Matt Cortina

Matt Cortina covers North Jersey’s food culture through rankings, taste tests and historical features that define the region’s most essential dishes and restaurants. He is a food and dining reporter with NorthJersey.com/The Record and writes about the area’s dining scene for AOL. He has spent more than 15 years writing about food for publications across the country, bringing a mix of service reporting and deep local knowledge to his beat.

Hot dog brands, styles and history

Hot dogs are a core thread in Cortina’s work, and he treats them as both a consumer product and a piece of New Jersey food history. In coverage of a “Jersey Eats” taste test, he ranks five grocery store brands — including Nathan’s, Thumann’s, Best’s, Sabrett and Black Bear — based on blind sampling, explaining which brands surprise and which disappoint. He follows that service angle with reporting on a reader poll that crowns a classic local brand as the best hot dog, turning audience voting into a story about loyalty and regional preference.

He also steps back from the rankings to explain why hot dogs matter in the first place. In his feature on the Jersey-born Italian hot dog, he traces how the style developed and why it remains a “taste of history,” connecting the sandwich to the state’s working-class and immigrant roots. Taken together, his hot dog coverage blends practical guidance — which brand to buy or where to go — with explanatory reporting on the styles and traditions that make New Jersey’s hot dog culture distinct.

Best-of lists for North Jersey dishes and restaurants

Cortina builds detailed guides around specific dishes, giving readers short lists of standout options rather than broad overviews. His piece on where to find the best chicken parm in North Jersey identifies particular restaurants and versions of the dish, using the format of a focused “best-of” list rather than a generic roundup. He applies the same structure to barbecue, mapping out where to get the best smoked meats in North Jersey and distinguishing between different styles and strengths.

He extends those guides to experiences rather than individual plates. In coverage tied to the “Jersey Eats Podcast,” he reports on the best outdoor dining spots, highlighting patios and open-air setups that suit different occasions across North Jersey. Cortina also runs a recurring “best thing we ate this week” feature, where he singles out a specific item — such as a triple-decker club sandwich — and explains why it stands out from everything else he tried. Across these pieces, his through-line is clear: narrow the focus to one dish or dining experience and tell readers exactly where to go for a top-tier version.

‘Jersey Eats’ podcast and video taste tests

Cortina’s reporting lives beyond print, anchored by the “Jersey Eats” brand he co-hosts with fellow food reporter Kara VanDooijeweert. The weekly podcast focuses on North Jersey food news and trends, with episodes that take on topics like chicken parmesan and pizza and turn them into structured debates over the best places to eat. In one episode, the pair discuss the best spots in New Jersey for chicken parm; in another, they share their take on pizza in honor of National Pizza Day.

The tasting format shows up in video as well. In a hot dog tasting episode, Cortina and VanDooijeweert blind taste test five grocery store brands, scoring them on taste, texture and appearance and talking through how each brand performs. Other video and podcast content focuses on steakhouses, where they compare high-end and more affordable options across different parts of the state, naming places like De Flore’s, Steakland, Butcher’s Block and Steve’s Sizzling Steaks as standouts. This multiplatform work reinforces his print coverage: he uses rankings, criteria and structured comparisons to make subjective topics — “best” hot dog, steak or chicken dish — feel reported and repeatable.

Audience-driven series on essential North Jersey restaurants

Cortina regularly brings his audience into the reporting process, especially when he is defining “essential” restaurants. In one ongoing project, he asks readers to nominate the most essential eateries in North Jersey, from the best to the most iconic, and uses that input as the basis for a list of 25 must-visit spots. He then visits the restaurants himself, sharing impressions from places like Saddle River Inn as he works through the reader-selected list.

This audience-led approach extends the logic of his polls and taste tests: the community helps set the field, and Cortina provides the on-the-ground reporting and judgment. Combined with his guides to individual dishes and his hot dog coverage, it shows that he is not only cataloguing the dining scene but actively defining what counts as essential in North Jersey food culture.

Reporting background beyond dining

While his current beat is food and dining, Cortina’s background spans other coverage areas and has been recognized by journalism organizations. His work has included reporting on dining, education, environment and general news, earning awards from groups such as the Society of Professional Journalists, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and New Jersey Press organizations. That broader experience shows up in the way he situates food stories within civic and cultural context, especially when he writes about the history behind dishes like the Italian hot dog or about how reader preferences shape local businesses.

Across print, podcast and social platforms, Cortina distinguishes himself from a generic food reporter by treating each dish or restaurant as part of a larger story about North Jersey — its tastes, its institutions and its traditions — while still giving readers concrete, usable recommendations on where to eat next.