The Word-Of-Mouth Effect

Greetings from Miami, where it’s still surprisingly difficult to get a decent cup of coffee but unsurprisingly easy to find myriad frankencereals in alarming colours and flavours.

I’m not here on business, but the day before I left I remembered I’d had a release from Michelin guides inviting me to Florida to tour its starred and Bib Gourmand restaurants last autumn. I didn’t go but dug out the list: it was sadly not much use. 

It’s been said before, but the clientele for restaurants recognised by such awards and the clientele who want new discoveries and interesting experiences really don’t cross over much, if at all, these days.

Once I’d asked and read around, I had a super-chic breakfast in Overtown, where the experimental All Day restaurant sits next to a slightly grimy nightclub and is surrounded by blocks of piled-up concrete, and a revelatory lunch in a scorching Columbian spot in the farthest edge of the city, Hollywood Lakes. Dinner was where the off-duty security guards hang out, eating the best fried chicken I’ve ever had.

I mention all this because although name-checking a client as ‘award winning’ is a kind of shorthand for quality for some, piquing the interest with something or someone unknown has a lot of benefits. 

The skill, I guess, is telling the right people at the right time so that the word-of-mouth (rather than ossified awards lists or daft TikTok flashes in the pan) effect really works…