The Best Restaurant in Richmond is Edo’s Squid (A Meta Approach)
Jan9
Methodology: These kinds of “best lists” all have their inherent flaws. All critics (except for Frank Bruni) are human beings with conscious and unconscious biases. On the other side, the crowdsource rankings are open to voter fraud. I love Bubble Tea like the next guy but second best restaurant in Richmond, really? Creating a list of lists attempts to address the weaknesses of a single approach. Now, one could counter-argue that this “meta” approach also magnifies the weaknesses/groupthink. I tend to agree because a couple of these restaurants on the list are shit.
Scoring went like this: If a restaurant was deemed a “top restaurant” by one of these recognized media sources, it was given a point. .5 bonus points (denoted by asterisk) were given for the following….
- Style Weekly 2009 Restaurant of the Year… Style Weekly Restaurant of the Decade
- 2008 Richmond Magazine Reader’s Choice #1…Richmond Magazine Chef of the Year
- RVANews Best Restaurant #1
- Urban Spoon #1 Restaurant
- Trip Advisor #1 Restaurant
- Yelp! #1 Restaurant
- For the revised Caramelized OpiNIONS scoring, we gave Cafe Rustica the .5 bonus points as they were cited multiple times in the post by various commentators.
Only restaurants with 2 or more impressions are listed here. Rank Ordered then Alphabetized…
| Caramelized OpiNIONS |
RGL Top 50 | RM Top25 | 2008 Reader’s Choice | Richmond.com Staff | RVANews Reader’s Choice | Style Weekly | Trip Advisor Top 50 | UrbanSpoon Top 50 | Yelp Top 50 | TOTAL SCORE | |
| Edo’s Squid | X | X | X | X | X* | X | X | X* | X | 10 | |
| Mama Zu’s | X | X | X | X | X | X* | X | X | X | 9.5 | |
| Millie’s Diner | X | X | X* | X | X | X* | X | X* | 9.5 | ||
| Ipanema Cafe | X | X | X* | X | X | X | X | 7.5 | |||
| Can Can | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | 7 | |||
| Comfort | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | 7 | |||
| Croaker’s Spot | X | X | X | X | X | X | 6 | ||||
| Mekong | X | X | X | X | X | X | 6 | ||||
| The Hill Cafe | X | X | X | X | X | X | 6 | ||||
| Acacia Midtown | X | X | X | X | X | 5 | |||||
| Akida | X | X | X | X | X | 5 | |||||
| Julep’s New Southern Cuisine | X | X | X | X | X | 5 | |||||
| Kuba Kuba | X | X | X | X | X | 5 | |||||
| Pescados | X | X | X | X | X | 5 | |||||
| The Black Sheep | X | X | X | X | X | 5 | |||||
| Cafe Rustica | X* | X | X | X | 4.5 | ||||||
| Mezzanine | X | X* | X | X | 4.5 | ||||||
| Buz & Ned’s Real Barbecue | X | X | X | X | 4 | ||||||
| Cafe Gutenberg | 4 | ||||||||||
| Coppola’s | X | X | X | X | 4 | ||||||
| Cous Cous | X | X | X | X | 4 | ||||||
| Perly’s | X | X | X | X | 4 | ||||||
| Pho So 1 | X | X | X | X | 4 | ||||||
| Sensi | X | X | X | X | 4 | ||||||
| The White Dog | X | X | X | X | 4 | ||||||
| 8.5 | X | X | X | 3 | |||||||
| Bottoms Up | X | X | X | 3 | |||||||
| Chicken Fiesta | X | X | X | 3 | |||||||
| Chiocca’s Downstairs Deli | X | X | X | 3 | |||||||
| Da Lat | X | 3 | |||||||||
| Full Kee | X | X | X | 3 | |||||||
| Grandpa Eddie’s | X | X | X | 3 | |||||||
| La Grotta Ristorante | X | X | X | 3 | |||||||
| Paradise Diner | X | X | X | 3 | |||||||
| Patina Grill | X | X | X | X | 3 | ||||||
| Six Burner | X | X | X | 3 | |||||||
| Tarrant’s Café | 3 | ||||||||||
| 821 Bakery Cafe | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Avalon Restaurant | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Avenue 805 | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Aziza’s on Main | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Azzurro | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Bacchus | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Bistro 27 | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Bouchon | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Cafe Caturra (Far West) | 2 | ||||||||||
| Cafe Ole | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Carytown Burger and Fries | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Davis & Main | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Gelati Celesti Ice Cream Makers | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Havana ’59 | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Helen’s | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Kitchen 64 | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Lemaire Restaurant | X | X | X | 2 | |||||||
| LuLu’s Restaurant | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Mary Angela’s | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Melito’s | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Michelle’s at Hanover Tavern | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Nile Ethiopian Restaurant | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| North Pole | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Q Barbeque | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Sidewalk Café | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Sticks Kebab Shop | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Sticky Rice | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Strawberry St Cafe | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Tastebuds American Bistro | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Thai Diner Too | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Weezie’s Kitchen | X | X | 2 | ||||||||
| Zeus Gallery Cafe | X | X | 2 |
- TripAdvisor, Yelp, UrbanSpoon as of Jan 2010.
- Ever the proletariat, the editor of Carmelized Opinions asked me to include the choices mentioned in the running commentary of his post. The comments were incorporated into the scoring.
- Yes, I included my own list here (I did the work). If any of these lists or media outlets offend you, just subtract one point.
- This is what happens when one is snowed in.
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3:31 am on January 31st, 2010
Edo’s is my fav restaurant but that it ranks #1 and Mama Zu #2 suggests a major flaw in the study (the menus are more or less the same) Why the opinion of Caramelized Opinions is included is beyond me. That guy is worse than ignorant.
7:43 am on January 31st, 2010
Now, now, if you don’t have anything nice to say…
1:14 am on February 1st, 2010
Thanks for including my “restaurants for the rest of us” post in your meta-ranking. While my list of restaurants wasn’t quite a best-of list, the totality of restaurants that were mentioned in that piece by the commenters adds a participatory element. Nonetheless, the meta-ranking seems to reflect the standard top-spots. I wouldn’t argue with any of the top 10 except maybe The Hill Cafe (but I’m not stranded in Church Hill). That Cafe Rustica, Helen’s, and Tastebuds are so low seems to indicate a few blind spots on Richmond’s food radar.
Chris: I can handle ignorant, but “worse than ignorant”? Well, I do make a hobby of readily admitting my ignorance, and sometime feigning it, for the sake of argument. Can’t please everybody.
6:18 pm on February 2nd, 2010
I love your website….any way you can update it? Zuppa is no longer in business and Mekong no longer has fish pond in front of restaurant.
2:03 am on February 3rd, 2010
I know, I know. Neither is Freckles. I keep them up as a tribute (actually, just too lazy to update). Also, you’re right about Mekong. I’d like to say this site played a part in retiring the fishbowl. thanks for the feedback!
6:39 pm on February 3rd, 2010
Even though a lot of this is a bit outdated and Richmond.com didn’t even get a bullet mention (or this referenced: http://www2.richmond.com/content/2009/apr/08/faves-faves/) I think it’s a surprisingly accurate outcome. Good work Methodology!
6:41 pm on February 3rd, 2010
Oh yeah, and I agree with Jason on the blind spots.
3:00 am on February 4th, 2010
Hi Karri, Yeah, it was the closest article I could find on R.com that resembled a “best list.” BTW, the bullets were for pubs that listed a “#1″ or clear favorite, not meant to be a slight. In hindsight, I should have included that restaurateur article. Maybe, next year or this weekend when I’m snowed in again! Ed