I have been contemplating this for a while, but decided to finally add stars to the restaurant reviews on The Bruges Vegan. (update Fall 2017: I stopped doing this – see below).

In favour of adding stars:

• It is an easy way to give an ‘overall’ impression of a restaurant
• I can add it to the title of the restaurant review, so that immediately gives you an indication of our experience (either good or bad).

Against adding stars:

• I find it difficult to score on a 5 star scale (but halves would complicate it too much)
• I feel al lot of places will fall in the 3 to 4 category
• People might only judge by the given star, and not read the review anymore (if they ever did 😉 )
• A score is a medium of different aspects: food, comfort, service, hygiene, opening hours, etc. Foodwise it might be a 5 star, but comfortwise it might only be a 1 star, so that levels the score.
• My rating may change over time, as my assessment also evolves the more restaurants I frequent over the years (to say it blunt: in the beginning I would have easily given any restaurant that just offers vegan options, a 5 for effort, but there’s more to it than that, and over the years I have become more critical)

I have taken a 5 star scale, and based the qualifications for those stars on those used on Happy Cow and Tripadvisor.

	dislike it, horrible
	not so good, needs improvement
	moderate, fair, good
	very good
	excellent!

I will be gradually adding stars to past reviews (as there are now more than 100 restaurant reviews, this might take me a while!). I have also added 5 tags with the respective stars, so readers can easily get an overview of all 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 star reviews on the blog.
Overview restaurants with 1 star
Overview restaurants with 2 stars
Overview restaurants with 3 stars
Overview restaurants with 4 stars
Overview restaurants with 5 stars

See also my post “A word or two about our restaurant reviews“.

UPDATE FALL 2017: stopped adding stars to reviews. I found it too difficult and most restaurants ended up getting 4 stars. So it didn’t have any added value.