to show how decisions made in head offices and boardrooms shape kitchen teams, menus and service in hotels and restaurants. It positions her coverage at the intersection of management, strategy and the lived reality of hospitality staff.
Campaigns, technology and the future of hospitality
Beyond individual stories, Seo is involved in editorial campaigns and events that look at hospitality’s future and its public image. She promotes The Caterer’s “This is Hospitality” campaign, inviting those with a passion for the industry to participate, which aligns with her broader interest in how the sector presents itself and builds pride among workers and operators. Her posts about The Caterer’s virtual AI Summit, which explores the role of artificial intelligence in hospitality with expert speakers, show her engagement with technology’s impact on food and hotel businesses and the questions it raises for operators. Combined with her ongoing coverage across the hospitality beat, these activities underline a through-line in her work: she treats food and hospitality as a complex ecosystem shaped by working conditions, critical opinion, executive decisions and emerging tools, and she reports on how each of these elements affects the people running and working in restaurants, hotels and bakeries.
Role within the masthead and beat focus
Seo holds a senior newsroom role at The Caterer, listed as deputy news editor in the masthead and member directories. She has been promoted from senior reporter while continuing to write stories from across the hospitality industry, combining editing responsibilities with active reporting. External profiles describe her as covering the hospitality industry with an emphasis on hotel management and the restaurant sector, reinforcing the breadth of her beat while confirming that food and dining remain central to her work. Taken together, her output is distinguished by its attention to the people and structures behind hospitality — from critics and executives to operators and staff — and by a consistent effort to show how industry shifts and external shocks are felt inside the kitchen, on the restaurant floor and across the wider food landscape.
4 more food journalists.
Adam Maidment
Adam Maidment is a senior What's On and LGBTQ+ reporter whose food and leisure coverage is built around immersive, first-person reporting and concrete detail. He works at the Manchester Evening News, focusing on new restaurant and bar openings, regular food reviews, gig and event coverage, and issues affecting LGBTQ+ people. He treats restaurants, pubs, bars and experiences as stories about place, people and community, explaining what makes a venue different and how it fits into the local dining scene. His pieces cover pricing, service, atmosphere, crowds and concept, and he is willing to be critical when gimmicks undermine the experience. He writes character-led pub profiles, works shifts, joins treasure hunts and attends major cultural events, inviting readers to follow what he does and use his straightforward assessments to decide where to eat, drink and spend time.
Alice Lorenzato-Lloyd
Alice Lorenzato-Lloyd is editor at Secret Manchester, where she treats food as part of how people live in the city, not as an isolated subject. She covers restaurants, bars, street food and casual dining, linking new openings and food trends to neighbourhood change, local businesses and everyday routines. Her pieces focus on accessible spots, comfort dishes like pizza and tacos, and clear details of menus, presentation, atmosphere and practical information such as opening hours and booking. She often combines food, drink and live events, producing guides to venues for major sports tournaments and themed pop-ups as part of wider things to do. Alice also reports on hospitality business pressures, city-centre public spaces, charity initiatives, transport and infrastructure, always showing how food and drink fit into community and lifestyle stories. She previously wrote for other regional “Secret” sites as a staff writer and describes herself as a writer and food fanatic.
Aly Walansky
Aly Walansky specializes in service-driven food coverage that treats cocktails and dining as tools for celebration, focusing on how logistics, ordering options, and menu choices turn everyday meals and major holidays into shared experiences. She is a longtime food and travel journalist now writing for Forbes, where her beat centers on cocktails and occasion-driven dining. Her work includes practical, expert-driven roundups such as guides to many variations on the classic martini, shipped-meals gift lists for Mother’s Day, and accessible formats for Thanksgiving and other holidays. She reports through structured lists, restaurant features, and menu-focused profiles that highlight signature dishes and dining trends. Across outlets, she extends this approach to home cooking, grocery shopping, and recipes, and runs a newsletter that shares her current assignments and industry commentary.
Ben Hurst
Ben Hurst joins food, entertainment and cost-of-living angles, treating cooking, groceries and celebrity stories as everyday decisions for readers. He is Head of Lifestyle and Money at WalesOnline, shaping practical, trending coverage that is tightly written, headline-led and easy to scan and share. His food reporting leans on TV chefs and supermarket behaviour, turning their advice and product changes into clear tips and consumer explainers focused on value for money and household budgets. He also writes extensively about TV and celebrity figures, using recognisable names to carry stories about health, family challenges, cancer treatment and resilience. Alongside these, he produces visual, nostalgia-driven galleries and concise explainers on wide-interest phenomena, drawing on a senior newsroom background that includes executive editor, video lead and news editor roles.