An Open Letter to Food Influencers

I genuinely love food culture, and I have enormous respect for many of the people who write and talk about it. But every now and then I come across influencers whose content causes me physical pain. And I think it's about time we talked about it.

Every interior is przepiękne. Every dish is przepyszne.

Please, stop telling people that every single dish is przepyszne, every interior is przepiękne, and every other place is an ukryta perełka that's somehow a 10/10. That's not how the world works.

If something genuinely impressed you, describe it. If a restaurant has something truly unique, tell people what it is. Believe it or not, there's nothing wrong with actually talking about the place you're reviewing.

If you're writing about food – learn something about food. Please.

For one reason or another, you've decided to write about food. You're invited to events, you visit new restaurants, you tell people what's happening on the local food scene – and that's great.

But please, at least learn the basics.

You can't review a steak tartare while acting surprised that it's raw meat. You can't declare you've just had the best scallop of your life if it's also the first scallop you've ever eaten.

Label ads and barter collaborations.

This isn't just EU law – it's basic human decency.

There's nothing wrong with advertising or commercial partnerships. Treating your audience like they're idiots and pretending paid content isn't paid content is.

And here's a little secret: people who actually follow the restaurant scene notice when ten bloggers post the exact same content brief on the exact same day. They're perfectly capable of putting two and two together.

It's okay to be honest.

Once you've built an audience, you're responsible for it. People trust you. They watch you. They use your recommendations to decide where to spend their time and money.

Don't be afraid to mention the things you didn't like (because there are always some). Your opinion matters precisely because it's yours. And it simply cannot be equally enthusiastic 24/7 (unless you're on antidepressants)

Understand who you're making content for.

If you make restaurant content for your audience – congratulations, you're a responsible creator.

If your goal is simply to stay as close to the free food as possible and produce content for restaurants rather than readers, you're not really a restaurant reviewer. You're a UGC creator.

If you publish a 10,000-character review of a fine dining restaurant but dedicate exactly one paragraph to the food itself, chances are you're not reviewing restaurants at all. You're producing very aesthetic showing off.

And it's important to be honest with yourself about what exactly you're creating – and who you're creating it for.

Stop asking restaurants and hotels to feed or accommodate you for free.

Nothing is more embarrassing than messaging a restaurant or hotel with your revolutionary proposal: feed me in exchange for content or give me a free room.

First of all, the DMs of places like these are already flooded with people making the exact same offer.

Second, you're damaging the reputation of influencers as a whole (and arguably the human race while you're at it).

Third, the restaurant and hospitality world is small. Trust me – word gets around fast, and everyone eventually finds out everything.

Now, if you're a genuinely big creator with an audience that can actually bring guests through the door, fair enough. But if you've got 20,000 ghost followers and 46 likes on your posts – maybe don't.

Having your own style matters.

Warsaw is full of brilliant bloggers and creators who are genuinely worth following. They have their own voice, their own way of telling stories, and you can recognize their videos from the very first second. That's incredibly cool.

Which makes it even harder to understand why so many people keep producing identical copy-and-paste captions paired with the exact same montage of the exact same shots.

People don't enjoy watching it. Restaurant owners don't enjoy watching it either.

The only people who actually need that content are marketing agencies burning through an opening budget, ticking boxes on a campaign report, and looking for a few more random accounts to pad out the numbers.

Reviews based on press lunches.

There's a special place in hell for people who publish full restaurant reviews based on press events.

Saying that a new place has opened, mentioning that you attended the launch, and sharing your first impressions? That's great.

But when I see someone piling a plate with canapés from the opening buffet and then turning that into a "full review" of the restaurant, my brain genuinely breaks.

For God's sake, you haven't even seen the actual menu. How the hell is that a review?

If real people aren't commenting, you're probably doing something wrong.

Sometimes food influencers' posts don't get comments from actual people – just the same repetitive comments from other food influencers.

Supporting each other is a good thing, but only when it doesn't look like a coordinated spam-bot attack.

There's a strong chance that the restaurant owners who invited you to a complimentary dinner with a 400 PLN spending limit aren't idiots. They know the difference between genuine engagement and a simulation of it. 

Never (never!) turn a complimentary dining credit into an all-you-can-eat buffet

If a restaurant is generous enough to offer you a complimentary dining credit without setting strict limits, that isn't an invitation to bring eight hungry friends or ask them to pack up half the menu for takeaway.

Every restaurant deserves respect – and so does every person behind it.

Food influencers who walk out of a restaurant carrying five bags of free food deserve only one thing: for people to talk about it. Loudly and publicly.

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