Sometimes you just need a number…
Sure, knowing about the ambiance, or the depth of the menu, or the texture of the flavor profile can be fun and all, but what’s the verdict? How many stars?
We hear you, and that’s why each restaurant review on Eating Out the Town has a numerical rating at the top of the page. Ratings are scored from 0 to 10, counting to the tenth decimal. Ratings are holistic, taking into account the food, cost, decor, and repeatability; however, flavor is king. A restaurant cannot earn a high score unless they’ve got the stuff.
See below as to how we score, and what these scores mean:
10: Perfection
The greatest meal of all-time. The sublime. The face of God. Your puny human brain cannot even comprehend the perfection nesting on your puny human palettes. Don’t try to explain it. Don’t try to do anything. Just enjoy it while it’s here.
9’s: Amazing
This is a gold standard meal. A 9 isn’t something you eat just once. It is a restaurant you return to again and again, unloading the contents of your wallet onto them until their menu has been tattooed onto your tongue. If you encounter one while traveling, it is a highlight of your trip. If you are lucky enough to find one close to your home, you don’t just recommend it, you demand your loved ones try it. You insist on becoming a regular, going so far as to sew the seat of your pants to the chair at a corner table.
Yes, a restaurant with a rating in the 9’s should be one of those notable meals that stays with you forever.
We’re not here for high-brow: we give 9’s to street food staples and fine dining alike. But when something gets a 9, whether it’s a dollar slice joint or a 10 course Prix Fix, you know it is operating at the peak of its world.
8’s: Great
When a restaurant receives a rating in the 8’s, it has surpassed the bar of “good” and ascended to “great.” These are meals where the only heartache is having to decide whether you will gatekeep or brag about it.
The differentiator here is that an 8 will go above and beyond to either serve an excellent version of a familiar flavor, or provide a unique, pleasurable spin on a classic delight. When the last crumb has been licked clean and the check has been signed, you’ll feel the value far exceeded the cost, and you’ll already be looking at your calendar deciding when to come back.
7’s: Very Good
A restaurant in the 7’s is well worth your time. These are the neighborhood spots, the menus you reach for when you’re in a pinch and want to order in. They just hit that spot of rightness that feels good no matter how many times you have them.
For a restaurant to grade in the 7 range, they must exceed the average by having a menu with multiple strong options for both mains and appetizers/sides, must provide reasonable value for their cost, and must look the part—maintaining some semblance of clean or at least intentional decorum. If you find a restaurant in the 7’s, it is worth your time.
6’s: Good
An ordinary meal. You will be able to find a few good options that satiate your hunger, are somewhat pleasant to your palette, and do not disembowel your wallet in a way that exceeds what should be expected for a meal of similar cuisine and quality.
If you live near one, you’ll go every now and then when you crave those particular flavors. If you are far, it might not be worth traveling to but is good to keep the name in your back pocket.
5’s: Solid, I Guess…
Not great. Not offensive. A bit beneath what you’d expect to receive from all the effort of getting dolled up and shelling out some cash. A restaurant in the 5’s is by no means terrible, but you could probably find another meal in the area on par or better without too much trouble.
4’s: Underwhelming
The food is not good, the prices are not good. It’s a meal that you overall regret. There may be one good thing: an appetizer that left the table wanting more, or a Diet Coke from the fountain with just the right amount of syrup, but when all is said and done you will likely not come back.
3’s: Bad
The kind of place that can’t even get the french fries right.
2’s: Atrocious
Once a restaurant dips below the 3’s and into the 2’s, it’s gone beyond a bad meal or a bad deal. There are serious structural issues that may never be fixed. You may recall certain episodes of Kitchen Nightmares where you wonder: “How could a restaurant ever get it that wrong? What’s going on back there?”
1’s: Offensive
We sincerely hope that our eyes and noses are keen enough to protect our tongues from food atrocious enough to score a 1. We’re talking rats swimming in the soup, mold colonies in the kitchen plotting their trip to Mars. If a restaurant does receive a 1, it is likely due to:
- Deception.
- The food was so terribly, inconveniently, disrespectfully overpriced, that we could not in good conscience rate solely off the flavor.
0: Poisonous
I will never give a 0 rating. We may publish a 0 rating, but if so, I will not be alive to write it. One of our interns will have to identify my body, log in to my Docs account, find the half-finished manuscript, and type up the review of the restaurant that killed me.
