How We Work
Methodology
More than 100 sources, one method, every page checked by hand.
- sources
- 100+sources
Sources
More than 100 sources, one method
Every guide has blind spots. Critics visit once, inspectors miss neighbourhood rooms, and review sites reward popularity over cooking. So we read them all, side by side, and only trust what they agree on.
Inspector guides
Anonymous inspectors who eat at every level. The backbone of the score.
Critics and local guides
People who score the food, city by city.
Rankings and awards
National, international and regional honours.
Specialist lists
The people who know one thing best: wine, coffee, pizza, design.
Hotel collections
Hotel guides, collections, awards and official registers.
Local press and food writers
Read in the local languages. How we find places the guides haven't reached.
Diner platforms
Useful, easy to game, never the deciding vote.
How they come together
Critics outweigh crowds
Professional recognition counts for more than review volume. A starred kitchen always ranks above one without a distinction.
No single source decides
Every place is cross-checked. One platform's rating, on its own, never gets a place in.
A handful of reviews can't buy a rank
A 5.0 from 12 reviews doesn't beat a 4.7 from 3,000. Thin ratings are pulled toward the average until there are enough to trust.
Missing isn't bad
If a critic hasn't covered a place, that gap isn't counted against it. We compare places on the data that exists.
Our Process
Five steps, every listing
- 1
Eat
We eat in the places we cover. Not every one yet, and we say so.
- 2
Cross-check
Every listing is weighed against all the sources above.
- 3
Verify
Addresses, hours, menus and prices checked by hand against live sources.
- 4
Rank
A Consensus Score from 0 to 10, critics first, diners second.
- 5
Refresh
Re-checked on a cycle. Closed places come off.
Editorial Principles
What we will and won’t do
No pay-for-placement
No restaurant pays to be listed, ranked higher, or placed in a better tier.
No invented content
If a fact can't be verified, it doesn't appear. Empty is better than wrong.
No single-source rankings
No one publication or platform decides the outcome.
Corrections, fast
Flag something wrong and we check it and fix it, and update the page's last-checked date.
For what our quality tiers mean, see our Quality Standards. Think something on a page is wrong? Get in touch. We fix it fast.