How to rate a restaurant in Toronto, and what Mosey Gold means

Torontonians decide where to eat the way everyone does: by asking around and reading ratings. But many online ratings do not help much: a single star with no explanation, a rave with no detail, a complaint about parking. A useful rating tells the next person what you ate, how it was and whether they should go. Here is how to write one, and how Mosey uses ratings.

What makes a restaurant rating useful?

• What you ordered. "The chili chicken" beats "the food".
• How each dish was. One dish can be brilliant and another forgettable.
• The experience. Wait time, noise, service, value.
• Who it suits. A date, a family, a quick lunch, a group.
• Whether you would go back, and what for.

Why rate dishes, not just restaurants?

Because that is how Toronto eats. You might cross the city for one dumpling house's soup dumplings, one bakery's butter tart or one roti shop's goat roti. A single rating for a whole restaurant hides which dish is worth the trip. Rating dish by dish tells people exactly what to order, and it is fairer to the kitchen: a place should not be marked down because you ordered the one thing it does least well.

How do you rate a restaurant fairly?

1. Rate what you experienced, not what you heard.
2. Judge it for what it is: a patty shop and a tasting menu do different jobs.
3. Separate a bad night from a pattern.
4. Mention the price context.
5. Be specific about service, describing what happened.
6. Leave out personal details about staff or other diners.

Should you rate a restaurant after one visit?

Yes, as long as you say it was one visit. Most diners go somewhere once before deciding, so an honest first impression is exactly what the next person needs. Update your rating if you go back and things change.

What should you do about a food safety concern?

A rating is not the place for health allegations you cannot back up. If you think you got sick or saw something unsafe, contact Toronto Public Health, which inspects restaurants through DineSafe and investigates complaints.

How does rating work on Mosey?

Mosey is built around rating the places you actually ate at, dish by dish. You rate the place and the individual dishes you ordered, add photos, and write a short note if you like. Because ratings come from people who ate there, you can see where people actually went and what they ordered, not just which places spent the most on advertising. You can also follow friends whose taste you trust and see their ratings when you are choosing where to go.

What is Mosey Gold?

Mosey Gold is a mark a place earns when the people who ate there rate it highly. It comes from diners' ratings, not from what a business says about itself, and it cannot be bought: a restaurant cannot pay for it or advertise its way into it, and it follows the ratings if standards slip. That makes it a useful signal when you are choosing between unfamiliar places.

How is Mosey Gold different from an award or an ad?

Critics' lists and awards reflect the judgment of experts, often focused on ambitious restaurants. Paid placements reflect a marketing budget. Mosey Gold reflects what the people who eat at a place think of it, which means it is as likely to appear on a family-run Hakka spot in Scarborough as on a celebrated downtown dining room.

How do ratings help small Toronto restaurants?

Many of Toronto's best restaurants are small, family-run and invisible in paid search: the Sri Lankan counter on Ellesmere, the Polish deli on Roncesvalles, the Ethiopian kitchen on the Danforth. When diners rate the specific dishes they loved, those places get found by word of mouth, which is how most beloved Toronto restaurants built their following.

How do you rate a Summerlicious or Winterlicious meal fairly?

During Toronto's prix fixe festivals, many restaurants serve a set menu at a fixed price to a much busier room than usual. A festival meal can be a great introduction, but it may not show what a kitchen does on an ordinary night.

When you rate:

• Say it was a festival menu, so readers understand the context.
• Judge the dishes you had and the welcome you received.
• Be fair about pace. A fuller room can mean a slower meal; rudeness is a different matter.
• Go back on a normal night if you want to give the full picture.

A clear, contextual rating is far more useful to the next person than a bare score.

What else can you do on Mosey?

Besides rating places and dishes, you can make and share lists, see where people actually ate, and follow friends. Where a food trail is offered, you can work through a route of places and stamp each one as you go, and at places that run a loyalty program, you can collect rewards for coming back.

How this works in the app: Rate places.

More guides to read next:

• Mississauga and Brampton food guide: Punjabi, Pakistani and Caribbean food in Peel Region
• How to spot a good restaurant in Toronto before you sit down
• Koreatown Toronto food guide: what to eat on Bloor Street West

More in the Canadian food guides and the ranked lists of places.