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I looked up local Zagat best in "XYZ" type reviews in my citiy, all the top listings are completely off by a wide margin in multiple categories. Some popular re

I looked up local Zagat best in "XYZ" type reviews in my citiy, all the top listings are completely off by a wide margin in multiple categories. Some popular restaurants aren't even on there. That being said I usually use whatever has the best content available

antisthenes 8y ago
Restaurant reviews are always a moving target because of the nature of the business. So many of them go broke and disappear over the years that some restaurant with legacy 4.5 star reviews might not be anywhere near as good as a new trendy one that just opened up that has no reviews. Vice versa too.
ghaff 8y ago
None of them are even close to perfect. "Best" isn't necessarily all that correlated to popular though. The other problem with "Best ofs" generically is that most of the restaurants are more expensive than I'd pay for except on rare occasions. In my nearest city, 95% of my experience is with mid-rangeish ethnic, etc. restaurants. I'm very rarely in a restaurant that's likely to make a Best of list.
- Kagerjay 8y ago
  The "Best ofs" I know of are generally concensus based though. If I asked 10 people in my area who are foodies, they would all generally agree with the results of what the best "Japanese restaurants" are in town. Having been to Japan myself (and speak conversational Japanese), I know what good quality Japanese food tastes like. I also know which local restaurants make their own noodles in-house VS those that don't, b/c I know most of the owners. Zagat unfortunately missed the mark on 3 restaurants. There aren't many Japanese restaurants in my town to begin with though. It isn't even a matter of price either. All 3 I'm thinking of, one is on the cheap-end, another mid-level, and another highend. So I find this margin of error to be enormously large. It's okay if 1 of them was on that list, but all 3 is just unusual. Plus some didn't even have a listing on that site. I have never heard of anyone actually using Zagat either, besides the plaques I see on restaurants to showcase their awards.

antisthenes 8y ago

Restaurant reviews are always a moving target because of the nature of the business. So many of them go broke and disappear over the years that some restaurant with legacy 4.5 star reviews might not be anywhere near as good as a new trendy one that just opened up that has no reviews. Vice versa too.

ghaff 8y ago

None of them are even close to perfect. "Best" isn't necessarily all that correlated to popular though. The other problem with "Best ofs" generically is that most of the restaurants are more expensive than I'd pay for except on rare occasions. In my nearest city, 95% of my experience is with mid-rangeish ethnic, etc. restaurants. I'm very rarely in a restaurant that's likely to make a Best of list.

Kagerjay 8y ago
The "Best ofs" I know of are generally concensus based though. If I asked 10 people in my area who are foodies, they would all generally agree with the results of what the best "Japanese restaurants" are in town. Having been to Japan myself (and speak conversational Japanese), I know what good quality Japanese food tastes like. I also know which local restaurants make their own noodles in-house VS those that don't, b/c I know most of the owners. Zagat unfortunately missed the mark on 3 restaurants. There aren't many Japanese restaurants in my town to begin with though. It isn't even a matter of price either. All 3 I'm thinking of, one is on the cheap-end, another mid-level, and another highend. So I find this margin of error to be enormously large. It's okay if 1 of them was on that list, but all 3 is just unusual. Plus some didn't even have a listing on that site. I have never heard of anyone actually using Zagat either, besides the plaques I see on restaurants to showcase their awards.