9 rules for choosing a restaurant anywhere in the world
Follow these rules carefully and (hopefully) you won't go too far wrong when you go out to eat
I write today in the shady corner of a sunny courtyard in Oaxaca, Mexico. Oaxaca is, quite simply, the best place on Earth. Perhaps I’ll write a piece about why. For now you’ll just have to speculate.
First I wish to write a piece inspired by two Canadians my sister and I met in Mexico City. They had a list of three rules for choosing a restaurant when visiting a new place. I have expanded on their list to come up with the ultimate guide for choosing a restaurant, anywhere in the world. Follow these rules and you shouldn’t go too far wrong.
Rule number one - if you found the restaurant on Trip Advisor, you have already gone wrong. Trip Advisor is dead. Trip Advisor is over. Death to Trip Advisor. That owl can get in the bin. If you really need a digital owl in your life get on Duolingo and learn the language of wherever you’re going - then you can ask the locals where to eat.
In Bristol, Wilson’s is not in the top 20 restaurants on Trip Advisor, but Turtle Bay is - twice. It is a travesty. It is extremely common for restaurants to offer incentives for good Trip Advisor reviews, so they often can’t be trusted. The spiralling Trip Advisor trap is all too easy to fall into - the more you use the site to look for restaurants, the more likely you are to leave reviews. The Trip Advisor demographic is not a particularly broad or representative one either - their views, opinions and tastes are likely to be euro-centric and not the best at embracing the nuances and surprises of local cuisine around the world, which is often where the best food is to be found.
If you’re a Trip Advisor aficionado, it’s going to be hard to say goodbye but you’re going to have to trust me. Delete the app. I’ll hold your hand.Instead of Trip Advisor, use local blogs or ask local people. When I told my sister to find us a restaurant by reading local blogs - she looked at me in horror and said “what?”. I don’t mean find someone’s Tumblr from 2008. This right here is a blog. And there are many, all around the world, written by people who know and care about local food. Search for best restaurants followed by the name of the place you’re visiting, and look for actual human bylines - not lists that have been composed by AI.
Even better - once you’ve found a good restaurant or bar, ask the staff where they like to eat. The people in hospitality know the local hospitality scene better than anyone.If the staff come out of the restaurant and beg you to look at the menu, don’t go in. Good food speaks for itself. Even worse when they show you the menu and offer you a free tequila - then you should avoid at all costs.
The higher the ratio of locals to tourists, the better the restaurant. See below quote from Friends which sums this up nicely:
Rachel: So who wants to get some dinner with me later? I really wanna try that new Italian restaurant. Supposed to be really good. Saw a lot of Chinese people eating in there.
Monica: What are you talking about?
Rachel: Remember you said some restaurant must be really good because you saw all these Chinese people eating in there?
Monica: That's because it was a Chinese restaurant.If the menu features more than 20 savoury items, don’t go in. As a general rule, the smaller the menu, the better the restaurant. Very few chefs can manage quality and quantity at scale.
5b. There are a few exceptions to this rule - including Indian and Chinese restaurants. For some reason, they can manage it. Don’t ask me why. It’s one of those mythical laws of the universe.Eat local food wherever possible. If you are in Mexico, the chances are the Japanese restaurant isn’t going to be as good as the nearby taqueria. Find our what the local specialities are and seek them out!
If the restaurant has Coca Cola chairs or stools, it means it has been around for a while. Said chairs are vintage; they don’t make them anymore. Generally restaurants that have been around for a while are popular and worth eating at. This isn’t a hard and fast rule. You can also sometimes see how long a restaurant has been around by looking at old photos on Google street view. It’s a classic journalism trick. Restaurants that have survived the last few years are likely to be well managed, loved by locals and well-priced.
Don’t judge a book by its cover. I’d much rather go to a shack on the side of the road and sit on plastic stools with the locals than a fancy restaurant with pristine table cloths and extortionate prices, but the shack on the road might seem intimidating to some.
Many worry about bad hygiene, which is valid - after all, having a trip ruined by food poisoning is the worst. But there’s still a chance of getting ill from dining in an established restaurant. Plus hygiene ratings often focus more on paperwork and building issues than they do on actual cleanliness. My advice is that if a restaurant is popular and you’ve done your research, you’ll probably be fine.The final rule is this - know when to break the rules. If a place looks interesting, check it out. The worst meals make for the funniest stories anyway.
Words and photos by Meg Houghton-Gilmour