Q&A with Sean Timberlake, our new food and dining reporter at The Sacramento Bee
Hello Sacramento Bee readers,
I’m Daniel Hunt, The Bee’s Local News Editor. We’re turning up the heat on our food and dining coverage — and I’m excited to introduce Sean Timberlake, our new food reporter with two decades of experience covering what’s on the plate and who’s behind it.
Sean has written for household media brands including Food Network, CNN and Sunset Magazine, but what makes him the right fit for The Bee is his deep understanding of Sacramento and surrounding communities. Since moving here in 2020, he’s tracked local restaurants with the intensity of a reporter and the curiosity of a diner. Now, he’s channeling that passion into distinctive, subscriber-first coverage that digs deeper than the menu.
Sean joins a beat already thriving under Camila Pedrosa, whose scoops — from the unraveling of Chando’s Tacos and its owner to anchoring the essential Food & Drink newsletter — have helped readers navigate the region’s fast-changing dining landscape. Camila, who grew up in Davis and now calls East Sacramento home, will continue leading our restaurant business and service coverage while teaming up with Sean to expand our reach and insight.
Food is a top priority in our newsroom — and for many of you, it’s a true community of interest. You show up, you subscribe, and you care deeply about where and how we eat. We’re committed to a thoughtful, in-depth approach. With Sean and Camila leading the way, you’ll get the most connected, reader-focused food journalism in Sacramento — not just what’s happening, but why it matters.
With that, here are five questions to help you get to know Sean and what’s next on the dining beat:
What makes Sacramento’s food scene different from other cities you’ve covered?
Sacramento has an amazing confluence of diversity and accessibility, and I want to celebrate that. I don’t know too many other places where you have so many options at your fingertips. Major dining cities like New York and San Francisco may have incredible diversity, but it tends to be balkanized, with clusters of cuisines isolated in disparate communities.
I love that within the grid alone you can get an iconic breakfast burrito, have some Burmese curry for lunch, make a pit stop for Spanish tapas, and dine at a Michelin-starred restaurant all in one day — though I wouldn’t recommend doing that.
What types of food and dining stories do you think readers are most hungry for, and how do you plan to deliver that coverage?
I think people are always interested in what’s new, of course, especially if it’s something splashy, but that’s not an everyday occurrence. At the end of the day, people just want to know where to eat, depending on their craving, budget and location.
In large part, that includes tried-and-true restaurants that continue to do their thing and survive despite increasing headwinds. I hope to serve a proverbial balanced plate of old and new, high and low, and everything in between.
Personally, I’m also very interested in the people behind the food. No two people in the business are alike, and that makes it endlessly fascinating.
You’ve written for national outlets, launched your own food site and even worked in meal-kit and real estate marketing — how does that background shape the stories you want to tell here?
It makes me adaptable. Different stories will require different tones. Some are very newsy, facts-oriented and straight-faced. Others are more personal and require a softer touch.
I’ve been many people in my life, and that has given me the power to code switch as needed. My hope is that each of my stories is infused with its own unique persona.
You’ll be spearheading our biennial Top 50 Restaurants feature next year and beyond. What do you think that list should really do for readers, and how might you rethink or evolve it?
Often the problem with lists like these is that they tend to get calcified. Certain restaurants invariably get permanently lodged on them, and that’s because they are legitimately good.
Conversely, when good restaurants do drop off, it tends to get some people’s noses out of joint. It’s a delicate tightrope.
I recently got to enjoy the culinary three-ring circus that is The Kitchen, and the next day enjoyed roadside tacos in the Delta with the sun on my face. Food doesn’t always need to be fancy; it just needs to be good and made with care.
So I want to make sure the list is a living thing that serves a bigger purpose. This may mean breaking it down so that there are more level playing fields. I’m still very much mulling it over.
What do you want Bee subscribers to do if they have a story idea, tip, or favorite hole-in-the-wall they think you should know about?
Absolutely email me at stimberlake@sacbee.com. You can also find me on social media: @seantimberlake on Instagram and X. I want to know your favorite haunts, and what you’re craving right now.
