Truth was shed in order to win title of London’s best restaurant
Fictitious garden eatery heads Tripadvisor ratings list thanks to a generous helping of fake reviews
IT is an accolade coveted by top restaurants that have wowed diners by serving up consistently excellent food over many years.
But now a prankster has made his garden shed the top-rated eating place in London on Tripadvisor by getting his friends to submit fake reviews.
After months of glowing reviews from “diners”, complete with pictures of appetising-looking food, The Shed at Dulwich, south London, has climbed the ranks to the capital’s top spot on the review site.
The elusiveness of The Shed also appeared to trigger interest among potential customers, who were keen to try a spot off the beaten track.
Oobah Butler transformed his garden shed into the fake restaurant by making a website promising an intriguing menu of cuisine promising to suit people’s moods. Arty photographs successfully enticed guests to make bookings, but the dishes pictured were, in fact, styled from items including shaving foam, bleach and, at one point, the author’s foot posing as ham, with a fried egg laid on top. Even Guardian restaurant critic Jay Rayner was taken in by the ruse, tweeting: “At last: a restaurant that recognises food is all about mood. Of all the shed-based eating experiences out there, this one sounds like the best. Or at least second best. (I have my own shed, hence). Personally I’m keen to try ‘contemplation’.”
In 2017, The Shed decided to open its doors as a makeshift restaurant and served guests Iceland micro- wave meals. Mr Butler, a writer for the website Vice, said he was stunned when one customer, apparently impressed by The Shed’s offerings, asked if they could make a second reservation.
The prank raises questions about the reliability of the respected ratings website, used by diners all over the world.
Tripadvisor told The Daily Telegraph: “Generally, the only people who create fake restaurant listings are journalists in misguided attempts to test us. As there is no incentive for anyone in the real world to create a fake restaurant, it is not a problem we experience with our regular community – therefore this ‘test’ is not a real example.”
The spokesman also said that the company used state-of-the-art technology to combat fraudsters trying to influence the ratings of real businesses, and that the difference between reviews from real customers and fake customers tended to show which ratings were real.
Butler said he knew how to game the ratings website because he once made a living by writing fake restaurant reviews on Tripadvisor for £10 a post, in order to boost the businesses up the rankings.
Mr Butler convinced Tripadvisor – and hundreds of potential customers – that his shed was a real restaurant by buying a cheap mobile phone, registering that number as the restaurant’s and refusing to give an address, because the “restaurant” was appointmentonly.
Over the next few months, the fake gourmet spot managed to climb the rankings, thanks to Mr Butler and his friends who left a series of positive reviews.