When he became the food critic at the Austin American-Statesman in 2011, Matthew Odam cooked up pseudonyms and booked reservations with sham email accounts.

At restaurants, he donned prescription eyeglasses rather than his usual contacts. Still, the native Austinite’s identity leaked. “I was told by restaurant workers during the first year or two that my picture was in a lot of kitchens and host stands around town, so the jig was up.”

Even though most restaurateurs now recognize Odam—his picture is just a Google search away—he still makes reservations under an assumed name. “I’d prefer they not see me coming.”

This has led to comical moments when he occasionally forgets his fake name. “I glance at the reservation list; the host or hostess laughs.”

Odam, whose review of Caribbean restaurant Canje won first place in the Society for Features Journalism’s 2023 Excellence-in-Features Awards, dines at an establishment two or three times before dishing out stars. “You don’t want to assess a restaurant based on a bad night or on one that’s better than most.”

Sampling everything on the menu is also important, with reviews focusing on execution of the dish, flavors, and plating along with service, ambience, and pricing. 

Odam developed a taste for covering cuisine during his senior year at AU, when he studied abroad in Rome. He has since reviewed up to 500 Austin-area eateries and another 150 in cities across North America, eating everything from horse to jellyfish.

As part of an elite but endangered cadre of journalists—the Chicago Tribune’s Phil Vettel took a buyout in 2021 after 31 years at the paper, and the New York Times’s Pete Wells stepped down in July, citing the toll the job had taken on his health—Odam savors his role at the American-Statesman.

A bad review probably won’t put a fork in a restaurant, he says, but positive attention can save good eateries that are teetering. “You don’t want to hurt people’s businesses, but you want to be honest with your readers.”