Business & Tech

Yelp's Top 10 Restaurants in Somerville: Do You Agree?

When it comes to ranking restaurants in Somerville, is Yelp spot-on or way off course?

Yelp, a website that lets customers review businesses, has profiles of 233 restaurants located in Somerville.

Using some murky mishmash of criteria, including strength of reviews, number of reviews and keywords, Yelp somehow ranks all those restaurants. If you know exactly how Yelp does it, please share.

In Somerville, these are Yelp's top 10 restaurants, as of Sept. 25, 2013:

  1. Highland Kitchen (4 stars, 636 reviews)
  2. Taco Loco (4.5 stars, 214 reviews)
  3. 3 Little Figs (4.5 stars, 152 reviews)
  4. Bergamot (4 stars, 263 reviews)
  5. Posto (4 stars, 457 reviews)
  6. Vinny's Ristorante (4 stars, 176 reviews)
  7. Dave's Fresh Pasta (4.5 stars, 476 reviews)
  8. Machu Picchu Charcoal Chicken & Grill (4.5 stars, 98 reviews)
  9. Dali Restaurant & Tapas Bar (4 stars, 664 reviews)
  10. Amsterdam Falafelshop (4.5 stars, 209 reviews)

You'll notice that Highland Kitchen has four stars, but ranks higher than 3 Little Figs, which has four and a half stars. Highland Kitchen also has more reviews than 3 Little Figs. That said, Dali has four stars and more reviews than Highland Kitchen, but it ranks lower.

In any case, do you agree with the list above, or is Yelp way off course?

Meanwhile, if you organize the list based on the strength of reviews alone—not taking into account the number of reviews—it looks like this:

  1. Dave's Fresh Pasta (4.5 stars, 476 reviews) 
  2. Lotus Xpress (4.5 stars, 44 reviews)
  3. 3 Little Figs (4.5 stars, 152 reviews)
  4. Capone Foods (4.5 stars, 48 reviews)
  5. Leone's Sub & Pizza (4.5 stars, 88 reviews)
  6. Panificadora Modelo (4.5 stars, 28 reviews) 
  7. Spoke (4.5 stars, 33 reviews)
  8. J and J Restaurant & Takeout (4.5 stars, 25 reviews) 
  9. Cafe Tango (4.5 stars, 17 reviews)
  10. Guru The Caterer (4.5 stars, 290 reviews)

Does that make more sense to you? Or is the first list a better reflection of Somerville's best restaurants?

What are your top 10 restaurants in Somerville?


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