Judging from the stars, there’s never been a more confusing time for the restaurant review. Multiple food critics at major news publications this month ditched their formal rating systems, which typically range from one star (womp) to four or five (holy shit, ya gotta eat here!). These restaurant ratings, which accompany detailed written accounts, have historically been intended to help the busy reader who just wants to know where to go for, say, a nice date night meal—and doesn’t want to spend a whole lot of time reading heady analysis or trawling Google.
In a movement that’s been forming over the past decade, a critical mass of publications are now ditching the old-school ratings system. The critics behind these decisions argue that in an often unpredictable and rapidly changing industry (shaped by an ongoing pandemic), stars simply aren’t up to the job. Others, though, refuse to let theirs go. These debates come at a time when established restaurant critics must increasingly compete with social media influencers and user-generated reviews platforms like Yelp and Google, and readers want to see a broader range of cuisines and price points represented. If the falling stars are any indication, the way critics write about restaurants is in major flux.
As the pandemic decimated the restaurant industry, many critics paused their star ratings (or whatever equivalent system they used, such as bells or points). Amid operational pivots and threats to public health, slapping one star on a struggling restaurant seemed particularly brutal—especially given that bad ratings in general can be a nail in the coffin for food businesses. Now, as various publications, like The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and the Infatuation revive their restaurant stars, critics at Eater, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and others have junked theirs for good.
Some critics believe that star ratings fail to account for the realities of running a restaurant today. “Given all the industry’s challenges, restaurants merit more than a symbol to sum them up,” Tom Sietsema, a restaurant critic at The Washington Post, wrote earlier this month. Star ratings are also quick to expire as places evolve, and critics may not return to rereview a restaurant that has changed drastically since they last awarded stars. “With the constant turmoil small businesses have endured over the past few years, the shelf life on something as simplistic as a number grade is too fleeting to capture a restaurant world more dynamic and unpredictable than ever,” Philly Inquirer critic Craig LaBan wrote about nixing the paper’s Liberty Bells rating system this month. “It feels counterproductive to even try.”
Star ratings have always been a controversial element of the restaurant review. The San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, and Miami Herald banished theirs before the pandemic. Many writers cited the impossibility of making objective declarations about eating, one of the most subjective pastimes of our lives. “I think my qualitative analysis of a place is much more valuable than a quantitative one,” Chronicle critic Soleil Ho wrote in 2019. “If I used a star system, a playlist featuring lots of tracks by the Police would probably merit two stars, while one heavy on Rihanna would receive five. Makes sense to me, but it’s certainly not fair.”
Plus, as professional restaurant critics diversify their oeuvre, some argue that comparing food truck nirvana to a top fine dining restaurant is like weighing apples against oranges. Jonathan Gold, the restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times until his death in 2018, did away with the paper’s stars way back in 2012. He was ahead of his time in acknowledging the ways these ratings tended to perpetuate Eurocentric dining ideals, and wrote genre-defying reviews that better represented the diversity of his city. Others have since followed suit.
“The most venerable, influential star systems skewed in favor of a certain snooty category of continental ‘gourmet’ (and ‘expensive’) style, at the expense of other more inclusive, equally worthy” restaurants, former Grub Street critic Adam Platt wrote in 2018, when the publication announced a move to replace the stars it had used since 2008 with a point system ranging from zero to 100.
Still, while a star-ranking system might not reflect all the subtleties of a written review, there’s a case to be made for succinct, easily comparable restaurant ratings. “While stars aren’t writer-friendly, I believe they are largely user-friendly,” wrote Boston Globe food critic Devra First of the publication’s October decision to revive its ratings system but increase their maximum number of stars from four to five, creating more flexibility. These straightforward ratings help people parse where to eat amid a flood of new openings and a flurry of media coverage. “Say what you will about the harsh vagaries of Yelp stars and other (terrible) user review sites, but they reflect a certain consumer demand for clear(ish) metrics on how to spend one’s scarce disposable income,” Eater critic Ryan Sutton wrote in 2021, when the publication announced the permanent dissolution of its star ratings.
Whether it ultimately helps or hinders readers searching for great restaurants, the cultural tug-of-war going on with star ratings represents a mostly positive shift in how we speak about the industry: Restaurant critics are determined to imbue their opinions with more context and empathy than in the past. Still, the concept of rating a dining experience—and needing to effectively communicate that to an audience—isn’t going anywhere. Will the dissolution of quantitative rankings give establishment restaurant criticism a greater sense of relevance? Or will people just flee for other platforms that will quickly tell them whether a place is a one or a three? Those questions are beyond the stars’ realm; only time will tell.