Chowhound Italy seems to be a DISASTER!
 

What has happened to Chowhound.com? I went there to search restaurants in Tuscany and I can't even locate the Italy Discussion Board. The entire site has changed since my last visit, and I'm completely lost on trying to figure out the navigation. I've just wasted 30 minutes and still can't find the sort of posts I used to be able to find quickly. Why do these boards insist on making their users suffer? I don't think I have the patience to learn a new board. It seems a lot of former users are furious. I'm trying to find restaurant reviews. Am I missing something?

It was hard to find but I used the tag/location search button on the right.
http://www.chowhound.com/tag/italy

I joined chow hound just before they changed now I don't bother anymore. A lot ov users have left and not been replaced.

The Florida board withered away to absolutely nothing after the format change, but it was dying slowly before that, too.

I suppose people use Yelp now for restaurant information, but I find it causes me to lose (even more) faith in humanity when I read reviews there for any length of time.

Does Yelp exist for Europe??

One can always try viamichelin.com, although the description are skimpy and you have to have trust in Michelin.

http://www.viamichelin.com/web/Resta...RFdU16UTJORGs9

I got comments deleted for mentioning GMOs in food. Have not been back.

Yes, Yelp exists in Europe, for all it's worth.

http://www.latimes.com/food/la-fo-ch...010-story.html

Looks like I found some answers. Very depressing.

Chowhound was not a place I visited every day. I went there when I researched for travel. The Italy board had some reliable regulars. Everything I remember about the former site has changed. I don't have the patience or the time to learn a new user-interface. It's no wonder so many volunteer regulars are leaving in droves.

I finally found what looks like an Italy Forum, then I put "Tuscany" in the search window and "No Results Found" came up. When something like that happens, I guess I have no choice but to go to Trip Advisor.

Unbelievably frustrating.

Interesting article, wesleymarsh. The closing paragraph, from one of Chowhound's original founders, gave me pause:
"Bad interfaces can be helpful; they filter out the Olive Garden set. The emigrés will make room for new blood, fresh perspectives and a new crop of chow tips. A bit of churn in a nearly 20-year-old online community might be a good thing."

But the article is dated 10/2015, and Chowhound is still crickets, so...I guess it wasn't a good thing after all.

Just by googling the name of a city and "best restaurants" or something similar, there is an enormous amount of info that is available. How much of it is dependable though is the question. Out of hundreds of restaurants in Rome, for example, can Tripadvisor really come up with 10 best? And what does that mean for the scores of others that are rated, say, 50th out of hundreds?

Wouldn't it be great if there was a website or an app that could bring together the best blogs, the best reviews, the most indepth information about restaurants from dependable sources?

Does something like this already exist?

Of course, the restaurant business itself is changing fast. Where once we could rely on a certain restaurant being consistently good, the trend nowadays seems to be that restaurants are often treated like startup businesses. As soon as one gets good reviews the chef decides to bail and start somewhere on his own. It can be a chore trying to keep up with those news items, even in a relatively small city like Vancouver.

Just found this old thread & want to add 2 comments:

The Michelin guide is not reliable or a good guide when it comes to Italy.

In Italy, good restaurants very rarely change. Most good restaurants in Italy are run by the same family for generations. So much of the advice you read in newspapers or blogs that gush aboutt restaurant "discoveries" in Italy is driven by the writer's need to be original, because they want to make a living as a recommender of places to eat in Italy. You can't make a living if you are recommending the same great places to eat that people have known about and been recommending for 30 years.

Also keep in mind that new restaurants in Italy that are being gushed about on the internet often earn that status precisely because they are pleasing American tastebuds and expectations. More cheese, pizza is bread-ier and offerd lots of "toppings" , centering dishes around chicken or shrimp, or incorporating asian-citrusy flavors or chiles for "flavor". Lots of fried things and beer. Some of the most frequently recommended blogs about Italy written by Americans are firmly stuck in American idea of what it means to be a "foodie" -- in search of fast foods and spice.

Do any of you use Open Table? It allows you to book restaurants online and it sends links only to those who have reserved and dined there to do a review. Sorry, I don't know if they are in Italy yet, but I have used them elsewhere.

It's not open table in Italy but it's something very similar. Can't remember what it's called.

Yelp wasn't very useful. TripAdvisor was more useful and I hate using TripAdvisor for that. But I usually got my Recs from the forums or people I met in Italy and then used tripadvisor to double check. TA does at least give me an idea if it's good or if it's strictly tourist.

The thing is unless you are literate in Italian, you're going to be filtering through tourist views anyway. You just have to figure out which tourists are foodies. Not an issue here- that's why I ask fodorites!

I find reviews on TA for restaurants to be useless - almost as bad as yelp!

frencharmoire, I find your comment on the "American idea of what it means to be a "foodie" -- in search of fast foods and spice" to be bewildering. I can't imagine anyone who calls themselves a foodie in America being in each of fast food. If you are saying that is what American (non-foodie) tourists are looking for you may well be right.

I used to rely on the Italian www.2spaghi.it, but it bit the dust. TripAdvisor has climbed to the top of the pile.

If you can read Italian, L'Espresso publishes a good restaurant guide every year. They have a free app for Android and IOS, which will suggest restaurants near you.

http://espresso.repubblica.it/promo/guideespresso/

They also have a wine guide.

Gambero Rosso also has restaurant guides, including a general one for all of Italy.

http://www.gamberorosso.it/en/guide-...ia-2017-detail

They also have specialized guides, such as for pizzerie or gelaterie, and separate guides for the larger cities.

kathie -- I use Open Table for booking. I look at the reveiws but for places I know, I find that I do not generally agree with the reviews. I agree that the reviews are likely written by people who have dined at the restaurant. Food is so subjective.

Funny comment on Americans and fast food & foodies. Clearly the person doesn't know Americans today and the foodies preference.

What About Zagat? I haven't used it much myself but I know at least in San Francisco the little blurbs the right seem to be pretty accurate.

What about asking locals ?

My wife asked some recs from the landlord of the apt, and we then asked a rec from the restaurant we left. 'It ws real great, where would you send us tomorrow ?'

I went to Anderlecht top of TA recently (not really in Italy) and it was ... totally bof, limit not good. But at any rate certainly not worht nr1 out of ... restaurants.

I am looking at TA top 10 of Paris : nr 3 is a fast food, with 65 reviews in English and 13 in French...
PicNic is nr 14... and the cruiseship Le calife is 17.

I guess the same applies everywhere... let us take it with a pince of salt.

Chowhound ? not been on the site since one year. A bunch of some regulars who own the site is what I thought of it.

Ratings/rankings aren't what is useful on any of those sites. They don't mean anything except that it's popular. It's what they say in the reviews that matters. Folks don't use the same language for fast food as they do for a 6 course meal.

The asking locals thing can backfire too. Nostalgia can get in the way of actual quality. Got to know how that particular local views food before considering them a valid source.

When we were in Rome on a trip with our italian teacher, she simply walked up to someone who looked [to her] like a local and asked them to recommend a good restaurant. When we questioned her about how reliable this was likely to be she said that locals will always know the best places to eat.

I wasn't terribly convinced that this was always going to work but we certainly ate well when we followed this plan.