Marie Elena Martinez
Marie Elena Martinez covers the food and restaurants of Long Island with a focus on how dessert concepts, everyday eateries and specialty markets shape the local dining landscape. She combines on-the-ground reporting for Newsday with a long background as a national food and travel writer, bringing broader culinary context to neighborhood stories. Her work often tracks openings, returns and trends, giving readers a clear picture of what is new, notable and worth seeking out across the region’s dining scene.
Waterfront sweets and dessert trends
Martinez’s coverage of desserts frequently centers on stories where novelty meets local tradition, such as the return of Mann’s ice cream boat and the rise of on-demand treats on the water framed as a “dessert Uber” trend. She extends that attention to land-based dessert players, reporting on openings like Van Leeuwen’s Long Island ice cream shop and placing national brands within the context of the local ice cream culture. Her dessert pieces tend to link individual businesses to larger patterns, showing how new boats, scoop shops and specialty vendors contribute to a changing landscape for sweets on Long Island. The through-line is a clear, service-driven look at where and how people can experience these trends themselves, rather than abstract commentary on the industry.
Neighborhood restaurant openings and market expansions
Martinez plays a central role in Newsday’s coverage of restaurant openings, contributing reporting and photography to weekly roundups of newly opened Long Island spots. Her work on Italian food markets, including the expansion of Salpino’s Italian Food Markets to a third location, illustrates how she treats grocery and prepared-food businesses as part of the dining beat, tracking how expansions change options for shoppers and home cooks as well as diners. These stories emphasize practical detail—where the new outpost is, what it offers, how it compares to established competitors—while maintaining a straightforward tone that helps readers quickly understand what has changed. Across openings and market coverage, she highlights the mix of independent operators and growing brands that define everyday eating on Long Island.
Guides to signature sandwiches and special-occasion dining
Martinez’s reporting often takes the form of guided explorations of specific dishes or formats, such as joining a Newsday video quest for the best bacon, egg and cheese sandwich on Long Island. In that work she acts as both reporter and on-camera food writer, helping audiences navigate a crowded field of delis and cafes to find standout versions of an iconic local breakfast sandwich. Her coverage of chef’s tables and multi-course dining goes in the opposite direction, mapping out restaurants that offer more formal, curated experiences for special occasions. By pairing accessible sandwich hunts with pieces on tasting menus and chef’s tables, she shows range across price points and formats while maintaining a consistent, user-oriented focus on where readers can go for specific types of meals.
Food, travel and culinary events beyond Newsday
Before and alongside her work at Newsday, Martinez has built a substantial freelance career focused on food and travel, with features appearing in major outlets including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Miami Herald and the Boston Globe. That background gives her a wide-angle view of restaurants and destinations, which informs the way she situates Long Island stories within broader dining and travel trends. She also founded New Worlder, a culinary-focused media platform, and the events brand Meets NYC, creating spaces that bring together chefs, writers and diners around food experiences. This mix of national writing and event work reflects an interest in both storytelling and community-building, and it underpins her current reporting with a deep familiarity with chefs, operators and the business side of hospitality. Her photography credits across Newsday’s food coverage further indicate a visual approach to the beat, documenting dishes, dining rooms and markets as carefully as she reports on them.
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.