How to Write a Food Review

The job of a food reviewer is to accurately convey the taste, texture, smell, and presentation of a
restaurant's food. You not only comment on the food but also on the atmosphere, staff
knowledge and attentiveness, the speed of service, the general impression of the restaurant or
cafe. A great food review puts the reader at your table with you, allowing them to decide
whether or not they want to visit the restaurant when they're done reading.

1
Do some background research. Once you've had your meal and taken your notes, take a
little time to see what the restaurant's history is. These kind of details are a great way to
add some color to your review. For example, you might find that the head chef trained in
France or used to work at another well-loved restaurant in the area, and you can use
these connections to make people interested in the food.
 Start by reading the restaurant's website. Look up the owner and executive chef to get an
idea of their training, style, and past ventures.

2
Open your review with a compelling hook. The first sentence of the review should make
people want to read more. Remember, you are giving them a reason to either spend
their money at this restaurant or skip ahead to another spot, but you're also trying to get
them to read your writing. Some tips for a good hook include:
 Promise a story or surprise, such as "it may have taken a while to get to my mouth, but I've
found the best paella on the planet." Make sure, however, that you deliver on the promise
later!
 Give an interesting, tangential fact, like "Chef Zurlo only started cooking 2 years ago, yet
she's quickly risen through the ranks to operate Oakland's best new bagel shop."
 Describe a particularly captivating or compelling part of the ambiance, good or bad, like a
great view or a funny smell from the kitchen.

3
Describe 3-5 dishes that you sampled, not all of them. No one wants to read a laundry list
of foods, so pick the foods that made the greatest impression on you (good or bad) and
focus your writing on these dishes. Don't just say if they were good or bad. Strive to give
details and reasons, naming each specific dish. As an outline, you should try and talk
about the following three things in every food review:[1]
 Presentation: How'd the dish look when it arrived, and how did it make you feel? Excited?
Hungry? Like royalty? Like you were in your family's kitchen again?
 Taste: The big, obvious one, but that is only because it is so important. Use descriptive
language, metaphor, and simile to put your reader in your shoes, or mouth. Name spices or
flavors when you can.
 Texture:This usually includes cooking process as well. Did it melt in your mouth? Was it
still hot when it arrived? Was it juicy and tender or tough and brittle? Were their multiple
textures (such as something soft with a crunchy crust), and did they work well together?

4
Use big, colorful adjectives when writing. Remember that, above all, you're selling the
experience here, not just the food. Feel free to get poetic with your writing in places,
using 1-2 well-placed adjectives to let the reader know exactly what they should expect
at the restaurant. You can think of it, in some ways, as the short story of your trip -- give
details and colorful additions that make the restaurant stand out and feel unique.
 This includes the atmosphere, the surface, and the location. The more specific details, the
better. Try for one good detail about every interaction/part of the restaurant.

5
Think about a restaurant's intentions, not just your personal preferences. A good food
review is about helping other people find the restaurant, not just a platform to tell
everyone your likes and dislikes. For example, if you go to a restaurant with retro art on
the walls and rollerskating dancers, it is not fair to judge the restaurant for specializing in
burgers and fries instead of oysters. A good reviewer is as unbiased as possible,
evaluating the restaurant as a whole.
 What kind of atmosphere are they going for here? Do they pull it off?
 How do your preferences match the restaurants? If you hate seafood, but that is the
restaurant's specialty, you may want to tone down the negative reviews of the salmon or tell
your readers that you aren't generally a fan of fish.[2]

6
Write a mixture of pros and cons. Unless it is either the very best restaurant you've ever
eaten at or the very worst, it is not fair to write a review that is either all good or all bad.
Try and give your audience the complete picture. This ultimately allows the reader to
make their own decision based on your advice, which seems much more reasonable
when it considers both the pros and cons.
 "While my servers were incredibly kind and accommodating, it doesn't change the fact that
the food was a bit cold when it came out."
 "Head chef Mathew Tucci has designed an amazing menu, and it's a shame that he only has
10 tables to serve to in his small little restaurant."
7
Make a recommendation. Ultimately, people want your advice on the food. What to
order, what to skip, and what restaurants to go to depending on their mood. You should
feel free to suggest certain dishes, recommending that someone should skip dessert, or
mention if it seems like a great place to take a date. These make your review
compelling and useful.
 If there is little of merit in the restaurant and you firmly believe is should be avoided, feel
free to write a negative review. However, you should usually try a restaurant a second time,
making sure that you didn't try out a fluke of a dish, before attacking it.[3]

 8
 Fill in the essential details of the restaurant in the beginning or end of the
review. This is where you put in the average cost of a meal, the reservations
time, and the address. You could also add a rating, such 3 out of 4 stars, if you
wanted. Many reviewers put this at the very end of the article, in it's own separate
paragraph, but some also put it at the top, on a separate column on the side, or
worked into one of the first paragraphs.

Method Three of Three:

1
Note the presentation of the dish. As soon as the food reaches your table, make some
notes on the appearance. Is it clean and beautiful or messy and tired? Remember, a
food review is about the experience, not just the taste, so you need to capture all of
these details.
 If you are at a restaurant that allows it, try and snap a quick picture with your phone. This
will make it much easier to write about the appearance later.

2
Enjoy your first few bites. Savor the first few bites, sampling everything on the plate
before writing anything else down. Eat slowly and enjoy the meal before trying to get too
critical.
 Make sure you eat the dish the way it was intended first-- don't pick out any ingredients or
try things separately until later.

3
Write down your initial impressions with specific detail. Use adjectives and clear
language when making your notes. "I liked the use of rosemary" is not as helpful as "the
rosemary crust was light and herbal and perfect complemented the soft, fluffy potatoes."
That said, this is just the time to take notes, so don't worry about getting the language
perfect.
 Writing down specific details now about why you liked/disliked a dish will make your
writing much, much easier later.

4
Sample the individual parts of the meal. This is where you start to get into the specifics of
a good food review. Try each part of the meal separately, checking for the following
criteria:
 Texture. How does the food feel in your mouth? Again, be specific, as there is a variety of
textures, all of which can be good or bad.
 Spices: Are the spices consistent throughout the meal? Can you tell what some of the spices
are?
 Complexity: A hard one to describe, complexity is a measure of the variety of flavors in a
food. A good cook doesn't just go for "lemon-flavored" or "garlic & pepper," they go for a
nuanced, unique taste to their food. Do the individual parts of the dish come together to
make something new or better than the sum of their parts?

5
Sample everything on the table. If you're with other people, make sure you taste their
dishes as well and make a couple of quick notes. This is the best way to get a full idea
of the menu and the restaurants strengths and weaknesses.
 Be sure to write down the exact name of each dish for later reference. Your reader will want
to know what to order or avoid.

 6

Make specific notes as you eat. A good review is rooted in fact, so make sure you're armed with
facts. Of course, all food reviewing is inherently subjective, but that doesn't mean should only
comment on what you liked and didn't like. It might be easiest to make your notes after you
finish the course or as you eat, depending on your company. Either way, you should not rely on
your memory to remember everything -- true food critics write notes.[5]
Recipe book

Menu

Autobiography

Biography

poem

Advertorial

Travelogue

Memoir essay

Personal essay

Sports writing

Food writing

Infographic resume