How we review

Restaurant reviews are only worth reading if you can trust how they got made. So here's exactly how ours get made. None of this is unusual for a newspaper critic. It's rare for a website, and that's the point.

The seven rules

1. We eat there first. Every review comes from at least one in-person visit by the person whose name is on it. No review is written from menus, photos, press releases or other people's reviews.
2. We pay. The default is that we order, we pay the full bill, and we keep the receipt. The review states the visit date and what the meal cost, including tax and tip.
3. Anything free goes at the top. If a restaurant comps a dish, invites us to a media dinner or picks up the check, the review says so in its first lines, naming who gave what. The FTC's guidance for restaurant review sites is direct: if you get free meals from a restaurant you review, tell your readers.
4. No AI-written, bought or swapped reviews. No ghostwriters, no "review exchanges," no pay-for-placement. Restaurants can't buy a review, a rating, a badge or a better spot in a list.
5. We check the health card. Each review records the Southern Nevada Health District grade card we saw on the day and the most recent inspection date in the district's online records when we publish.
6. We say what we ordered. A verdict on a steakhouse is a verdict on the cuts we ate. We list every dish, the grade the menu claimed for any beef, and how it was cooked versus how we ordered it.
7. Reviews are dated and get revisited. One visit is one night. When we go back, we add the new visit and date rather than quietly rewriting the old one.

How the verdict works

Each review ends with a short verdict in words, not a number: Go, Go if (with the "if" spelled out, such as "if you're ordering the prime rib, not the steaks"), or Skip. We picked words because a 4.3 out of 5 hides the reason. If we later add a numeric score, this page will explain it before the first score appears.

Why this matters legally, too

Since October 2024, the Federal Trade Commission's Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials (16 CFR Part 465) has prohibited fake or false reviews, including AI-generated reviews and reviews by people who never used the product or service. The rule also bars buying positive or negative reviews, undisclosed insider reviews, company-controlled "independent" review sites and suppression of negative reviews. We'd follow our rules anyway. It helps that the FTC agrees.

Corrections and complaints

Spot a wrong price, a closed restaurant or a mistaken detail? Email hello@meat.vegas. Restaurants get the same address and the same treatment: we fix facts and date the fix, and we don't change opinions on request.