Restaurant ratings identify restaurants according to their quality, using various notations such as stars or other symbols, or numbers. Stars are a familiar and popular symbol, with ratings of one to four or five stars commonly used. Ratings appear in guidebooks as well as in the media, typically in newspapers, lifestyle magazines and webzines. Websites featuring consumer-written reviews and ratings are increasingly popular, but are far less reliable.[1]
In addition, there are ratings given by public health agencies rating the level of sanitation practiced by an establishment.
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Restaurant guides list the best places to eat. One of the most famous of these is the Michelin series of guides which accord from one to three stars to quality restaurants they perceive to be of high culinary merit. The Michelin Red Guide is regarded the most important of sorts, awarding up to three stars. One star indicates a "very good restaurant"; two stars indicate a place "worth a detour"; three stars means "exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey."
Most bigger newspapers employ restaurant critics and publish online dining guides for the cities they serve, such as the Irish Independent for Irish restaurants.
| Name | Working area | Type of rating | Method |
|---|---|---|---|
| The people's UK Restaurant Guide | United Kingdom | 1 to 5 bolls | Public reviews |
| Gault Millau | Europe | 1 to 20 points | inspectors of local agents |
| Le Cordon Bleu | France | ? | ? |
| Georgina Campbell's Guides[2] | Ireland | 0.5 to 3 Stars | Anonymous Inspectors |
| Smulweb.nl | Netherlands | ? | Public reviews |
| Egon Ronay's Guide | Ireland and United Kingdom | 1 to 3 stars | Inspectors |
| Lekker | Netherlands | ranking 1 to 100 | ? |
| Knoopjelos.nl | Netherlands | 1 to 10 points | Inspectors |
| White Guide | Sweden | ? | ? |
| Name | Working area | Type of rating | Method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Michelin Guide | United States (partly) | 1 to 3 stars | Professional inspectors |
| Forbes Travel Guide | United States | 1 to 5 stars | professionals, consumers, and self-reporting by hotels, restaurants, and spas |
| American Automobile Association | United States | 1 to 5 diamonds | ? |
| Zagat | United States | 30 point scale | Public reviews |
| Name | Working area | Type of rating | Method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australian Good Food & Travel Guide | Australia | Total: 1 to 5 Crossed Spoon & Fork Symbols Food: chef's hat with max. 20 points[3] |
Inspectors |
| Miele Guide | Asia | ? | ? |
With the advent of Web 2.0, new types of review websites have come about. These websites have empowered regular people to generate non-expert reviews. This has sparked much criticism from restaurant establishments about the non-editorial, non-professional critiques. Those reviews also turned out te be falsified or faked by some website exploitants and competitors.[4][5]
The different guides each have their own criteria. Not every guide looks behind the scenes or decorum. Others look particularly sharply to value for money. This is why a restaurant can be missing in one guide, while mentioned in another. Because the guides work independently, it is possible to have simultaneous multiple recognitions.[6][7][8][9][10]
A top restaurant rating can mean success or failure for a restaurant, particularly when bestowed by influential sources like Michelin. Still, a good rating is not enough for economic success and many Michelin starred and/or highly rated restaurants have met the same fate as the Dutch restaurant De Swaen.
In 2004, Michelin came under fire in some quarters after bipolar chef Bernard Loiseau committed suicide after he was rumoured to be in danger of losing one of his three stars. However, the Michelin guide had stated he would not be downgraded. Most news reports attributed his suicide to the downgrade carried out by the rival Gault Millau guide.
Many countries have a thorough system of checks and inspections in place for sanitation. Only a few countries, amongst others the United States and Canada, create and publish restaurant ratings based on this.
Restaurant ratings for sanitation are not new but have been the subject of greatly increased interest in recent years in the United States. In 1997, a KCBS-TV sweeps news story called Behind The Kitchen Door focused attention on problems in Los Angeles's top restaurants. The station used hidden cameras to catch restaurant employees practicing unsafe food handling practices such as picking up food from the floor and re-serving it, vermin crawling near food to be served, or mixing uncooked meat and vegetables.[11] The report also reviewed inspection reports, which have always been public but were available only on request and required a personal visit to the health department, and found that many problems were already noted in the inspection reports but were not adequately publicized.
Embarrassed by this report, Los Angeles County, with the Board of Supervisors, quickly copied a letter grading system already some years in California's San Diego County and Riverside County. Instead of only listing violations in a report, the restaurant inspection system was changed to a standardized scale ranking with a certain number of points deducted for each violation. Letter grades were required to be prominently posted at all establishments selling food, and all establishments were required to provide a copy of the inspection to any customer on request. Grades are also available at the County Public Health Department's web site.[12] More specific information about how restaurants actually receive these grades is found at this official reference page.[13]
These ratings are given from a numerical scale, with 100 being a perfect score and points deducted for each violation, such as keeping food at the wrong temperature, Cockroach/vermin/rodent infestation, failure to use certified equipment, or improper food storage. From that, a letter grade is often assigned.
As a result of restaurant grading, sanitation has improved. Two Stanford University economics researchers found that higher lettered restaurants scored a rise in revenue, while lower lettered restaurants have seen their revenues decline. The quality of restaurants in the entire county became more equitable, with the average score going up from about 75% to nearly 90% in the year after restaurant grading was implemented. The researchers concluded that the results were not explained solely by consumers switching to higher quality restaurants, and that some of the effect had to do with restaurants making changes due to grade cards.[14][15] Another study estimated a 13.1% reduction in hospitalization for food borne illnesses in the year following implementation of the program, suggesting that implementing a restaurant grading program could improve public safety.[16]