The claim the author is making (note, I can not substantiate it in any way) is that the query showed a list of restaurants, and that the top 5 (or top X) in the

The claim the author is making (note, I can not substantiate it in any way) is that the query showed a list of restaurants, and that the top 5 (or top X) in the list were restaurants who had paid Google for the privilege of being listed first (or at least paid so that their position in the results list was closer to the top than those who had not paid).