There’s a whole group of people in the UK (probably elsewhere too, but we’re just concerned about these) who review restaurants, take aways, cafės and the like on YouTube. We are talking about people/channels like Gary Eats, Greeno, Hannah Ricketts and the like. No links for any of them. If you want you can surely find them yourself.
They all seem to know each other. They talk about each other’s videos and visits to places, appear on each other’s videos and seem very pally. We have always assumed, though we may be wrong, that they all work for the same company somehow.
They are all white and middle class and middle aged (in the widest sense) characters, but each has some kind of angle (was going to say gimmick but I don’t want to be unfair) that makes them appeal to different audiences. Gary Eats, for example, constantly taps on his food. Harrison Webb talks weird slang. Whether they are genuine or not is not clear.
The restaurant videos often follow a similar and we suppose obvious format: the presenter is outside some place, we learn where they are, there’s a pretext why they are there (eg X reviewed it and hated it), there’s maybe a camera person (never seen and rarely heard but referred to a lot). They go in, talk about the place and the menu, order food and drink, eat it, discuss pros and cons including price, then go outside with the receipt to sum up.
They can travel the country, but have been known to go abroad too.
There’s a lot of overlap. the same restaurants get reviewed multiple times. There are even places the same reviewer goes back to.
Bad places seem popular. There’s a place near Buckingham Palace that crops up a lot. We don’t know why anyone would be interested in poor restaurants. Maybe the reviewers think it is funny or good entertainment.
You normally know what the conclusion will be from the start. If they are visiting a place because people say it’s expensive, the reviewer will tell you upfront it’s expensive, say all through the meal that it is expensive and then, at the end, the conclusion will be “it’s expensive”.
We don’t like bad reviews. Surely, most places do not set out to deliberately serve bad food, but anyone can have a bad day. What really annoys us is when these reviewers order food they do not like (mushrooms seem to get a lot of hate) then condemn the place because they didn’t like the food. If we go out and there’s something we don’t like we avoid it, or ask for it to be removed if possible. You can’t order things you do not like and then condemn a place because you didn’t like it.
There was one review some years ago of a well-known upmarket chain. The reviewer ordered a starter with cheese. “I love cheese” he said. There was extra cheese. Then the mains had cheese. Conclusion? Didn’t like the place, too much cheese.
And the in-video advertising is getting worse.
It’s nice to have a good review of interesting places. We like to find new places. We’re not convinced reviews like these help in any way.