Lunchbox Ratings Disclaimer

How we came up with LUNCHBOX RATINGS:

The conventional “MetaLunchbox” rating is a disproportional weighted average of reviews by LA publications and critics (8+ sources). We assign a slight significance (higher or lower weight) to certain critics and publications over the others based on the overall stature and quality of those critics and publications and our own review of their credibility.  The weight of the reviewers and critics was determined by a careful market survey across many demographics. Our audience TOLD us which reviews they pay most attention to. We also perform our own normalizing of resulting scores as some restaurants have only been reviewed once, and some calibrations require a logarithmic weighting rather than a simple straight recalibration. For example, one critic has a scale of just 1-4. To calibrate this scale to a 1-10 scale would suggest that a restaurant given a strong recommended rating of 2, would receive an average of just 5, a neutral score.  We re-rank and calibrate restaurants with just one review in order to provide a more accurate result. 

The “LA Lunchbox” rating is a score assigned by our core team of LA eaters. It’s our score, our rating of the place. Placing the two ratings side by side allows you, the diner, to get comprehensive reviews all at once from an amalgamation of resources that rate food. Not every critic is the same, and in the end we will have saved you the hassle of looking through guidebooks, local newspapers and other publications to cross-reference reviews for any given restaurant.  The LA Lunchbox rating by our team of food-lovers gives you OUR insight on what we think is totally awesome.  You can trust us, or not. Either way, you’ve got two ratings to help you in your search for the ideal dining experience.

For restaurant descriptions, don’t expect phrases like how the tarragon-saffron infusion perfectly balanced the lush and earthy flavor of the tuna casserole surprise, we’ll tell you things that will make you remember a place, like a simple statement on the crispy chicken, the seat in the house that makes you look your most pretty, or that you may dine at yet another restaurant that puts Volare on repeat.

Once again, LUNCHBOX RATINGS is not affiliated with any restaurant, catering, or food service company; nor do we directly sell any of the products reviewed on our site.  We certainly have advertisers, and some of them may very well be restaurants, but we’d be stupid to allow them to affect the LUNCHBOX RATINGS or our unbiased reviews of products and restaurants.  Our goal is to provide completely impartial information about the restaurants and products you’ll find on our site, so that you may make an informed decision when deciding what to eat and where to dine.

LUNCHBOX RATINGS does not take user input but email us at questions@lalunchox.com, and tell us whether you agree with the ratings or vehemently disagree with our critiques.