A food writer’s guide to TripAdvisor
While useless for its intended purpose, TripAdvisor has become the country’s most entertaining food publication.
We all do it; scour TripAdvisor when looking for somewhere to eat. Everyone has a different technique. Some believe in following the crowd and stick to restaurants at the top of the pile. The more cynical amongst us distrust a perfect 5.0 score and choose to frequent establishments that boast a more pragmatic, 4.2-ish rating. I myself do neither and prefer to delve deeper, looking past overall scores and reading the written reviews.
‘Assume everyone is an idiot and you’ll be fine,’ my driving instructor once told me. I’ve taken the advice to heart. For this reason, these reviews have no bearing on whether I eat at an establishment. More often than not, I only read them after I’ve made my booking or eaten my meal.
I do this because, while TripAdvisor is useless for its intended purpose, it has inadvertently become the country’s most entertaining food publication. Unfortunately, this only pertains to the bad reviews; if I want poorly explicated gushing I’ll simply watch reruns of “The X Factor.”
I’ll admit a technical breakdown of dishes is often lacking in TripAdvisor’s one and two star reviews. In place of Grace Dent expertly dissecting sauces, TripAdvisor’s faceless critics offer something more entertaining: baseless hysteria.
This is no more apparent than when you study the TripAdvisor profiles of Northern restaurants located in so-called honeypot towns. Every summer the likes of Barnard Castle, Bamburgh and Grasmere attract tens of thousands of people. Many have clearly been waiting to grind their axe all year long.
Take, for example, the brilliantly titled “Custard lovers of the world avoid,” a review of Grasmere’s popular restaurant The Jumble Room. Written with a pinched, haughty flair reminiscent of a Victorian school mistress sucking on a lemon, this review is a 300-word extravaganza that only mentions the restaurant and its food in passing. Instead, the review focuses on a single complaint: the customer being charged £1.95 for extra custard (3 tbs at the most!)
As a product, food writing serves two purposes: to entertain and inform. “Custard lovers of the world avoid” achieves both while abandoning the shackles of conventional reviews.
Most reviews start with a bit of background, something to whet our appetite. Janet B employs no such fluff, hitting us with an all-time opener: ‘This restaurant has very high opinions of itself.’ If the job of a critic is to be critical, then the best in the business are clearly writing for TripAdvisor.
Outbursts such as Janet B’s also inspire us to partake in a universally popular pastime, speculative psychoanalysis. What made Janet so keen on custard? Why does she think its market value is £0? Who was she trying to impress with this outburst?
If you’re anything like me, these questions will spawn a hundred more and hours will soon be whiled away as you delve ever deeper into the Janet B enigma. As good as the likes of Famurewa and Rayner are, they’ll never inspire such reflection.
Of course, world-class critics like Janet don’t just highlight a restaurant’s failings, they reveal the hidden consequences: ‘Our bill came to just under £80 so would have warranted an £8 tip which I did not offer under the circumstances. The £2 charge for custard resulted in a loss of £6 for the staff of the restaurant. Not very good economics for them.’ That’s not boy or girl-maths; it's critic-maths.
The wildly unequal power balance displayed in the service industry stipulates that restaurant owners and staff have two choices when faced with criticism: take it silently, or beg for forgiveness. Given that it is socially-acceptable to argue over the internet but not in person anymore, TripAdvisor offers businesses a rare chance to clap back with business representatives allowed to post one response per review.
Just as dark nights make bright days all the lighter, restaurant’s responses make reviews spicier; there is nothing more exciting than seeing a business owner stand up for themselves and explain the other side of the story. As an added bonus, no further comments are allowed, ensuring arguments do not devolve as they so often do on social media.
Owner of Northumberland’s The Rocking Horse Café, Andrew B - no relation to Janet, I hope - is a master of such retorts, highlighting, amongst other things, why £7 for a portion of homemade soup and stottie is not the robbery tonydog_8 believes it to be.
Because they share the same page, both TripAdvisor reviews and replies penned by owners like Andrew are seen by exactly the same audience. Such a privilege is not offered by the legacy media brands that slate chefs and restaurants in front of the nation. After getting hazed by The Times, the most owners can do is post a defiant response to their 1,000 Instagram followers. That’s like trying to stop a tsunami by turning off the tap.
For all these reasons, I’d encourage you to give TripAdvisor another chance. Pour yourself some tea, search for your favourite restaurant and enjoy a good laugh. Just make sure you don’t let the Janet B’s of this world sway your own opinions; assume everyone is an idiot and you’ll be fine.