Matt Cortina
Matt Cortina tells the story of North Jersey’s dining culture through reported guides, trend pieces, reader polls and industry coverage that connect food to place and community. He is a food and dining reporter with NorthJersey.com/The Record and has spent the last 16 years writing about food for publications across the country. He describes himself as a writer, editor and journalist with a focus on the environment, agriculture, food, culture and media, and that broader lens shows up in his attention to ingredients, landscapes and local economies. His beat centers on restaurants, diners, breweries and food experiences, with a consistent emphasis on how people actually eat, gather and celebrate in North Jersey.
Best steakhouses and other essential restaurants
Cortina regularly builds serviceable, high-impact guides around “essential” places to eat, especially classic comfort foods and big night-out destinations.
His coverage of the best steakhouses in North Jersey draws on the “Jersey Eats” podcast, translating on-air conversations into a clear list of specific spots, with context on what each does well. He uses the same podcast-driven approach to explore bagels, identifying standout shops and explaining why they matter to local diners.
Across these pieces, he couples strong, declarative framing - “best steakhouses,” “best bagels,” “best chicken parm,” the top local hot dog brand - with concrete details about menus, portions, price points and atmosphere so readers can act on his recommendations.
Audience input is built into much of this work.
His hot dog and chicken parm stories turn reader polls into reported features, noting which brands or restaurants won, who they beat and how fans describe their favorites. That same engagement-first approach underpins his reporting on essential restaurants in North Jersey, where social video and short-format content introduce key spots and explain why they are “must visit” for the region.
Cortina’s strengths in this lane are clarity and usability: he identifies a category, names winners and near-winners, and positions each place within the broader local food scene.
NJ restaurants with a view and destination dining
A defining thread in Cortina’s beat is how setting shapes the dining experience. His guide to New Jersey restaurants with a view catalogs venues where scenery - lakes, hills, cityscapes - is as central as the food, pairing short descriptions with practical “Go:” details like addresses and phone numbers. He takes the same destination-focused approach to airport diners, highlighting spots attached to small airfields where cheap, satisfying meals come with plane-watching and a distinctive sense of place.
These pieces balance romance and utility: he writes about vistas, decks and waterfronts, but always anchors them in what readers can expect to eat and how to get there.
Cortina also reports on diners as institutions, not just individual stops. In his coverage of mounting challenges facing New Jersey diners, he moves beyond listing to examine economic pressures, competition and the question of what the future holds for this cornerstone of the state’s food culture. That story combines industry context with voices inside the diner world, sketching how ownership, margins and changing habits affect the classic chrome-and-counter experience. Together, these destination and industry pieces show that his restaurant writing is not limited to trend-chasing; it often probes why certain kinds of places matter and whether they are likely to endure.
Secret dinner clubs, breweries and foraged foods
Another distinct strand in Cortina’s work is his interest in unconventional food experiences - supper clubs, brewery events, foraging and small beverage businesses. His reporting on a secret New Jersey dinner club describes a plant-based, fine-dining event held in an industrial setting, emphasizing the atmosphere, themed menus and the way music, art and vendors are woven into the evening. He connects the specifics of the six-course menu to the broader appeal of the club, treating it as both a restaurant alternative and a cultural gathering point.
His coverage of breweries focuses on how these businesses are becoming community hubs. A piece on breweries hosting book clubs and other unique events explains how owners use readings, clubs and offbeat programming to bring in regulars and build a different kind of audience.
He extends that interest in beverages to a small wine shop profile, where he writes about an independent retailer and its online presence, underscoring how niche drinks businesses operate at local scale.
Ingredients and ecosystems also show up in his beat. In a story on restaurants turning to foraged foods in spring, Cortina explores the growing use of wild plants and mushrooms in professional kitchens. He includes detailed safety guidance from foraging experts, stressing that identification must be certain and encouraging readers to rely on books, respected institutions and local societies rather than casual apps. That piece demonstrates his capacity to handle technical, risk-laden topics within food reporting, folding environmental and agricultural awareness into accessible dining coverage.
Reader polls, food rescue and community stories
Cortina’s reporting often foregrounds the people around the plate - chefs, students, families and volunteers.
A feature on North Jersey chefs and their mothers ties professional success back to family kitchens, collecting stories about recipes, lessons and support that shaped local culinary careers. In his reader-poll pieces on hot dogs and chicken parm, he gives space to fans’ loyalties and memories, making the winning brand or restaurant a stand-in for broader community tastes.
His bylines also extend into food rescue and food insecurity. At a regional hunger-relief organization, his archived work includes stories on a student-led food rescue initiative that saved and donated tens of thousands of pounds of food, a major grant aimed at fighting food insecurity and the logistics of rescuing surplus food. Those pieces focus on operations, impact and the individuals moving food from waste streams to families in need.
Alongside his judging role at pizza competitions and appearances tied to best pizza, meatballs and mozzarella in New Jersey, this community-facing work shows a reporter who is comfortable moving between celebratory coverage and the more serious side of the food system.
Across formats - long-form features, quick-hit guides, podcasts and social video - Cortina’s distinguishing trait is his ability to make North Jersey food culture feel lived-in and specific, while still providing clear, actionable information about where to go and what to 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.