Wondering where to go for dinner? We have a couple dozen suggestions for you.
This April KamloopsMatters compiled the ratings of local (non-chain) restaurants from three popular restaurant review websites: Yelp, TripAdvisor and Google (yep, Google does restaurant ratings now). Through that, we've determined the top restaurants in the city, though saying one is the best is a little difficult.
The map that follows shows where all the hot spots are, and includes links to the restaurants' website and social media. The top 20 from each rating system is included, along with an overall top 20 that includes places with at least 250 votes and takes into account all three rating systems.
The top five in our overall calculation might surprise some people; it seems Kamloops likes quick eats and Japanese food:
- Sushi Valley
- Klasske's Bistro
- Tiger Ramen
- The Art We Are
- Caffe Motivo
Overall, looking at the numbers and rankings, Kamloops really has a hankering for Japanese and Indian style food and cafes. It might surprise people as well to know that Chinese food and pubs (except for brewpubs) didn't do well at all.
Additionally, it might not surprise people that a lot of the top-rated local restaurants are downtown, but it seems a few neighbourhoods have at least a couple of highlights in them.
To properly use the map, remember there are layers. Each layer is one of the rating systems or our overall ratings.
Purple is our overall calculation, blue is the Google rankings, aqua is for TripAdvisor and Yelp is red. The green spots are places our food reviewer Carson has taken a look at.
When we did each individual system we included places that had at least five votes cast.
Remember, these ratings are based on who voted and their individual experiences and values, not food critics looking for the perfectly cooked steak or the cheapest meal possible.
It should be noted that each of the three rating systems work differently. All use a five-star system, but Yelp and TripAdvisor ratings include .5s (essentially making ratings out of 10) while Google does all decimal points (as in 4.7 or 3.6).
Another item to be aware of is that both Yelp and TripAdvisor have been accused of improperly deleting negative reviews. Yelp has also been accused multiple times of hiding positive reviews of businesses that don't pay for advertising.
Also, each system has different numbers of users. While Yelp has branded itself as the restaurant review site, it had by far the fewest votes cast in Kamloops. KamloopsMatters compiled the votes for more than 70 restaurants and Yelp had less than a tenth of Google's total (we weighted our overall calculation to take this into account). TripAdvisor was close to Google, but still lower.
