Customer Reviews

Engrossing as ever - By: Bluebell, 13 Sep 2008
As usual this guide makes compulsive reading, if you're interestedin good food. For the last two years there's been a greater use of colour printing & the whole appearance of the book is more attractive. It's inevitably weighted towards more populated areas with very few entries for far-flung places, wherein truth one needs guidance even more. The Guide is limited by he fact that it is alerted to good places by recommendations from the general public to which it then sends inspectors. So, for example, an excellent eating placein the Outer Hebrides of Scotland will have a lesser chance of inclusion if a volunteer inspector is unavailable to travel & stay there (at their own expense) to do the inspection--most inspectors only get the meal reimbursed. In recent years the Guide's entries have been categorized by region rather than by an alphabetical list of towns/cities, which is fine if you know that, e.g., Salford would be under Greater Manchester--not so easy for parts of the UK that one isn't familiar with let alone for foreign visitors. There's an alphabetical list of restaurant names--it would be helpful to have a similarly ordered list for recommended restaurants by the name of the town or city. I think this Guide is the best of the bunch of Guides as the entries are not paid for by the establishments listed & there is a big input from the paying public.