Vice's food website Munchies announced today that it has hired Javier Cabral as West Coast editor. Cabral has been writing about food for 11 years, and his stories have appeared in Saveur, Los Angeles Magazine, the L.A. Times, L.A. Weekly and many other publications and food websites. 

Munchies editor Helen Hollyman tells L.A. Weekly that she liked Cabral's attitude toward food writing from the moment she met him. “One of the first things he said to me is that, before he was a food writer, he was really into the punk scene,” she said. “And he said, 'What's more punk rock than getting paid to write about food?'” 

Cabral says that after years of freelancing, Vice is a great fit for him. “After you've been writing about food for a long time, it's easy to become jaded,” he says. “You get bored with listicles, and the majority of what's out there. Once Munchies launched I found myself reading it every day, word for word, and not just the stories about America. The voice is very bold and very real.” 

Hollyman echoed Cabral's enthusiasm for stories outside of the standard beats to which regional publications have typically adhered. “The challenge for Munchies has always been that our audience is international, and so we're looking for stories that are universally interesting. The biggest thing is that we're trying to go places that haven't been explored, finding stories that haven't been covered. We're really interested in diversifying, finding the interesting stories in L.A. but also Oregon, Washington and Hawaii … all over the West Coast.” 

Cabral's first day on the job was this past Monday, and Hollyman says we can begin to “see some great content starting in a couple of weeks.” 

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