How the Scorch score works
Every restaurant gets one number from 0 to 100. We recompute it every day from the critics' lists, so the ranking changes when those lists change.
Four parts
- Critic lists. Points for each hot list that names the restaurant today. When a place leaves a list, its points fade by half every 45 days.
- Press buzz. Points for each mention in the food press over the last 60 days. A mention loses half its weight every 14 days.
- Newness. A boost for the first six months after opening. It shrinks a little every day.
- Honors. Stars, awards, and yearly best-of lists. They fade over a year.
The points add up, then pass through a fixed curve that tops out at 100. One restaurant's score never changes because another's did.
What each list is worth
- Eater Heatmap
- 30 points
- The Infatuation Hit List
- 26 points
- Resy Hit List
- 22 points
- Eater 38
- 14 points
- Michelin Guide
- 12 points
- New York Times 100 Best
- 12 points
- LA Times 101
- 12 points
- SF Chronicle Top 100
- 12 points
- Bon Appetit Best New Restaurants
- 10 points
- Caper: Where the New York Art World Eats
- 10 points
- James Beard Awards
- 8 points
- On the House
- 8 points
A monthly hot list counts for more than a yearly award because it says more about right now.
The lists we read
New York
Los Angeles
Chicago
San Francisco
Miami
We take the names and the order from each list. We do not copy the critics' words or photos. Each list above links to the original.
What counts as new
A place is new when it has a confirmed opening date in the last six months, or when a critic's best-new-restaurants list names it today.
What we will not guess
- A dish appears only when a source singles it out, with a link to that source.
- A table release time appears only when the restaurant, its booking page, or a published review states it, with a link to where we read it.
- We cannot see live table availability. No outside site can. We show the rule and count down to the next release.
Photos
Each photo comes from the restaurant's own website: its link-preview image, or a photo from its home page when the preview is only a logo. It loads from the restaurant's server, with credit and a link back. When a restaurant's site has none, we use a photo the restaurant supplied to Resy, credited the way Resy credits it.
History
Scores from before we began daily reads are rebuilt from the Internet Archive's saved copies of the same lists. Where the archive has no copy of a list, we assume the list held what our first read shows. Those days are marked on each restaurant's page.