Why are restaurant reviews so universally positive now?
I'm going to a town I haven't visited in a while for a show tonight and am looking at restaurants downtown. Most of them score a 4.8 or 4.9. Lowest is a 4.3. All have a decent number of reviews so I know it's not just family and friends gassing them up. This is an unexceptional town of less than 40k people where places called "Takosushi" and "Burgär" are the height of modernity. It's literally the town where people from Frank Underwood's hometown in House of Cards would go for date night.
Obviously no one is appraising these places with big city standards but even with that handicap it seems absurd. Every review is glowing. Every meal was the best meal of their lives. Most of them come from bona fide "local guides" with profile pics so I don't think it's all bots.
When did 5 stars become the default rating for a night out without incident? When 5/5 is the baseline, adequacy and excellence become indistinguishable. Like the RT Tomatometer all these scores can convey is the absence of criticism and not the magnitude of praise. Fortunately I have a keen sixth sense for restaurant quality from spending my childhood in proximity to the industry but I have no idea how people pick a place to eat without that kind of knowledge. Is everyone just throwing darts into the void and hoping for the best?