| Writing a Restaurant Review
In following the steps below, you'll be emulating the strategies and techniques employed by professional reviewers. You'll also be developing a strong point of view and getting practice writing for an audience (especially if you aim to send your review to a local publication when you're done!). Because you need to offer readers your opinions of a range of dishes served at your restaurant, we suggest this as a group assignment. If you can't make arrangements with classmates, perhaps family or friends can help you defray the cost and give you additional perspectives on your experience. You may also work with a digital or hard copy version of these steps, Notebook and Rubric.
 Exercise 6-7
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- Select a new or newly remodeled restaurant (or just a café, if cost is an issue) or one that has recently undergone a change of managers, owners or chefs. Make sure your restaurant hasn't recently been reviewed by your target publication.
- Conduct background research into the neighborhood, the owners (Is it part of a chain?), and the type of restaurant (e.g., Fusion, Mexican, fast food – each has its own styles, standards and fads). Arrange an interview with the restaurant's owner, manager and/or chef to get quotes and help you establish your focus.
- Make reservations, if necessary. Then visit the restaurant. Order a wide variety of food or drinks, sampling a little bit of everything. From beginning to end, take notes on the small details that you are unlikely to remember later (the time it took to be seated, the color of the paint on the wall, the unusual shape of the forks, the waiter's endearing dimples, the oddly crunchy texture of the mashed potatoes). Write surreptitiously so the wait staff won't realize you are taking notes. Make the restaurant the subject of your meal conversation, and take notes as the conversation progresses or you'll be sorry once you sit down later – alone – to write.
- When you sit down to write, refer frequently to the copies of reviews published in your target publication for form and style issues.
- Evaluate your story using the rubric at the end of this exercise. When you've revised it until it meets the top standard, send it in for publication.
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Restaurant Review Rubric Parfait
"Publish this on Page 1 of the food section!" | Tres bien
"Publish this inside the food section!" | Petit problème
"Revise and we'll talk later." | Grande problème
"Need to visit the restaurant again?" | This review, so polished that it reads as if it were clipped from a top-notch publication, does most or all of the following:
• Fairly but critically evaluates service, decor, food, and so forth; offers a developed, firm, convincing point of view.
• Artfully weaves in a theme and/or the story of the restaurant, its neighborhood, owners or chefs.
• Employs an interesting hook, develops a middle section and comes to a sense of closure; compels readers to continue throughout.
• Offers showing-not-telling evidence to support all claims; helps us see and taste food and experience other aspects of the meal; uses no clichés.
• Shows few errors, if any, in the conventions of written English.
• Shows control of language to create a consistent voice from beginning to end.
• Shows flair, style, grace and/or pizzazz. | This review, although impressive, lacks the impact of a Parfait review. It does most or all of the following:
• Fairly but critically evaluates service, decor, food, and so forth; offers a developed, firm, convincing point of view.
• Develops a theme or tell a story related to the restaurant.
• Employs an interesting hook, develops a middle section and comes to a sense of closure; compels readers to continue throughout, although to a lesser degree than a better review.
• Offers showing-not-telling evidence to support claims; may slip into one or two clichés.
• Shows few errors, if any, in the conventions of written English.
• Shows control of language to create a consistent voice that flows smoothly from beginning to end.
• Shows some flair, style, grace and/or pizzazz. | This review reads more like a class project than a professional review. While adequately written, it lacks the impact of a better story. This review does most or all of the following:
• Shows observation and analysis of aspects of the restaurant and develops a point of view about those aspects.
• Indicates an awareness of the restaurant's place in its neighborhood or genre; alternately, begins to develop a theme or tell a story but follow-through is flawed.
• Employs a hook, develops a middle and comes to some sense of closure, but readers' motivation to continue wavers.
• Offers showing-not-telling evidence for most claims; might slip into clichés in places.
• May show more than a few errors in the conventions of written English.
• Has little spark. | This review doesn't meet the requirements of the assignment. It not only reads like a class assignment but is flawed in several noticeable and significant ways. A review in this category:
• May demonstrate that the writer has observed and thought a little about some aspects of the restaurant and developed a point of view regarding some of those aspects.
• Indicates a vague awareness of the restaurant's place in its neighborhood or among its peers.
• Shows only a semblance of a beginning, middle and end.
• Offers only marginally convincing evidence for some claims; tells rather than shows; might routinely offer clichés.
• Includes many errors in the conventions of written English.
• Spark? What's that? |
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