Food Journalistsin Australia

Adam Chandler stands out for treating food as a business and culture story, not a lifestyle beat. He writes a food column for The Wall Street Journal, where he uses familiar dishes and trends to explain pricing, branding, consumer behavior, demographics and shifting tastes. He has covered chicken thighs, Diet Coke versus Coke Zero, the rise of the $100 hot dog, regional American dishes, the U.S. Open food scene and hard-to-get restaurant reservations. His reporting also spans features, video pieces and audio conversations, all in plain, reported prose that focuses on fast food, chains, branded products, access and the real-world marketplace for eating out. He draws on a long career in national magazines and newspapers, plus books on fast food and work, to give his coverage historical context.

Ash Jurberg weaves travel, food, and family stories into personal narratives that show how specific dishes shape relationships and daily life. He is a freelance journalist focused on travel, gastronomy, and family dynamics, with regular contributions to Allrecipes. There he writes personal essays on how culinary traditions define families, treating home cooking as a lived practice and emphasizing the rituals around particular dishes. His travel and lifestyle work links destinations with the flavors, street foods, and dining traditions that define them, including a piece on El Salvador’s rise as a travel destination and pupusas as its national dish. On Allrecipes he also covers simple, flexible recipes that fit busy routines, such as Nigella Lawson’s three-ingredient all-day dish. His voice blends anecdote, reported detail, and light humor informed by standup and improv, and he has authored two books.

Avril Treasure is Editor for Time Out Sydney and a food and drink specialist known for critic-led guides that turn restaurants, bars and cafés into clear choices. She writes ranked lists, neighbourhood roundups and occasion-based picks, covering best restaurants, bars, coffee, casual dining, new openings and long-running institutions. Her reviews combine menu, drinks, price, opening hours, location and atmosphere to help readers decide where to go. She also covers things to do, arts and culture, nightlife, news, lifestyle and sport, including city-wide guides and picks for Mexican food and dancefloors. Treasure has written for The Saturday Telegraph, Concrete Playground, Urban List NZ and Broadsheet, and appears as a monthly guest on ABC Radio Sydney. She has more than a decade of print and digital experience across food, drink, news, travel, home and culture.

Bud Kennedy is a long-time Star-Telegram columnist whose defining work is Eats Beat, a practical chronicle of Texas dining and community life. He has written the column in print since 1985 and online since 1992, producing more than 3,000 pieces on cafes, barbecue joints, burger spots and other everyday restaurants. He reports openings, closings, changes and deals with close attention to names, dates and what diners can expect next. His food coverage connects restaurant news to neighborhood change, tradition, development and economic growth. Kennedy also writes opinion columns on city growth, identity, history, sports, media, state politics and national conflict. His reporting draws on a 54-year newspaper career covering two Super Bowls, a presidential inauguration, seven national political conventions and 19 sessions of the Texas Legislature. He appears weekly on Inside Texas Politics and is a frequent broadcast guest and speaker.

Claire Sams reports on how food, community and regional life connect for Region Canberra, treating food, clubs, courts and climate as parts of one regional story. She is a journalist for Region Canberra and also contributes reporting to About Regional. Her beat spans food and hospitality, community organisations, local services, courts, crime, environment and regional infrastructure. She covers accessible venues, local characters and gatherings, showing how food occasions and events link neighbours, visitors and regulars. She reports on clubs, services and traditions as core to everyday regional life, and covers serious court and crime matters with clear, direct detail on allegations, legal arguments and outcomes. Her environment and infrastructure stories follow climate, wildlife, tourism and major projects, using ground-level reporting to show how decisions and events affect people in the region.

Colton Trowbridge is a Digital Food Production Assistant at Delish who turns the site’s recipe catalog into clear, service-driven guides for home cooks. He covers home cooking, kitchen tips, food trends, entertaining, and occasion-based menus, with a focus on weeknight dinners, 30-minute recipes, holiday hubs, kid-friendly cooking, vegetarian roundups, and seasonal collections. He writes and edits recipe introductions, updates formatting, and builds topical galleries so dishes are easy to find and use. His work includes Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, Baby Shower, and summer snack collections, plus service pieces that bring professional kitchen knowledge into the home kitchen. He also brings experience as a freelance writer, editor, and indexer, and from front- and back-of-house restaurant roles including line cook and lead baker.

Corinna Hardgrave is an award-winning food writer whose defining focus is restaurant criticism that treats the Irish dining scene as an ecosystem, judging venues on cooking, value, atmosphere and ambition. She is the weekly restaurant critic with The Irish Times, where her core work is a restaurant column covering neighbourhood dining rooms, pubs, destination menus and high-profile openings. Her reviews are close and descriptive, dwelling on specific dishes, menu structure, service, pricing and portion size, with a direct, evaluative tone and clear conclusions. A key strand of her beat is Michelin and would-be Michelin restaurants, which she assesses using the same framework of flavour, technique, value and hospitality as everyday venues. She also produces food awards, guides, lists and destination pieces, and writes more widely on wine, travel, recipe development, food news and the people who shape food and drink.

Dana Richie is a community reporter focused on how policy, public services and small businesses shape daily life in South Portland, Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth. She works for the Portland Press Herald and contributes to partner publications and a weekly newsletter about the three communities. Her beat includes local government, school boards and budgets, health services, family resources, coastal infrastructure, sustainability, housing, beach access and neighborhood businesses. Notable work covers a South Portland School Board chair’s resignation, Cape Elizabeth school and municipal budgets, a donor milk dispensary, biodegradable boat wrap, immigration enforcement concerns and a solar-powered ice cream shop. Richie writes news, explainers and features. She breaks down complex decisions in plain language, connects official actions to taxpayers, students and families, and looks for overlooked stories and the effects institutions have on people’s daily lives.

Daniele Foti-Cuzzola uses food to tell stories about Italian traditions, family culture and identity. He writes about eating and cooking for Perth is OK!, focusing on Italian venues, daytime dining and dishes with a strong sense of place and heritage. His wider work includes recipes, essays and features that link everyday meals with memory, music, community and cultural exchange. He balances the eye of a home cook with the discipline of a professional writer, giving equal weight to flavour, history and the people behind each dish. He develops clear, approachable recipes for home cooks, from damper and pasta con le sarde to operatic-inspired dishes for Cooking with Opera. He also extends his food storytelling into cultural projects, including a bilingual La Befana picture book and a platform that shares family recipes, food stories and interviews within a multicultural frame.

Emily Rosca stands out for tightly written hyperlocal reporting that turns food, local business, student milestones and civic decisions into a running record of community life. She reports for Patch, with a beat centered on suburban communities and the everyday residents who shape them. Her regular “College Credits” coverage tracks higher education achievements, including dean’s list placements, degrees earned and scholarly honors, in short roundups tied to students and their schools. She also writes concise features on local people, small businesses and curiosities, plus brief public safety and municipal stories. Her reporting is direct and factual, with clear details, named places and no opinion. She has covered restaurant openings, business milestones, a data center moratorium, a two-car collision and local attractions such as a floating “Stranger Things” display.

Gail Ciampa is a long-time food editor and restaurant critic who treats food and dining as a deeply reported, ongoing conversation with the local restaurant community. She is the Food Editor at The Providence Journal, where she oversees and produces a weekly multi-page food and dining section as both writer and editor. Her beat centers on restaurant news, especially openings, closings and ownership changes, and on accessible dishes like cheeseburgers, sandwiches and classic neighborhood staples. She highlights iconic local foods such as NY System Hot Wieners and Soupy grinders, using straightforward guides to show what to order and why it matters. Her work blends breaking news, columns, roundups, lists and a food newsletter, inviting reader input while placing new restaurants, trends and ingredients in the context of everyday dining and long-standing traditions.

Haymun Win is a freelance food and drink writer and editor known for detailed first-look coverage of new restaurants, bars and bakeries. She contributes to Broadsheet, where she has written since 2024, and also covers fashion and lifestyle news. Her food reporting focuses on the ideas behind venues, including menus, prices, accessibility, techniques and the way concepts are executed. She writes about Indonesian, Italian and Japanese restaurants, cocktail bars, bakeries, desserts, gluten-free dining and casual carb-driven food. Her pieces often explore doughs, flavour combinations and pastry craft, as well as broader shifts in dining culture, such as the decline of brunch and the return of steak frites. She reports early and on the ground, introducing operators, explaining concepts and using specific dishes, spaces and prices to show what makes each venue distinct.

Jake Hook treats food coverage as urban memory, documenting restaurants, diners, bars, taquerías, and street vendors as institutions that anchor a changing city. He is a food historian who writes for L.A. TACO and runs the Diner Preservation Society, a project dedicated to spotlighting traditional food culture. His beat is food, with a focus on long-standing restaurants, closing neighborhood fixtures, street vending, and everyday taquerías. He reports through narrative features and eulogies, emphasizing continuity, lineage, and the emotional and cultural stakes of closures. His work includes pieces like “The 13 Oldest Restaurants in Los Angeles” and the Burrito King eulogy, pairing reporting, timelines, and photography to show how decades-old eateries endure or disappear, and how their fate ties to neighborhood stability, civic morale, and lived experience rather than fine-dining prestige.

Jane Godiner is an award-winning food writer for Chowhound who tells stories about the figures and forces that shape the culinary world, with a focus on how everyday diners experience food. She links fast food chains, home cooking techniques, and dining culture through reported explainers, ranked lists, and service pieces. Fast food chains and menu analysis are a central thread, as she examines quality, value, and what chain menus reveal about brand identity and fast food diners. She also covers grilling, smoking, and chef-inspired techniques, translating named rules and methods into clear, replicable steps for home cooks. Her kitchen reporting centers on concrete fixes, ingredients, and tools that save time and stretch budgets. Beyond fast food and home kitchens, she writes dining etiquette, foodways, and restaurant coverage for outlets including TASTE, The Baltimore Sun, Washingtonian Magazine, Arlington Magazine, and The Post and Courier.

Jodie Bruton is a food and lifestyle journalist at The Border Mail whose work links everyday eating, health and community life. She writes the weekly Material Girl column, food pieces and a foodie blog focused on comfort food and country life. She also covers events, arts, entertainment and local civic issues, from weekend guides and performers to public safety, community service and policy decisions affecting residents. Her feature work has appeared in Outback Magazine and The Weekly Times. With more than two decades in daily newspapers, she reports through clear service journalism and detailed human-interest narratives. She explains practical health advice through real experiences, profiles people at turning points and shows how food, events and public decisions shape ordinary lives. Her reporting is grounded, accessible and attentive to character, relationships and local context.

Kathleen Squires applies exhaustive, real-world testing and a home cook’s point of view to food, kitchen gear, and everyday groceries as a staff writer on Wirecutter’s kitchen team at The New York Times. She focuses on how people choose what to cook with and what to eat at home, covering kitchen equipment, appliances, outdoor cooking, and packaged foods. Her work on food storage containers, refrigerators, dishwashers, gas grills, and outdoor griddles uses demanding stress tests to surface a few reliable top performers. In parallel, she turns large, structured taste tests of sardines, bacon, hot dogs, and yogurt into practical grocery rankings. A cookbook author and longtime food and travel writer, she has been a columnist at The Wall Street Journal and has written for outlets including the Los Angeles Times, Food & Wine, Travel & Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, and Saveur.

Kezia Reynolds is a news writer at Ideal Home who specialises in accessible, stylish home and kitchen products that look high-end but stay at everyday prices. She covers home news, launches and trends, with a beat rooted in food and homeware, value, design and everyday usefulness. Drawing on a background in women’s weekly magazines, she focuses on cookware, cleaning tools, small appliances and mood-boosting home buys, often comparing supermarket and high-street designs with cult kitchen and home brands to show near-matches at lower cost. Her reporting tracks supermarket and mainstream homeware collections, accessible tech and soft furnishings, and she writes fast, concrete guides to what is worth buying now. Alongside product news she explores home wellness, using expert tips, personal stories and specific buys to show how decor and garden ideas can make spaces feel more peaceful, joyful and restorative.

Liam O’Callaghan covers the commercial side of the fresh produce industry, focusing on how markets, growers and brands in Asia and Australasia respond to shifting supply, costs and consumer demand. He is editor of Produce Plus magazine and digital editor at Asiafruit magazine for Fruitnet, where he combines news reporting, analysis and audio coverage of the fresh fruit and vegetable trade. His core beat is the fresh produce trade across Asia, Australia and New Zealand, with work centred on trade volumes, grower economics and distribution structures. He reports on fuel and fertiliser shortages, intervention plans after price crashes, and early season outlooks for major New Zealand lines. He also tracks category marketing and brand campaigns, and uses industry events and conferences to explain long-term trends and strategy in horticulture.

Marcia Greenwood reports with a blend of business awareness and service journalism, always tying corporate moves and retail changes back to what they mean for people buying groceries each week. She covers the grocery business and food-focused retail for the Democrat and Chronicle, focusing on grocery chains, prices, promotions, openings and closings, and how store decisions affect everyday shoppers. Her beat includes chains such as Wegmans, Tops and Whole Foods, corporate milestones and survey data on grocery costs, all translated into clear takeaways for consumers. She is a consistent observer of retail development, fast-food and discount expansion, and restaurant and pub openings and rebrandings, treating these as concrete changes in the local food and retail landscape. She also handles general assignment and human-interest stories with concise, fact-driven reporting grounded in specific events and decisions.

Mark Matthews is the publisher and sole reporter at 42 Freeway, a one-person news site covering development and construction projects across South Jersey with a strong focus on restaurants and retail. He treats food stories as part of the built environment, linking openings, closures and concept changes to wider patterns of commercial growth, infrastructure and roadway access. He reports on restaurant openings, closures and long-running institutions, chain expansions, grocery and specialty food remodels, and broader commercial projects such as storage facilities and shopping center buildouts. His pieces use clear explanations, visual coverage and on-the-ground detail, emphasizing specific addresses, products, service styles and site work. A long-term local beat reporter, he has refined 42 Freeway since 2014 to cover commercial, retail and road news, and regional food outlets quote his reviews and credit his scoops.

Mirandah Davis-Powell covers the full food system, from farms and school cafeterias to corporate caterers, retail shelves and airport concessions. She reports on how policy, markets, health, culture and work shape what people eat. At The Seattle Times, she works on the business desk, focusing on economy and food. Her subjects include food companies, agriculture, public programs, supply chains, consumer trends, lawsuits and corporate competition. Past work includes coverage of free summer meals, a lettuce parasite’s effect on Washington farmers, Seattle caterers facing hybrid work and national rivals, a restaurant owner’s tax fraud case, and a lawsuit over Orgain protein powder. She also co-edited a reporting project on Colombia’s coffee industry. Raised on profiles and features, she combines accountability reporting with interviews, scenes and clear explanations of how food businesses and institutions affect workers, consumers and communities.

Quincy Malesovas is a freelance food writer who tracks how venues, producers and dining movements evolve. She writes for Broadsheet, where she has contributed since 2019. Her work covers new restaurants, bars and food operators, regional food and drink travel, hospitality businesses, food entrepreneurs, plant-based dining, accessibility and changing dietary cultures. She has written about regional gastronomy, food festivals, agritourism, coffee, sensory-friendly dining and the pressures facing vegan businesses. Her reporting also explores cultural heritage, entrepreneurship and business growth. Malesovas combines detailed descriptions of food and space with clear context on why a venue, event or movement matters. She uses first-look pieces, guides and longer profiles to connect menus, service and operations with broader economic, regional and social change.

Tom Moody is a court and crime reporter who also covers independent food and local hospitality. He works across the Western Telegraph, South Wales Guardian and Tivy-Side Advertiser, where he writes about family-run restaurants, authentic cuisine, warm hospitality, ownership, service and the people behind local businesses. His notable work includes In The Dock reports on criminal damage, cannabis possession and breaches of court orders, as well as cases involving coercive control, stalking, witness intimidation and burglary. He reports court cases in precise, charge-by-charge detail, naming offences and setting out specific events. His food features use the same plain, detail-driven approach. He focuses on how restaurants build their reputation, what they serve and how customers experience them. Across both beats, he grounds stories in facts rather than commentary.