Good tables. Visible reasoning.
A recommendation means more when you can see what it is based on. The Selection brings together restaurants chosen by our curators, with the visits, dishes and ratings behind each impression.
Start with the map. Open a restaurant. Follow the evening from what was eaten to how it was rated.
Explore the SelectionFrom a dish to a recommendation.
Taste is personal. Showing the ingredients of a score helps you decide whether a recommendation speaks to yours.
The dishes
A curator can rate individual dishes from 0 to 10 and record what was ordered. Food can also be entered as an overall impression when individual dish scores are not recorded.
The diners
When food is calculated from dishes, each diner's rated dishes are averaged first. Those diner averages then contribute equally, so ordering more courses does not give someone a bigger voice.
The visit
Food, service and atmosphere form the overall visit score. A complete visit needs all three. The date, individual scores and weights remain visible beside the account of the evening.
The restaurant
The headline brings the complete visits together. Return visits add context: open them to see changes, consistency and the details behind the summary.
The starting balance.
Every account starts with these weights. Members can change their defaults and set different weights for an individual visit. The weights used are saved with that visit; changing a default never rewrites an earlier rating.
- Food
- 50%
- Service
- 30%
- Atmosphere
- 20%
One evening, three impressions.
8.5 × 50% + 8.0 × 30% + 8.5 × 20% = 8.35, shown as 8.4.
How the restaurant summary is calculated
Across complete visits, the food scores are averaged together, as are service and atmosphere. Each of the three weights is averaged separately. The summary multiplies each average aspect score by its average weight, then adds the three results and rounds to one decimal place.
When weights vary between visits, this can differ from simply averaging their overall scores. The displayed restaurant weights show the balance used in the summary.
A particular strength, recognised after return visits.
Melancholis laurels are editorial distinctions for restaurants in the Selection. They recognise different qualities. They do not add points to a rating, and the number of badges is not a star level.
Before a laurel can be added, a restaurant needs complete rated visits on at least three different dates. The latest complete visit on each date counts; the latest three of those dates must each score 8.0 or more. Reaching that threshold never awards a laurel automatically.
If the recorded evidence stops meeting this standard, its laurels stop appearing until it qualifies again. The visit history remains available to read.
Culinary Excellence
Remarkable cooking, flavour and technique. The dishes and repeated visits provide the context for the curator's judgement.
Exceptional Ingredients
Outstanding produce, freshness, sourcing and provenance. This distinction needs a curator's assessment of the ingredients, beyond the overall food score.
Exceptional Service
Hospitality with a particular quality of care, attention and judgement, seen across return visits.
Exceptional Atmosphere
A setting and a feeling that make the experience remarkable, with the visits showing what made it special.
Sustainability Laurel
A curator's recognition of considered environmental practices. This is an editorial distinction, not an environmental certification.
The people behind the Selection.
A name belongs beside a recommendation. Jonas and Monika curate the Selection; their published visits are the place to understand their judgement.
Jonas
CuratorFollow Jonas's visits from the individual dishes to the final score. His published entries show the plates, the ratings and the weighting behind each impression.
Monika
CuratorRead Monika's published notes beside the dishes, ratings and weights. Her Selection entries give each recommendation the context of an actual visit.
These profiles will grow as more reviews are published. The visits themselves remain at the heart of the guide.
The Selection is the beginning. Your journal is yours.
Keep the places you want to try, record the dishes you loved and gather restaurants into collections for a city, a weekend or simply good pizza. Your own ratings and notes become a guide you can return to and choose to share.
Plus adds restaurant and dish photographs, a private Album and an ad-free experience. Your images stay connected to their restaurants and visits, so the memory has a place to live.
Personal guides use your ratings and collections. Laurels belong to the curator-led Selection and are never a membership benefit.
The Selection is open to everyone. New accounts are currently by invitation; registration and subscriptions are not open yet.