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There are 311,694 independent restaurants in America.*

Another Food Critic is here to find which ones are the best.

Another Food Critic reviews local restaurants, small chains and regional flavors. Typically you’ll find review here on flavors ranging from full service restaurants to coffee shops and dives with lots of local love.

Here’s how I rate them:

The experience is excellent. The menu is awesome, the food is creative and the experience is stellar. I consistently find this restaurant to be one of the best places to find a great dining experience. Not to say it’s perfect, but it’s hard to imagine how the place could be improved. These are typically the top 10 percent of reviews. There’s also a silver “sterling” rating for top-notch restaurants — Michelin star quality — which are among the best and most famous culinary names in the world. A true gastronomical experience.

The experience is great. The restaurant has a solid experience in store. Food is usually good and much of the menu is high-quality. Staff are great, the concept is good and the price points are appropriate for the experience. The occasional problem is rare to happen or easy to correct.

The  experience is good. There were a number of tasty items on the menu, and some good qualities shone through. Maybe the food had a simple charm, and the concept, pricing, and service was middle-of-the-pack. I still consider this a good review. Many restaurants aren’t out to reinvent the wheel, they just want to be a fun place for the locals to eat.

The experience is poor. The bad outweighed the good here, the food wasn’t up to snuff or the experience, service or price wise, was not recommended. I usually don’t like the food I try in these spots, either because something is wrong in the preparation, or the end result is a disappointment compared to other restaurants in the same vein. About the bottom 10 percent of the restaurants reviewed.

The experience was bad. I just don’t recommend this place, and the experience was severe enough that I don’t think it’s a matter of opinion. The problem may well be a larger issue with how the restaurant is run or what ingredients it is using. These reviews are few and far between.

 

 

The vegetarian challenge! In 2012, Another Food Critic went vegetarian for a month to get a diner’s view on the experience. I assigned restaurants a scale of three apples, three if it had a significant and high quality menu of vegetarian specialties, two if it was a simple menu but still had some vegetarian options, and one if the restaurant wasn’t vegetarian friendly.