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I Searched for ‘Restaurants Near Me’ in Five Cities—Here’s How it Failed Me
Soprana Rooftop Cucina
By Eric Barton | April 16, 2025
The other night, around 8:47 p.m., I did what every hungry, lazy, and mildly desperate person has done at some point between dinner and death: I typed “restaurants near me” into Google and hoped for salvation.
You know how it goes. You’re hangry. You’re convinced someone, somewhere, is making something transcendent with butter and heat and salt. But what I got instead were three places nearby:
1. A gas station with frozen pizzas under heat lamps that somehow has four stars.
2. A Thai spot with about 973 reviews mentioning food poisoning and also five photos of pad Thai that look...fine.
3. A Wendy’s.
This is the problem with the “restaurants near me” search: it doesn’t know you. It thinks you want proximity, not pleasure. Efficiency, not ecstasy. It’s like asking your accountant for dating advice. Technically correct, emotionally bankrupt.
So I ran a little experiment.
Soprana
I tried searching “restaurants near me” in five cities where I’ve eaten enough to know better: Asheville, Charleston, Fort Myers, Miami, and New Orleans.
In Asheville, I got a fast-casual sandwich chain, a tourist-focused pub with a menu written by a guy named Chad, and something calling itself a “gastropub” that served me poutine with ranch dressing. Meanwhile, just around the corner was Soprana, a pizza-and-pasta spot where everything is wood-fired and handled like it might break your heart. Not even in the top 10 search results.
Lowland
In Charleston, the top three were a touristy crab shack with a mascot, a brunch place that serves mimosas in fishbowls, and an Italian joint that was probably built around a Groupon. No mention of Lowland, where Jason Stanhope is doing hyper-seasonal Southern food with the kind of confidence that makes you cancel your dinner plans the next night so you can come back.
Izzy’s
In Fort Myers, the algorithm sent me to an “award-winning” seafood spot where the tarter sauce comes in a packet and the shrimp is still a little wet from the freezer. It completely missed the city’s best restaurant, Izzy’s, where the low-country boil feels like you’ve been picked up and moved to a beachfront town in the Carolinas.
Los Félix
In Miami, I was led to a sushi restaurant that puts cream cheese on literally everything, a Cuban place beloved by tourists with matching tank tops, and the clubstaurant Sexy Fish, where the main selling point is a statue in the men’s room of Daniel Craig. Meanwhile, Los Félix — the city’s only Michelin-starred Mexican restaurant, where the masa is stone-ground in-house and the music veers from cumbia to psych rock — doesn’t show up at all unless you already know it exists.
Herbsaint
And in New Orleans, I searched from the French Quarter and got, I swear, a Wendy’s, a Krystal, and a pizza-by-the-slice place meant only to soak up the hurricanes you should not have downed so quickly. Herbsaint — a restaurant that defines New Orleans fine dining and made Donald Link a household name among people who read the James Beard website for fun — was nowhere to be found.
Yono’s
What I learned is this: if you trust “restaurants near me,” you will get restaurants near you. But you will not get joy. You will not get the kind of fire served up by the best Albany restaurant, Yono’s. You will not get the kind of meal you text your friends about, unprompted, three days later while thinking about a bite of grilled octopus like it was a former lover who got away.
Google Maps sorts by popularity, not quality. By frequency, not intention. It’s a machine trained on the culinary tastes of people who leave three-star reviews because their bottomless breadstick basket came out late.
Lottē
So here’s the solution: don’t search “restaurants near me.” Search “best restaurants” plus whatever city or neighborhood you’re in. Click on a trusted source like Eater, Infatuation, Time Out, or, dare I say, The Adventurist.
At the very least, search like you mean it. Name the cuisine, plus your current neighborhood. Use adjectives and dishes you hope to eat. Type like your meal depends on it.
The end result, hopefully, will be an actual list of the great restaurants somewhat near you. Maybe it’ll require an Uber ride across Wichita to Lottē, where chef Josh Rathbun takes the pretension out of fine-dining. Or a walk of a few blocks in Rochester for falafel at Levantine’s, made doubly crispy with holes in the center, a brilliant improvement to a classic.
But maybe it’s time, I learned from this little experiment, to give up on a simple idea: restaurants near me just maybe are not actually the best restaurants.
Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who splits his time between Asheville and Miami. He’s on a constant hunt for the best pizza, best places to bike, and for his next new favorite destination. Email him here.
