A restaurant guide is a book that lists restaurants in a specific location, such as a city. These publications are typically updated once a year to reflect new information such as restaurant closures, address changes, and the addition of new restaurants. Local tourism bureaus, airports, and bookstores are all good places to look for restaurant guides. If people want to prepare for a trip, they can also order them online.
Several well-known restaurant guides, such as the Zagat Survey, Michelin Guide, and Harden’s, have a devoted following. There are numerous other companies that publish restaurant guides for the same areas as these guidebooks, as well as other areas. Other restaurant guides can be found in travel guidebooks and community publications aimed at tourists and visitors. To attract visitors, a restaurant guide is frequently free or inexpensive.
A typical restaurant guide entry includes the name of the establishment, its location, contact information, and operating hours. A brief description of the restaurant’s cuisine is usually included, as well as a rating that is intended to indicate the cost of an average meal at the establishment. Most restaurant guides also include quality ratings that can be used to help people decide where they want to eat. For readers who want to get a feel for the restaurant, some may mention several menu items by name.
The Michelin Guide’s rating system is well-known, and receiving a Michelin Star is a tremendous honor for a restaurant. For their ratings, all restaurant guides use a similar system, sending representatives into the restaurant several times to eat the food and take notes on the quality of the food, service, and atmosphere. Hundreds of thousands of diners submit their own ratings and reviews, which are used in the Zagat Survey. When a restaurant guide is updated, the ratings may be changed as well, particularly if the publishers have been informed that the restaurant’s ownership, service, or standards have changed.
A restaurant guide can be organized in a variety of ways. Some are organized by neighborhood, city, or district, allowing people to search for all of the restaurants in a given area and compare their ratings to decide where to eat. Others may be categorized according to the type of cuisine served or by customer reviews. In a food guide designed to orient visitors who want to cook for themselves, restaurant guides can also include information about farmers’ markets and grocery stores.