When I was at the East London Advertiser, I tried to persuade the bosses at Archant that we should be running restaurant reviews. Hardly a revolutionary idea as local newspapers had been doing this for decades, the idea being that reporters claim back the expense of a meal in return for writing a review.
Archant’s bosses declined the request by insisting it was an expense they could not afford. I thought they missed an easy marketing trick: restaurants, particularly the smaller, non-chain owned ones, love those reviews and often frame the cutting on a wall inside or on the door to boast to passing trade. I argued that would get our brand to a wider audience. But the argument was over-ruled by short term cost management.
On Tower Hamlets Council’s East End Life, they don’t have those problems and they run a restaurant review every week. They are mostly written by the paper’s staff and council press officers who spend about £50 every week and claim the cash back from the taxpayer. (Intriguingly, we don’t know who the authors are because all reviews are written under silly pseudonyms such as Munchin’ Minnie or Pot-Bellied Pig; why their identities need to be protected I don’t know, but if I were a councillor I’d be trying to ensure genuine bylines were used – I suspect there would be fewer volunteers for the freebies as a result… .)
We used to complain regularly about these reviews at the ELA, as did Tory councillors Tim Archer and Peter Golds; more recently, Local Government Minister Grant Shapps has voiced his own criticism. However, Tower Hamlets Council continued to press on with the practice, claiming – disingenuously, in my view – that the review brought in external advertising to that page.
I suspect there is a demand for reviews of local restaurants and by failing to serve its readers properly, the ELA is shooting itself in the foot – and also from a strategic point of view. If it carried them, it could cite that as another area where East End Life is competing in its space.
However, there is a gap in the market and East End Life can argue (albeit weakly) that it is performing a public service. But the review in the current issue is taking the mickey. On p29, under the headline “Firm ribs, boozy Ribena and the best ‘slaw ever”, a council officer hiding as Pot-Bellied Pig reviews the cocktails and food at the chain restaurant Giraffe in Spitalfields Market.
Is there really another need for a review of Giraffe? Aren’t East End Life reader able to do simple searches of the internet finding reviews here, here, or here for example?
Surely this is just an example of a council officer enjoying a perk at our expense. If those reviews are to be run in East End Life, shouldn’t they be reserved for genuinely local restaurants?
Trial by Jeory 
Oh Ted you are an old misery guts sometimes. In the same way it would be good advertising for the ELA so it is for the EEL. Half my regular eateries proudly display their EEL review and I always read that page of the paper. They can’t do Pie N Mash shops and curry houses every week. Good to have a bit of variety. I often find new places to go via this page and I bet you have too! Maybe you could offer your services freelance? Might I suggest Bully Beef or Sour Puss as possible pseudonyms.
Public funds and my taxes should not be used for free meals for council staff. And certainly not for advertising Giraffe and other chains. At least review local independents who really could do with some free advertising.
JohnJee, try using Squaremeal.co.uk
As a one-time restaurant reviewer (although not for EEL, I hasten to add) I suspect that LBTH will try to claim that they are reviewing restaurants that local people should know about, and ignoring the chain issue.
What annoys me most about the restaurant reviews in EEL is that they are so facile and asinine as to be utterly worthless. They read like an 8-year-old’s description of what they did on holiday with little more than lists of what was ordered and fail to offer any kind of critical review whatsoever. Have you ever read a single one that is anything other than piously complimentary?
I’d love to be able to say that the restaurant reviews are the saving grace of the East End Life and justify it’s existence. Sadly they typify the waste of print space that is the newspaper and – like so much else – fail to endear it to me.
Tim
Agree with you Ted – the ELA should have local restaurant reviews. It would drive more advertising to the paper and thus it might resist the money from the lap-dancing clubs (which seems to be a running campaign as it was on the back page of last week’s edition, again.) The ELA would then get their reviews pasted up in the windows and so more publicity and more readers.
EEL should not have reviewed Giraffe which does not need publicity and we locals know what to expect, being part of a national chain….what next, Nando’s? Why didn’t the council officer take their pot belly and their £50 over to the excellent, local independent Market Coffee House on Brushfield St? Lots of other good, local independents round there, outside of the Market as the rents are so high inside the Market, you only get the chain eateries inside.
Try using the FOI
Make a request asking LBTH to divulge the real names of the reviewers