Opinions on Gourmetour ratings?

[CFW]

Iive been looking at gourmetour ratings (www.gourmetour.ya.com) on the web and some of the ratings seem to be consistent with advice on eGullet & some seem to be way off. For example I've heard so many raves about Figon Zute El Mayor (Tinin) in Sepulveda, but I think it only gets a 5 on Gourmetour & other restaurants are more highly rated. For roast lamb they rate Las Casillas In Sotosalbos a 6.5, yet no one has mentioned that in the wonderful recent postings on roast lamb on eGullet (which made my mouth water). Can you give some insight to their ratingss?

By the way, Gourmetour also gives a high rating to La Cocina de Segovia in Segovia. What do any of you think of that restaurant as a change of pace from all of the roast lamb we will be eating in the area?

[pedro]

I've found Gourmetour to be the most inconsistent guide in Spain related to ratings. That only means that my opinion and theirs are quite different when evaluating restaurants.

[vserna]

Wildly inconsistent. A different reviewer for each region, and they don't seem to get their act together on what 7.5 or 8.5 points should mean all over the country.

[Mrs. B]

Have you ever used the campsa guide? http://www.campsa.es/esp/infinito/gcampsa/...guia_campsa.asp

I think their "soles" rating seems to be right on the mark. Check them out.

[The Viking]

Personally I prefer the

"Lo mejor de la gastronomia";

to me the most consistent, although some of the newer more talented not so high profile restaurants might get an undeservedly low rating.

This guide also lists subcategories such as best places for pinchos, tapas, rice dishes, bacalao etc.

It can also give you some inside hints to Spain's best food products and wines, although I find their wine ratings to be rather bound and tied to few producers with the same ones appearing year after year.

Edited March 30, 2004 by The Viking (log)

[Paco]

I use the campsa guide. In general, I find it useful, but in my experience it has failed to me sometimes.

I just came back from Gran Canaria, and ate at Acaymo in Mogan, gave us both heartburn for 48 hours. We also tried Anthurium II on the 23rd floor of AC Hotel in Las Palmas, and it was ok, still not sure if it holds 2 suns as the Anthurium I does. Filet mignon with sesame oil was overcooked. Service was so so. Nice views, although the restaurant is not revolving as it once was. It mentioned Canton as the best chinese restaurant on the island, (for me, just slightly above an average madrid chinese place) but misses the very authentic korean restaurants in the capital due to the port and the large korean community living there. Of course Gran Canaria might not be the most exciting gastronomic spanish region right now, but my point is I cannot trust it 100%.

In Madrid, and I guess it must be hard to reflect every good restaurant in an accurate way, it does miss some very good restaurants that have survived many years in the city but inmediately names the newest more trendy places that should focus more on food.

I wish they were also a bit more accurate with the price range, (or at least give a price range, not just a specific figure).

Oh well, I guess it´s so easy to critizice...!

Is Lo mejor de la gastronomia online?

[Rogelio]

Is Lo mejor de la gastronomia online?

Is not exactly the guide, but the same reviewer (Rafael García Santos).

http://canales.elcorreodigital.com/gastronomia/

[Chloe]

And for more modest choices, what about Anaya? I have the big Mapas y carreteras with city/town guides and now the Guía Viva - Comer y Dormir en España (Viaja mejor, paga menos).

Chloe

about to go leave my local paradise (according to Miguel) to spend a few days in the restaurant paradise of Euskadi, but with a not particularly paradisiacal purse!

[vserna]

'Lo mejor de la gastronomía' is the very personal - to the point of being totally idiosyncratic and unabashedly partial - product of a very unique reviewer, Rafael García Santos. It will fully satisfy those in communion with his hyper-elitist view of modern gastronomy. All others, be forewarned. Another aspect is that, being done by just one person, this is a very narrow guide, with full regions being left entirely uncovered.

[The Viking]

'Lo mejor de la gastronomía' is the very personal - to the point of being totally idiosyncratic and unabashedly partial - product of a very unique reviewer, Rafael García Santos. It will fully satisfy those in communion with his hyper-elitist view of modern gastronomy. All others, be forewarned. Another aspect is that, being done by just one person, this is a very narrow guide, with full regions being left entirely uncovered.

But: What guide would you rely on for a more complete and indepth review than Campsa which i also use most of the time to supplement "Lo mejor..." ?

[Mrs. B]

But: What guide would you rely on for a more complete and indepth review than Campsa which i also use most of the time to supplement "Lo mejor..." ?

I think it is hard to trust 100% any one guide. We usually check two or three guides for suggestions and recommendations. The Michelin Guide which is very good for France is a miser when it comes to stars in Spain. I just went to the site of "La mejor gastronomia...." and found that all the reviews of the restaurants I chose sounded almost all the same. I found them generally boring. The critic did not seem to get excited about anybody in particular except for Las Rejas in Pedroneras.

BTW, the Campsa also has tourist information and wines. It is unfortunate that the CD that comes with the two books is only PC formated and not for Mac users. One fault it has is that it does not indicate on a map where the "soles" are located, one has to go city by city. But nobody is perfect right?

[pedro]

But: What guide would you rely on for a more complete and indepth review than Campsa which i also use most of the time to supplement "Lo mejor..." ?

eG?

[Bux]

The Michelin Guide which is very good for France is a miser when it comes to stars in Spain.

I think this is an important point. Without even getting into the heart of the miserly manner with which Michelin awards stars in Spain--we've had meals in unstarred restaurants that were better than some two star meals in France--the blank spaces on the map of stars in the Guia Rojo mean that one can travel in an area with no real clue as to which restaurants are the better ones even relative to local standards. Campsa's one, two and three stars and R (for recommended) rating cover more of the map. Well, they would if Campsa had a map showing stars.

That's one more thing Mrs. B and I agree on--a map with the location of outstanding restaurants is most useful for tourists planning a driving itinerary. For a business traveler, or a train traveler, most likely to be in specific cities, a list of cities and their restaurants is fine, but for those who are driving and willing to go way out of their way for a good meal it's almost essential to have a guide that shows where the good meals are in relation to the area in which we will be. I recently put up a plea for places along a Malaga - Alicante - Valencia - Madrid route. Most all of the restaurants suggested on eGullet were in the Campsa guide, but I wouldn't have necessarily known where to look without the help I got here. Which all goes to prove Pedro's point. Seriously, Spain is a really inviting place for the gastro traveler and I don't know where else an English speaking gastronome can find the kind of information we have.

[Paco]

In the 2004 Campsa guide, just before all the cities are listed, there is a 2 page broken map of Spain with the soles on it. I believe it also displays the cities in which the sol-restaurants are. Maybe this can help plan a driving tour (It doesn´t give the name of the restaurant though). Also I think it only displays main roads, so you have to go to the city to check the restaurant, then to the partial map to see how to get there.

[Bux]

In the 2004 Campsa guide, just before all the cities are listed, there is a 2 page broken map of Spain with the soles on it. I believe it also displays the cities in which the sol-restaurants are.

That's excellent. I only have the 2003 here and I didn't see that last year. What you describe is basically what Michelin has always offered. It's too late to help on my upcoming trip, but I look forward to seeing the new guide. I wish such a map were readily available on the web, but Michelin doesn't make that map available on the web either and I'm not aware of any web iste where this kind of information is available. I suppose they must leave some reason for people to buy the printed guide.

The Campsa guide comes bound with a set a maps covering all of Spain, and these maps are detailed and useful for driving, but because they divided all of Spain into more than 80 separate pages bound into the guide, they are maddening to use for planning a route. In fact, we find we want a set of Michelin maps even with the Campsa guide, so that in the end, the maps serve to make the Campsa guide a very large and heavy guidebook to pack and carry on an overseas trip. This is less of a drawback for a Spanish resident. The Campsa guide does come with a CD and we travel with a laptop. Unfortunately the 2003 CD was not cross platform and didn't work on a Mac. The future lies in a PDA accessible guide.