What influences your choice in terms of places to eat?

[Guest makapaka]

What influences you to go and try somewhere, for food, that you haven't tried before?

 

Do you actually do that when you go out? i.e. look to try somewhere new? Or do you generally stick to the same places time after time and prefer to stick with what you know? (And how did you know you liked those places before you tried them for the first time?)

 

I must admit, I'm always looking for new places to eat out - whether that be something simple, like a good fish and chip shop, or other type of takeaway, or a Michelin starred restaurant.

 

I'm influenced most by the following:

 

1. Independent Awards from respected sources.

2. Independent Reviews

3. Word of Mouth from respected sources

4. Personal experience

 

The "Independent" part is very important. I was shocked to learn some years ago that some of those "guide books" I'd been buying, like Egon Ronay, Le Routier, AA Guide, etc., were not truly independent at all. They were taking money for advertising certain places in their guide book. I've never bought them since for that reason.

 

Independent Awards can be influential, but it depends who's giving out the Awards. If a restaurant has an award from "The Good Food Guide" - that's a truly independent guide - then that's pretty powerful. But there are lots of fake Awards out there.

 

Same with reviews. TripAdvisor is full of fake reviews. People getting their mates to put a positive review on there to push their business up the rankings. Having said that, TripAdvisor can be good to get ideas, but I'd always look at how many reviews someone has written and what type of places they'd written about before letting that influence my opinion.

 

Word of Mouth is still one of the most powerful influences, but, it has to be coming from someone whose opinion I respect, and that's down to "reference points" I suppose. i.e. what's their experience of such places like? For example, if I wanted to know which is the best transport cafe between here and London, I'd probably ask a lorry driver, but I probably wouldn't ask the same person about fine dining.

 

At the end of the day, personal experience is probably the most powerful influence of all. If I try a place, and it's good, then I'm likely to go back again, assuming it's accessible and affordable to me.

 

I've got a few places around Sheffield that I haven't tried yet, but am interested to try, for one of the 4 reasons I've listed above:

 

1. Rhubarb Shed Cafe

2. Kito's

3. Oisoi

 

First two are influenced by word of mouth from people whose opinions I know and trust. Third one is influenced by third party reviews and the fact this is something very different and unusual for Sheffield.

 

The rhubarb shed is excellent. Great food great prices great service nice surroundings.

 

Pound for pound its my favourite.

[Bargepole23]

What influences you to go and try somewhere, for food, that you haven't tried before?

 

Do you actually do that when you go out? i.e. look to try somewhere new? Or do you generally stick to the same places time after time and prefer to stick with what you know? (And how did you know you liked those places before you tried them for the first time?)

 

I must admit, I'm always looking for new places to eat out - whether that be something simple, like a good fish and chip shop, or other type of takeaway, or a Michelin starred restaurant.

 

I'm influenced most by the following:

 

1. Independent Awards from respected sources.

2. Independent Reviews

3. Word of Mouth from respected sources

4. Personal experience

 

The "Independent" part is very important. I was shocked to learn some years ago that some of those "guide books" I'd been buying, like Egon Ronay, Le Routier, AA Guide, etc., were not truly independent at all. They were taking money for advertising certain places in their guide book. I've never bought them since for that reason.

 

Independent Awards can be influential, but it depends who's giving out the Awards. If a restaurant has an award from "The Good Food Guide" - that's a truly independent guide - then that's pretty powerful. But there are lots of fake Awards out there.

 

Same with reviews. TripAdvisor is full of fake reviews. People getting their mates to put a positive review on there to push their business up the rankings. Having said that, TripAdvisor can be good to get ideas, but I'd always look at how many reviews someone has written and what type of places they'd written about before letting that influence my opinion.

 

Word of Mouth is still one of the most powerful influences, but, it has to be coming from someone whose opinion I respect, and that's down to "reference points" I suppose. i.e. what's their experience of such places like? For example, if I wanted to know which is the best transport cafe between here and London, I'd probably ask a lorry driver, but I probably wouldn't ask the same person about fine dining.

 

At the end of the day, personal experience is probably the most powerful influence of all. If I try a place, and it's good, then I'm likely to go back again, assuming it's accessible and affordable to me.

 

I've got a few places around Sheffield that I haven't tried yet, but am interested to try, for one of the 4 reasons I've listed above:

 

1. Rhubarb Shed Cafe

2. Kito's

3. Oisoi

 

First two are influenced by word of mouth from people whose opinions I know and trust. Third one is influenced by third party reviews and the fact this is something very different and unusual for Sheffield.

 

Away from home ......Trip Advisor

 

In Sheff and it's locality.....maybe somewhere that catches my eye whilst out and about, or somewhere newly opened or somewhere that gets a mention in the Telegraph, all usually independents

 

Had a very nice lunch at the Summerhouse at the btm of Dore Rd last week.

[ShefGiftCard]

Word of mouth and generally somewhere that catches my eye. Only problem is Sheffield has such an eclectic mix of eateries that there isn't enough days in the week to try them all! Recently eaten at Summerhouse, Peppercorn, Piccolinos, Pieminister and Kitos and all but one were fabulous. I tend to take some of the Trip Advisor and 'independent' reviews with a pinch of salt though *excuse the pun

[jackanderton]

Price vs. Performance

 

The sense that what you paid versus how much you enjoyed it made it worth doing rather than eating at home.

 

As for how I find these places - a mixture of the usual places mentioned above, plus google, going to the website directly if possible, and word of mouth from friends and family - although I find this the least reliable.

[Longcol]

We generally use trip advisor when going out somewhere other than Sheffield - mainly on holiday in France and Italy or weekends away over here - plus recommendations from owners of wherever we're staying, be it B&B, hotel, campsite, gite etc.

 

We're looking for good value for money and local / regional specialities and a decent wine list. We're both quite big so we like a bit of room, comfortable chairs, and appreciate friendly, professional service.

 

We're moving to France in a couple of months, and fortunately the restaurant in our local village has all the above in spades - 23 euro for 3 courses with an amuse bouche thrown in plus a good house wine at 3.5 euro for a big glass.