I might have to brush up on my IG skills.
Yes to asking the locals. I find that many employees\volunteers at museums, historical sites, etc have surprisingly good ideas for local dining. Often better than hotel employees or drivers.
I have to say that is one of the lamest advice columns Iâve ever seen. âFindâ restaurants by already knowing what restaurants you want, and then saving them on IG? Or already knowing what good chefs are in that city and spending God knows how much time looking at their IG pages to see if they might recommend other restaurants? Come on, NYT.
âAsk localsâ is an strategy if youâre already in a place, but doesnât help much with restaurants youâd need to make reservations for (and of course, make those reservations a month in advance!)
The strategy that has worked by far the best for me in recent years is to search Google Maps for restaurants. Their star ratings are generally quite reliable, especially if you look at reviews and make a note of whether the reviewers are locals or tourists. Yelp is pretty good too in that regard. We did pretty much all our searching for restaurants via Google Maps on our last two international trips (Italy and Dominica) and it worked really well. TripAdvisor reviews are, by definition, 99% from tourists, and I donât find those to be very reliable.
I donât disagree about Google maps and reviews. In the US they are my go to, but when restaurants have no website, IG stuff from the owner can sometimes offer very current , relevant information.
Iâm always a little baffled by the âask localsâ suggestion, as if they had some sort of magical palate just by living where we visit. There are just as many locals who love chains or crappy foods as there are tourists, which is evident to me every summer in Berlin. Itâs def not the most reliable way to find good food.
Although I am barely ever on IG bc I am old, when in Berlin I do follow an account whose posts have steered me to great places in the past. That woman knows good food. But sheâs not just some rando who happens to live where Iâm looking for meals
I suggested to daughter that we check a Facebook page for a holiday brunch at restaurant that didnât have a website.
ââŚbaffled by the âask localsâ suggestionâ
some of the absolute worst suggestions weâve ever received were from the âask the localsâ box.
Same. Why would some rando have my taste in food? Or any taste in food?
I always laugh at the âask taxi driversâ suggestion, which comes up a lot. If you want to find the cheapest Pakistani (for instance) takeaway joint with the biggest portions, sure. But I donât know why taxi drivers would be such authorities on gastronomy.
Charitably, it might be âwhat restaurants do you drop people off at a lot.â
Are you going to get reliable fine dining recommendations from the hoi polloi? Unlikely. Delicious, affordable, generous portions? Thereâs the sweet spot if you ask municipal employees, truck drivers, cabbies, etc. Years ago, two police officers in Tennessee sent me to a barebones joint with the best barbecue I had ever tasted. Diner food can be great, and for that, these folks are an ideal source.
Ask at a good wine shop.
Sometimes locals know the score. Probably our best tip was from a couple of guys sitting next to us at a small hip restaurant. They said, âYou want good Italian, you go to Tonyâs Place in East Boston and let Mary cook for you.â We did and they were right. We also decided they were probably Mafia, but whoâs to argue with a good palate.
Ask Hungry Onion.
Well, there are some gaps in the HO knowledge base. To put it mildly. A lot of intel on a relatively few locations.
Several of us have mentioned that âlocalsâ arenât some magical creature. They come with shitty taste in food, too
One problem is getting across what kind of experience you are looking for. Simple feed the maw or fine dining,. Very often, locals want to share their special place with us, which may or may not be what we consider special, or more likely be a much more formal meal than we are looking for.
No one source is perfect.
It takes a compendium of different inputs to really find the full panoply of eating options that suit your criteria, and it also depends on the purpose of your travels.
For example, I travel quite a bit for business, and if it is in a city I am not familiar with I will generally look for a food review board like Yelp for some basics, like popular restaurants, location (the Yelp map feature is very helpful), pictures of food, etc. Yelp is good for a general lay of the land. Then, after having done enough basic background, I will go on a site like Hungry Onion to get a more nuanced, deeper dive as to what are the âgoodâ or ânoteworthyâ restaurants, especially as the demographics on a food board like HO is more in line with my preferences than a general board like Yelp often populated with hoi polloi who do not take the quiddity of food as seriously or maniacally as we do here.
So TL:DR for business travel this is what I do.
- Basic research on Yelp or Internet sites like Tripadvisor, Foddors, etc.
- Additional nuanced secondary search on HO
- Then eat
For leisure travel, where I have more time to explore, and eating will be more an integral part of my visit than during a business excursion, in addition to the steps above (Yelp, then HO) I will also ask, once on the ground, locals what and where to eat. These locals may include anyone from the hotel concierge, hotel staff (cleaning crew are especially helpful as their advice is often unfiltered), other restaurant owners, esp. mom-and-pop shop owners or workers, or just some random person at the bar or coffee shop.
So TL:DR for leisure travel this is what I do.
- Basic research on Yelp or Internet sites like Tripadvisor, Foddors, etc.
- More nuanced secondary search on HO
- Additional on-the-ground reconnaissance with locals
- Then eat
Well, if you wanted no gaps in knowledge, thereâs always ChatGPT