Everyone’s a critic

How online customer reviews are shaking up the restaurant industry

By Anna Fenston
City University - London

Type the name of any restaurant into a search engine and chances are you’ll find a lot of people with a lot to say. In recent years, online review forums have emerged that offer people the chance to go public with their opinions on anything from politics to pie recipes. This trend has caught hold of the restaurant world where customers can take on the role of reviewer by posting their own comments about a dining experience.

On sites like Toptable.com, you’ll find discussion about the quality of the food, the service or even the cleanliness of the bathroom.When you’re done reading, you’ll have a pretty good idea of whether you want to go ahead and make the booking or not.

Squaremeal, Time Out and london-eating also make it easy for pretty much anyone to get the word out. Most major newspapers have followed suit. The move from informal blogs to the creation of review and booking sites catering to diners demonstrates just how popular having a say can be.

The convergence culture, where publicly driven media converges with traditional sources, is flourishing in the restaurant scene.

Just like in the professional critic world, reviews are entirely subjective so messages can range from extremely positive to downright damning. But what are the consequences of this new dining democracy? Do people really take notice of these amateur critics? Where does it leave professional critics and what does it mean for business?

To find out, I spoke to an avid foodie and caught up with two London restaurateurs to get their take on the trend. I also dabbled in a bit of my own culinary research along the way.

Dining democracy

“I’d rather depend on a hundred people writing reviews rather than one guy from the newspaper,” Claire Maroousé told me over drinks at the new swank gastropub next to her office.

Claire is a self described foodie who lives in Wimbledon and who very rarely splurges on a nice dinner without checking online first to see who’s been saying what. You want to have some idea of what you’re in for she told me, “if you’re paying for anything more than £40 a head.”

Claire doesn’t just look up what other people have to say, though, she also posts her own reviews about the restaurants she’s visited. When she had a particularly bad experience at a certain celebrity chef’s restaurant a few months ago, she took action and posted a review.

Claire isn’t alone. Many others are logging in and sounding off.

According to Toptable.com, one of the UK’s most popular restaurant booking sites, diners post roughly 1000 reviews on the site every day. And with currently almost 600,000 reviews of restaurants across the UK, there’s no underestimating the appetite of the public to have their say.

The profits appear to agree. Hoover’s business resource reports that Toptable made $ 4.2 million last year. (One revenue stream is a booking fee charged to the restaurant for each person booked through the site).

Toptable works like this: potential diners register with the site, use it to book each time they go to a restaurant and after they’ve dined, they post a review to receive points that count towards a free meal at certain participating restaurants. The site contains its own professional reviews, customer-written reviews, special offers, location maps and other details.

But potential diners aren't the only ones who rely on Toptable.

Running the business

It’s not just that customers get the chance to air their grievances about an evening gone wrong or to wax poetic about their favorite joint. Regular people now get a role beyond just that of simple diner. While customers always had the choice to spread the (good or bad) word, their opinions couldn’t reach the numbers they do today.

Video link: Meet the restaurateurs

Those who run restaurants have taken notice. Both Patrick Wright of The Peasant and Tim Davey of Boulevard Brasserie keep up with customer postings on sites regularly. Wright and Davey acknowledge the change in landscape of the restaurant industry and talk about the different ways online customer reviews have changed the way they do business:

Online customer postings often give owners the feedback they need to fix what's broken. In July, Pete Blackshaw, Executive Vice-President of Nielsen Online Digital Strategic Services, published Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000: Running a Business in Today's Consumer-Driven World. His web site consumergeneratedmedia.com also looks at just how much power the social media wields and how it affects business owners more and more.

While the restaurant business has always been a competitive one, the current economic downturn is already taking its toll.

The epicenter of the financial crisis in the UK, Canary Wharf has already seen Ubon, Dion and Beluga Café close their doors. But it’s not just Wharf restaurants that are feeling the pinch, restaurants all around London have been shutting in recent months. Whatever the reason for their closures, no restaurant can afford to lose points in the online ratings game.

A report released in November by Key Note, a market analysis company, points to the problems in the industry:

“The restaurants market is suffering from the credit crunch, which is making consumers think twice about paying for restaurant meals with credit cards, and this is being compounded by rising food prices on the global market.”

This puts many restaurant owners accustomed to better times in a very precarious position. With tightening wallets, it’s unlikely that people will be eating out as much and when they do, they’ll be less willing to take chances. Online detective work made easy by review sites offers a glimpse of the restaurant before they get there.

Diners already expect more for their money. Top-end restaurants have started offering deals. Customers expect them to get it right. Key Note’s report does conclude on an optimistic note, though, focusing on the industry’s future growth potential. And this is where good restaurants will have the opportunity to flourish. And good restaurants are those who listen to their customers.

One-way street

No matter how hard you try, some people are never pleased.

We all know the type. Their complaints run the gamut from the spices in the food to the lack of ambience to the style of music. To get it right all the time for every individual would require restaurant owners to have superhuman powers. But customer reviews, like professional reviews don't offer the chance for restaurateurs to respond. What's even more frustrating is that there are so many of them splashed out on the pages of the Web.

Both Wright and Davey, while welcoming online diner reviews, wish they could answer back once in awhile. While the convergence culture has afforded the public a right to their say, owners know only too well that it isn’t a two-way street:

While none of the diner review sites in the UK offer the option for restaurants to respond, Citysearch in the United States did recently make it possible for managers to do just that. After a particularly damning customer review, the restaurant manager of Lunasa, a bar and restaurant in New York City, responded and ultimately refuted the claims the customer had made:

“As the proprietor of Lunasa I was shocked to read your review and I’m very sorry you had such a bad experience. On review of the security cameras...” read more.

People may start to think twice about the accuracy and the consequences of what they post. With the weight that some reviews can carry, a legal dimension has already developed within the realm of professional restaurant reviews.

In January 2007, Goodfellas pizza restaurant in Belfast sued a local newspaper for defamation after it published an unfavorable review of the restaurant. The jury awarded the owner of the restaurant £25000, although this was overturned on appeal in March 2008. This case and others reflect the power of reviews and how seriously owners and customers sometimes take them.

Could you or I ever be held liable for writing a bad review? Toptable clearly has legal issues in mind when it states on its ratings page: “Constructive criticism will be published but obviously nothing libellous.”

Still king, but facing a backlash

No matter how much we value what our fellow customers say, it seems professionals are still the ones who can make or break a restaurant. Wright recalls the reaction when a glowing newspaper review of his restaurant The Peasant came out:

Customer review posts provide fodder for the discerning diner, but a visit by renowned critics like AA. Gill or Giles Coren causes shivers to run down the spine of even the most confident restaurateur. In his article “London Food Critics Have Knives Out for the Chefs” Warren St. John of the New York Times explains: “Many London chefs find Mr. Gill's style -- and especially the way he wantonly ignores their artful creations -- deeply frustrating, though few are willing to say so on the record out of fear of Mr. Gill and his peers.”

While it doesn’t sound like the power of professional restaurant critics will be pushed off the scene by regular customers any time soon, there are ways people are putting up a fight.

In its opening weeks in early 2008, The Rib Shack in Knightsbridge received a bashing from the powers that be. The restaurant’s director and co-owner, Jon Yantin, believed they were out of touch. And with a packed restaurant most nights, he's not the one with egg on his face. Yantin stood up to his critics and won.

To check out what the critics were saying about one of my favorite noodle joints, I typed “Cha Cha Moon” into Google. What’s not to love about cheap prices, decent food and a buzzy atmosphere? I read through a review by AA Gill where descriptions unconnected with the restaurant or its food flowed freely down the page. I finally unearthed the few relevant sentences near the end where he writes:

“Cha Cha would be marvellously welcome if it were not just cheap, but good value. It isn’t. It isn’t if you have a functioning palette. At best, the combinations of ingredients are odd. Mostly, they’re psychopathic.”

But the story doesn’t end there. The Times, like other major online newspapers, offers a space for the public to comment. While not all diners were so vocal, a few others let their thoughts be heard:

So are some diners now becoming adversaries to the critics? It would seem so. This is where the democratic nature of the convergence culture appears the most: the power to challenge the established critic.

Today’s journalism student, today’s restaurant critic

I realized I had become a bit boring when it was my partner who had to remind me that we hadn't been out for a nice meal in months. He searched on Toptable and decided to book Coq d’Argent in the City. No complaints from me. It has some good reviews (professional and customer) and was also offering a £19 three-course menu (I guess the credit crunch is good for something, afterall).

I arrived a bit early on a chilly Thursday night and after a brief problem calling the lift (Coq d’Argent sits a couple levels above Bank Station) made my way to the front desk. I then headed to the bar.

The atmosphere of the bar area was a bit cold, but fine for a few minutes wait and the bartenders were very attentive. While waiting for my partner to arrive, I discovered what the real draw to the restaurant is: the outside patio. It’s open year-round and offers heaters and blankets.

Shortly after my partner arrived, we were seated at our table. Upon opening our menus, we were a bit disappointed to find the choices rather dull, but we knew we had chanced it with the set menu.

The starters weren’t elegant, but they were decent. The smoked salmon was pretty standard and the paté acceptable. My main dish of sea bass was lovely, though, and something I would have expected from a restaurant of that calibre. My boyfriend wasn’t so lucky with the chicken. It was a rather sad looking stewed affair with gravy and chunks of vegetable.

Our meal ended a huge portion each of crème brûlée. It was a bit too soft for my partner’s tastes, but I thought it was indulgent and wonderful.The wine recommended by the sommelier was the true highlight of the meal, though, and cost more than our dinners combined.

To finish off the evening, we booked a table on the patio and enjoyed our coffees and after-dinner drinks there. I’d highly recommend it.Overall, our experience at Coq d’Argent was enjoyable. I can’t say the food was life-changing or even close to amazing, but the set menu offers the chance to go to a nice restaurant in the City without breaking the bank.

The next day I received an email from Toptable asking me to review Coq’ d’Argent. Here’s how I rated it:

While I don’t think the Guardian or The Times will be hiring me just yet, I’ve been able to get my words out there. And that’s what counts.