Food reviews, especially the ones on social media, divide many.
Food reviewer Kalani Ghost Hunter faced controversy last month after he reviewed Inverness restaurant Aye Eat.
The scathing review scored the restaurant’s burger just three out of ten, and there was outcry from the business as a result.
The review of Aye Eat was eventually removed from social media platform TikTok following backlash and claims the restaurants owners had received threats and had their home vandalised.
Do you think that there is a place for negative food reviews on social media?
Should customers know what they’re getting before they visit a restaurant, or is it unfair for a business to be slated online?
We chatted to a social media food reviewer, and the team at a family-run restaurant, for their thoughts.
What does Aberdeen food reviewer Ayoola think?
Ayoola Maclennan is a food and lifestyle content creator and blogger, with an Instagram and Tiktok account dedicated to “eating, exploring, and unwinding around Scotland”.
She has been reviewing restaurants and cafes in and around Aberdeen on social media since 2020.
“Initially, I started with posting positive reviews, just to essentially recommend the things I enjoy doing,” she tells me.
“I didn’t really have a lot of negative experiences to start with, but obviously as you eat out more, not everyone is going to get it right.
“But I’ve started posting now if I’ve had a negative experience, just to give that authenticity.
“With my posts, I always put a disclaimer that it is just my opinion, and I always encourage people to go to that restaurant and experience it for themselves.”
Ayoola says that less than 5% of the reviews she posts on Instagram are negative.
She adds: “It’s not necessarily to convince someone not to go to a restaurant, it’s a catalogue of where I’ve been and what I’ve done.
“And I think it shows people that maybe today I didn’t have a positive experience, but that doesn’t mean that it’s negative all the time.
“Because your taste buds might be different from my taste buds. So mine might not enjoy that food, but it doesn’t mean yours aren’t going to.”
Food blogger Ayoola: ‘You can be critical but you don’t have to be cruel and harsh’
Ayoola, 33, says she hasn’t faced any backlash from businesses when she does post a negative review.
“All the restaurants have been great, they’ve apologised for not getting it right on the day, and said ‘hopefully you can come back again’,” she says.
“I’ve never gotten a bad response from anyone – they’ve taken the critique well.”
Ayoola spotted the fallout on social media after Kalani Ghost Hunter‘s review of Aye Eat last month.
“I think everyone is entitled to post on the internet, whether it’s bad or good reviews,” she says.
“But there is a way to post. You have to be very mindful, as there is a human being on the other side of this.
“There is a way to do reviews, you can be critical but you don’t have to be cruel or harsh.
“I think it’s having discernment about what to post and how to post it.”
Marshall’s Farm Shop say some ‘go out of their way to post a bad review’
Christine Mackintosh works at her family’s business, Marshall’s Farm Shop, just outside of Aberdeen.
The farm shop, alongside the restaurant, butchery and on site drive-thru, prioritises local produce, with much of the food coming straight from the family’s farm.
The 33-year-old mum of two says the comments the restaurant receives on social media can be “very mixed.”
“I think the problem is that people don’t go out of their way to post a positive review generally,” she tells me.
“But they will go out of their way to post a bad one.
“All in all, with the number of people that are going through the building, we don’t get a huge amount of them.
“On Facebook, it’s comments or direct messages. Those can be very mixed.
“Some people are out there just to be negative and criticise.
“People will comment on Facebook posts and say ‘that doesn’t look like that’ and ‘those chips look disgusting’, ‘you’ve been ripping folk off for years’.
“But you also get a lot of good ones. 90% of the comments are very good.
“There are just 10% that are bad or negative.
“Some people say we are ripping them off. But if you compare our menu and prices to other places in Aberdeen of the same calibre of food, we’re not any more expensive than any of them.
“They’re obviously wanting to go and get McDonald’s prices.”
Is there a place for negative reviews?
And on reviewing platforms like TripAdvisor, Christine says the story is much the same.
“A lot of people would use that facility [TripAdvisor] just to go on and moan,” she says.
I ask Christine is there is a space online for negative reviews online.
“I would prefer folk come and speak to us,” she says.
“If a chef has got 120 folk in the restaurant at the same time, and they have put a burger out slightly undercooked – we put our hands up, and we’ll fix it.
“And we’ll probably give them a refund as well.
“If you’re going to get a negative review, it would be nice to know about it when you’re in the shop, and we could try and rectify it.
“And if we rectify it in a good way, chances are we wouldn’t get that bad review.
“But if we aren’t told, we don’t get a chance to rectify it.”
“There is a time and a place for it,” Christine admits.
“If I’m going on holiday, I look at reviews to help me choose a hotel or dine in a restaurant. But I read them ‘with a pinch of salt’ knowing full well some of them are likely exaggerated.
“I think it is helpful in some ways. But it is a shame that is gets mistreated and misused a lot of the time.
“It can affect people’s mental health. There are people behind these businesses working all hours of the day.
“You see all of this online about mental health and being kind – that’s not being kind and in fact in some cases, it is terribly cruel.”
Do you think there is a place for bad online food reviews? Let us know in the comments below.
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