Honest, truthful and informative

We thought you might like to know a little more about how we decide which venues and producers to include on our site. Don’t forget, we only include venues we recommend – if it’s here, we like it!

We currently publish two new reviews each week which we started in June 2012.

Our reviews are totally independent.

With a wealth of experience between us we give a balanced and professional judgement as to whether inclusion on our site is appropriate. When we visit a venue we don’t let the management know in advance. We pay for our food and shopping so we can always be honest and truthful. If possible at the end of a visit we interview the owner/manager about provenance and their ethos. This we feel makes us a credible source of information on where to eat and buy really good food in Surrey. We also take some photographs to enhance our writing.

Local, independent and ethical

This is important to us but not all the businesses we visit meet all three of these criteria. It may be difficult for a small business to source the ingredients and produce they want to use both from a logistical and cost perspective and we are mindful of this.

Product reviews 

We offer a review service for companies who send us their products. Our policy is the same: if we like it we will write a review; if we don’t think it’s good enough we won’t.

Constructive not critical

It is really important to get the balance right here. We know from experience that running a food business is really hard work. Restaurants, cafés and shops all have off days when nothing seems to go right or staff are absent so we make sure that if the essential mix is there but something is missing we make a repeat visit before making a decision to publish or not to publish.