New Restaurant Ranking System Renzell Expands to Chicago and San Francisco

Renzell hopes to disrupt the industry with a big-data approach to ranking high-end restaurants.

by CAROLINE HALLEMANN JUL 27, 2016

Last year, we reported that Renzell, a new restaurant ranking system taking on giants like Michelin and Zagat, was launching in New York City. Now, the app is expanding to two additional dining destinations: Chicago and San Francisco.

Using a hand-selected panel of anonymous, non-industry reviewers, whom the company describes as "regular patrons and connoisseurs at high-end restaurants" (and who pay for their meals out of pocket), Renzell hopes to alleviate their ranking of the "subjectivity, biases, and inaccuracies" of other lists, including the Michelin Guide, the World's 50 Best Restaurants, and Zagat. After dining, the members complete a 60+ question survey about the experience, which is then fed into a proprietary algorithm.

"I think that what we're trying to tackle is what we see as the two dominant problems with restaurant ratings," said founder Bo Peabody. "One the one hand, you have Michelin which is plagued by gross subjectivity. It's a couple of people who are visiting a restaurant a couple of times. On the other side of the spectrum you have the Yelp problem, which is too many people, many of whom are unqualified, and some of whom might not even be real people. So we're trying to do something in between, which is to have a large enough group of people that we can get a statistically relevant number of experiences from a bunch of different types of people on different days."

In short, they're applying data science to the restaurant world.

The company also makes its survey, methodology, and data available to the restaurants it ranks, in a gesture of transparency.

The ranking launched in New York with 54 restaurants pre-selected by the founding teams. And again, 54 seems to be the magic number in both Chicago and San Francisco. The two lists have already been "highly scrutinized and vetted in advance of being surveyed by Renzell Members," according to the company, and restaurants must be open for a minimum of two years to even be considered for the list.

Members have already started evaluating venues in Chicago and San Francisco—find the full list of establishments below—but we'll have to wait a little over a year for the results. Renzell plans to release its official rankings every September, beginning with New York this fall.

Chicago Renzell Restaurants

Acadia

Acanto

Alinea

Balena

Bavette's Bar and Boeuf

Blackbird

Bohemian House

Boka

Brindille

Charlatan

Dusek's Board and Beer

Fulton Market Kitchen

Gather

Gilt Bar

Girl and the Goat

Grace

Green Zebra

Homestead on the Roof

Juno

Kai Zan

Kinmont

La Sirena Clandestina

Lula Cafe

Maude's Liquor Bar

mfk

Mirai

MK

Momotaro

NAHA

NEXT

Nico

NoMI

Osteria Langhe

Owen and Engine

Parachute

Pelago

Perennial Virant

Publican

Pump Room

RL

Sepia

Spiaggia

Sumi Robata

Sushi Dokku

Table, Donkey, and Stick

Tanta

The Boarding House

The Dawson

The Kitchen

Topolobampo

Travelle

Trencherman

TRU

TWO

San Francisco Renzell Restaurants

1601 Bar and Kitchen

A16

Akiko's

Alta CA

AQ

Atelier Crenn

Bar Agricole

Bar Tartine

Benu

Blue Plate

Campton Place

Central Kitchen

Coi

Commonwealth

Contigo

Coqueta

Cotogna

Delfina

Flour and Water

Foreign Cinema

Frances

Gary Danko

Greens

Hakkasan

Ichi Sushi and Ni Bar

Kin Khao

Kokkari Estiatoria

Kusakabe

Locanda

Lolinda

Maruya

Michael Mina

Monsieur Benjamin

Nico

Nopa

Pabu

Padrecito

Perbacco

Piperade

Prospect

Quince

Range

Rich Table

Sons and Daughters

SPQR

Spruce

State Bird Provisions

Stones Throw

The Cavalier

The Commissary

Tosca Café

Trou Normand

Twenty Five Lusk

Zuni Café

http://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/dining/news/a7073/renzell-restaurant-rankings-chicago-san-francisco/