Restaurant guide.

We planned to make a "top 10" list based on feed-back on a questionnaire on this site, but we have
realised that the risk for misuse by friends, relatives and restaurant/tavern owners was too big.
Instead we bring the following advice based on talks with restaurant owners, their staff and relatives.
The purpose of this guide is to inform our visitors about the state of affairs and not to "hunt" or expose
specific restaurants, hotels and tour operators - therefore no names will be mentioned.

Many guests want some advise to find good places to eat. They can get information from many sources.
But often they have to sort out the information they get and use common sense!

Here are some examples (from real life) of what the visitors have to be aware of:

Info from hotels: (based on 5 examples from 3 hotels)

1.  The owner or the people in the reception are very helpful and highly recommens a specific restaurant as very good and inexpensive.
2.  As no. 1 plus an advice against  a specific named restaurant because it is too exclusive, their prices too high and not the best quality.

Fact: The recommended restaurants were absolutely nothing special - average quality (or lower) and price level as other similar places.
The restaurant which the visitors were advised against is one of the best restaurants in the area with very high quality, good service and
a price level equal to the 'average quality restaurants' and furthermore there are big difference between what the guests get on their plates.
Why this 'misinformation' ?  In all cases we have seen a clear family-connection between the hotel owner or staff and the recommended restaurants.

Info from tour operators: (several examples)
Every time guests arrive there are arranged 'welcome-' or information meetings on a local restaurant. During these meetings the guests
are recommended to visit the restaurant because it is one of the best and very often they are offered a discount if they come. We have
observed that many of the meetings are held on restaurants we never would recommend.

What the guests do not know is that the restaurants (most of them) pay the tour operators to hold the meeting by them and to recommend the restaurants.

With reference to information from restaurant owners, their staff and family we can tell, that guides or other representatives
from the tour operators regularly (once per month?) pass by and get an envelope with the payment (up to 8-900 Euro).

A secondary information we got was that some of the guides are given a free car the whole season for giving the car rentals
a good promotion - we are not aware of if these arrangements are made with or without the tour operators accept.

After hearing the above mentioned it is to us hard to trust information from hotels and tour operators.

The above examples are collected in Kokkari but we are sure that it is the same all over.

What to do as guest??
Talk to other guests and get their opinion,
do your own experiences and pass on your knowledge to new guests.

PLUS:
TELL YOUR TOUR OPERATOR ABOUT THE SITUATION IF YOU ALSO ARE MISINFORMED.