The School of Travel Journalism has partnered with Appetito, the US-based digital magazine of Italian food, drink and travel. For our students and graduates it means one concrete thing: a real editorial door to knock on, with an editor on the other side, and a clear way to get published as a food writer in English.
Most writers don’t miss their first byline because they lack talent. They miss it because they don’t have a contact. The commissions that launch careers tend to happen between people who already know each other, and when you are starting out, you don’t know anyone yet.
That is exactly the problem this agreement is meant to solve.
Who is Appetito?
Appetito is a digital media company focused on Italian food, drink and the lifestyle around them. It was co-founded by Andrew Cotto, a novelist and New York Times contributor who is now its Editor-in-Chief, and Richard Martin, former US editor of La Cucina Italiana and co-founder of Food Republic.
The magazine publishes across six sections: Features, News, Recipes, Travel, Guides and Reviews. Its stories move from a family-run trattoria in Campania to a winery in Piedmont or a luxury hotel in Sorrento. Food is always the thread, but the subject is the whole culture around the table: the people, the places and the rituals.
In other words, it is gastronomic journalism and travel journalism in the same story. That is precisely what we teach.
How the STJ and Appetito partnership works
The partnership connects trained writers from the STJ community with Appetito’s editorial team. In practice:
- STJ identifies the right writers. Students and graduates whose interests and work fit Appetito’s line (Italian food, wine, travel and culture) are encouraged to pitch.
- Pitches are reviewed before they are sent. Our faculty work with each writer on the angle, structure and fit, so that what reaches Appetito’s editors is a professional pitch, not a first draft.
- Appetito’s editors make the call. Selected pitches are developed into articles and published under the writer’s name.
- The value is the byline. Appetito is a growing publication, and the focus of this collaboration is publishing experience: a professional editor, a real audience and a clip for your portfolio.
How it started
The conversation began with a LinkedIn post. Appetito was looking for writers passionate about Italian food, travel and culture, and our Academic Coordinator, Edgardo Baigorria, saw an obvious match: a publication looking for trained voices, and a school full of them.
Before any agreement existed, the interest was already there. When we shared Appetito’s open call on our campus, students started working on pitches, and one of them came to us for feedback before applying. Formalising the partnership simply gave that energy a structure.
Our conversations with Sarah Campise Hallier, Associate Editor at Appetito, also opened the door to bringing the magazine’s experience into the classroom, so our students can learn how an independent food publication is built from the inside.
How do you pitch a food magazine like Appetito?
To pitch a food magazine, send the editor a short, specific idea, not a finished article. A good pitch explains the angle in one or two paragraphs, says why it fits that publication, and gives the editor what they need to plan: word count, delivery date, photography and a brief bio.
Appetito’s own pitch form asks for exactly those five things:
- A one or two paragraph pitch explaining your angle and why it belongs in Appetito.
- Your anticipated word count.
- Your expected delivery date.
- Whether you have original photography.
- A short bio.
That is not paperwork. It is the brief a commissioning editor works with every day. An editor says yes to an idea they can picture on the page, a length they can fit, a date they can plan around and images they don’t have to source.
Two rules matter. Don’t send a finished article: Appetito reviews pitches, not manuscripts. And don’t pitch by email when a publication asks you to use a form.
What makes a strong food writing pitch?
The angle matters more than the destination. “Food in Rome” is not a pitch. A pitch is something specific that you can actually access, and that wouldn’t exist if you didn’t write it: the last producer of a disappearing cheese in a mountain village, a family recipe that tells the story of an emigration, a market that only comes alive on one day of the week.
If you want to understand what happens to your pitch once it lands in an editor’s inbox, read What Happens After You Press Submit?.
Why a food magazine matters for travel writers
Food is one of the most direct ways into a place. Nobody understands Naples without its pizza, or Bologna without its tortellini, and the stories that stay with readers are often the ones told around a table.
That is why Italian food writing sits so naturally between our two programs. In the Master in Gastronomic Journalism and Communication, students learn to report on food as culture, economy and identity. In the Master in Travel Journalism, they learn to build narrative from place. A publication like Appetito needs both skills in the same piece.
A growing network of real publications
Appetito joins a list of publications that work with STJ to turn training into published work. In Mexico, we formalised a partnership with Food and Travel México. In Spain, our students have landed paid internships at Revista Viajar. And graduates such as Kimberly Domínguez have gone from our gastronomic journalism master’s to the newsroom of El Nuevo Día.
Each agreement follows the same idea: learning the craft is only half the job. The other half is getting your work in front of an editor who can say yes.
From the classroom to the byline
Training as a food or travel journalist should have consequences beyond the classroom. With Appetito, our English-speaking community now has one more place where a well-built pitch can become a published story, read by an audience that cares about Italian food and culture as much as they do.
If you want to learn how to find those stories, pitch them and write them to a professional standard, take a look at our Master in Gastronomic Journalism and Communication. Your first byline might be closer than you think.
