Pretty much every London food blogger loves Bob Bob Ricard.

London Food Bloggers by Social Media Presence

Updated for 2018!

Looking for London’s top food and restaurant bloggers? Have I got a list for you!! To help everyone get to know some of London’s most popular restaurant bloggers, I put together a list of the top London food blogs on my radar. This list was originally created in 2015, when I took at look at the top restaurant bloggers on Urbanspoon and pulled together all the stats on their Twitter, Facebook and Instagram followers. Urbanspoon has since shut down — they were bought out by Zomato and then killed and the Zomato list of London restaurant bloggers is now entirely different and a little weird, frankly — so  now I’ve just updated the list based on what I know.

Why did I put this together? Up until around 2011, I used to be one of London’s top restaurant bloggers. (3500 followers on Twitter was a lot back then.) But then I moved back to the US for work. I’ve been back in London since 2014 (wild horses etc etc) but I don’t blog as much as I used to. I still love to read all the London restaurant blogs through!

London Food Bloggers: Updated List for 2018

OK, here’s my updated list of London food and restaurant bloggers by social media profile…I added myself at the end because, uh, this is my list? I  left out accounts that are purely Instagram accounts; I was specifically focused on folks with an appreciation of long-form writing because I like words and really, this isn’t a list of London’s top food and restaurant Instagrammers.

I also left out blogs that were more lifestyle content than London restaurant content. (But hey, I’m a reasonable person. Email me or comment below if you think you should be listed here.)

You can click on the column headings to rank. Enjoy.

Big Observation on London Food Blogs

The biggest gains in followers occurred on Instagram. I still have the old table if you’d like to look at it. I mean, it makes sense but it also drives me crazy because you’re liking the PHOTO and not the words. Also, I am concerned that some Instagrammers are not disclosing freebies and invites to review. Guys, we’ve been through this before with blogging. You will be found out. Just be honest. It’s not hard to be honest. Also, if you are a restaurant or a PR, you should require your invites to disclose.

Flaws in My Methodology

Social media data changes frequently, so please consider this all a snapshot and not gospel truth. For example, in rerunning this data in 2018, I am SHOCKED by how many London food bloggers have disappeared completely in just three years — like their websites don’t even exist anymore. Or maybe I’m not shocked. I’ve been at this since 2004 (!!!) and it’s not easy to keep up the momentum and energy.

Other flaws in my methodology…to calculate London food blog “Reach,” I just added together Twitter + Facebook + Instagram. Obviously, there is usually overlap between the three platforms. (For example, I follow the London restaurant blogger Chris Pople via all his platforms.) I don’t have the magic social media tools to determine the actual unique intersection, so we’ll have to make do with this sum for now. (Although I am open to suggestions on how to get some sort of figure on total unique followers.)

Big flaw…there’s been some talk about some London food bloggers purchasing followers. So please don’t take these figures at face value, and remember that if you are building an invite list,  a smaller London restaurant blogger might actually deliver more value than a (seemingly) larger London restaurant blogger. (Micro influencers are the future!) You should also check out engagement numbers. If someone has 100,000 followers on Twitter or Instagram but very few likes on any of their tweets or pics, there’s something wrong.

Are You a London Food Blogger?

Sad that you didn’t make my list of London restaurant bloggers? Don’t be sad. Like I said, this was highly unscientific. If you blog about restaurants in London, I’m happy to add you. Just comment below and I will do some reconnaissance and add more rows to my table.

Lastly, you might find these other blog posts of mine helpful:

• My 10 Favorite Restaurants in London
• How to Save Money on Restaurants in London

The post London Food Bloggers by Social Media Presence first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

Yes, I’m on a gratefulness kick these days. Let’s see how long it lasts. It’s Day 2! I’m optimistic. Today I would like to take the time to thank the London restaurant bloggers and other websites that have provided me with traffic over the last 12 months. Without you, well, I’d have no traffic. I’m grateful for you. I wish there were more people like you, especially these days when no one cares about blogs and sidebar links anymore. (We live in a “Twitter is the New RSS” world, my friends.) Thank you, those in this list, for being a friend. I appreciate it. (Although given that a few of these sites are no longer blogging, maybe I should find some new friends??)

1. Tehbus. EUWEN! Where are you?? Because although you haven’t blogged about London restaurants in a while, your site still serves as a powerhouse of referral traffic. I’m sorry I haven’t seen you since that night in Camberwell.  Let’s have an adventure, soon. But not the type with crazy taxi drivers like that one time.

2. AllWomensTalk: Proving that SEO does still exist, this post about the best Chicago Food Blogs still is bringing them in, even though I don’t live there anymore. Thank you, AllWomensTalk. Even though you ranked me LAST. I am grateful to you.

3. LondonChow:  One of the old school London restaurant blog crowd! Hello, LondonChow! Thank you for sending me traffic. I am not sure we have ever met though?? That is weird. We should remedy that soon. (Although we’ll have to agree to disagree on BBL in your Top 10. They just don’t do it for me.)

4. The Happiness Project London: I watched two people that I’ve never met before fall in love via the Internet! That was awesome!! Although Sasha hasn’t blogged in a while, you can follow the adventures of her very entertaining other half, Luke, on Twitter and also visit his London shop, Brompton Food Market. I love when the Internet becomes REAL.

5. Gourmet Chick. I miss my friend Cara, source of many London restaurant adventures. I moved to Chicago, she moved to Melbourne. I’ve moved back to London but she is still in Australia, far far away. But the magic of Twitter and Facebook brings us together now and then and for that, I am — you guessed it — grateful.

6. Mmm-Yoso. I don’t even remember how I discovered these guys, but it was ages and ages and ages ago. (I vaguely remember a work trip to San Diego back in 2007?) And they’ve been sending me a nice amount of traffic ever since. Thank you, people of California!

7. 3 Guys on A London Bus: I don’t know who these guys are, but I remember at the time when they posted this piece, I was hit with a huge avalanche of traffic. Proving again the power of search engine optimization, this one little blog post is still delivering hits all these years later. Powerful stuff. Thanks guys!

8. Roam & Home: My Chicago partners-in-crime. We met via our blogs and have had many adventures since. Chicago! London! Bogota! Paris! Karen and Bob are the best!! And I miss them since moving to London. 🙁

9. Not from Around Here:  This expat blog has been sending traffic my way for a long time. 2009? Sadly…no blog posts since 2012 and she has also gone quiet on Twitter. Where are you, old expat blog friend?

10. The Blog about Nothing in London: I got to meet fellow London restaurant blogger Odo when he came to visit Chicago the other year. (Don’t let his blog’s title fool you.) We had crazy cocktails at The Aviary and then he ate the biggest hamburger I’ve ever seen in my life at Little Goat in the West Loop. That’s skillz. Since I have been back in London, we have yet to reconnect! Must remedy this soon!

So…that’s it from me for now. Gotta get back to this other gratefulness stuff…and find some new Internet friends. Ciao.

The post It’s Gratefulness Week Here at PassportDelicious… first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

A huge thanks for all the link love this year, but particularly to my Top 10 Referring Sites. These are some mighty fine blogs. I love them. You should too. And you should check them out when you have a moment. Like right now, on January 1, while you’re sitting there in your pajamas, wondering why you didn’t go grocery shopping YESTERDAY so you’d have something to eat in the house. Hah! Enjoy, and much love for 2012.

American in London: Alice had a baby this year, so it looks like her blog is on hold for a moment, but if you ever go to London, this is one of the finest restaurant resources.
Mmmm Yoso: This super-prolific San Diego-based blog is HUGE. They do a lot in California and Hawaii but seriously, these guys are EVERYWHERE.
Urbanspoon: I’ll take the love.
Ms. Gourmet Chick: Another London restaurant blogger repatriates. Cara is back in Australia, but her worldwide travels make for great reading and along with Alice’s blog, these are the two blogs I always consult whenever I’m going somewhere new.
Food Stories: Helen’s blog of fantastic recipes will be a book one day, I swear. Read her now so you can say you knew her when! Check out her 2011 round-up for some of her personal favorite recipes from 2011.
Carolina Epicurian: Somehow, I ended up on the Links page of this Southern-focused blog and I am eternally grateful.
Kavey Eats: The prolific Kavey is a social media MAVEN. And a fantastic cook to boot.
Hollow Legs:  I predict that Lizzie too shall have a book before long.  I love her Twitter description.
Eat Noodles Love Noodles: Who DOESN’T love Mr. Noodles!!!  If you want to eat Asian in London, he’s an awesome resource.
London Chow: How much do I love that most of my most-referring blogs are London blogs? Written by two Singaporeans in London, this is another great London resource.

P.S. I posted a picture of iced tea in the Bahamas because January 1 means SOBER JANUARY. Yes. Not so good times. But good for the body and the mind and the laundry, right?

The post Top 10 Referring Web Sites, 2011 first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

Old-school Chicago Neon

2011 is upon us. Thank you to my readers for a great 2010. I hope many of you stick with me even if I don’t live in London anymore. (Hey, I’ll be back in April. If not sooner!)

I’d like to give a particular shout out to the bloggers who provided me with the most traffic in 2010. Many super thanks and may the traffic gods worship you thusly in 2011. These are all Londoners with one sole exception. Will be interesting to compare the list at the end of 2011…

1. Gourmet Chick: Lawyer-turned-journalist Gourmet Chick hits all the new London restaurants and is amazingly well-travelled. When I need travel tips, I turn to Gourmet Chick.
2. An American in London: And when Cara hasn’t been there, I go to Alice. (Or vice versa.) I like that Alice does her own thing…you’ll see her at only the rarest of blog events. P.S. Alice loves Paris. And France.
3. Hollow Legs: Funny. Sharp. Excellent cook. How she does it and remains so thin, I have no idea. Hollow Legs, I hope your metabolism stays like so FOREVER. And if you have any to spare, please give me some.
4. Cheese & Biscuits: At the risk of offending many people, I think Chris is one of the best restaurant-blog writers out there today. When he’s good he’s very very good, but when he’s cranky he’s CRANKY. I love it when Chris gets cranky. (But restaurants don’t.)
5. London Eater: Lovely photos (and many of them!), unrestrained prose and very commercially-minded. (I don’t mean this in a bad way.)
6. Eat Like a Girl: Prolific and omnipresent. Every year is Niamh’s year. (Check out her latest accolades.) But I predict 2011 is the year Niamh goes commercial…
7. World Foodie Guide: London’s retired food blogger is still delivering traffic.
8. Food Stories: AMAZING recipes. Amazing energy for Peckham, her local neighborhood. Her pressure cooker post actually made me call my mom and ask for one.
9. Kavey Eats: A fantastic resource on food, recipes and otherwise. A prolific blogger and an amazingly prolific Tweeter. I don’t know how she does it. (Oddly, there’s not a link to her Twitter self on her blog!)
10. Mmm Yoso: These guys crack me up! They truly have been everywhere and eat everything. But Asian food is definitely a speciality. I was pleased to see that Kirk had stopped into Chicago recently.

The Contest: Link to my site from yours by 11:59 pm Chicago time December 31st and you could win one of three Michelin restaurant guides. (Your choice!) All you need to do is leave a comment confirming your link by 23:59 CST. More details here.

The post Thank You to Everyone, Really, And a Contest… first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

The post Please Take My Blog Demographic Survey first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

So you can tell from the stats that I've been slacking off. December and February weren't my best months for enjoying London's restaurant scene. A lot of time on the road slowed me down. No time for blogging. I still have a lot of catching up to do. (See below for the list of restaurants I haven't blogged about yet.)

Here are my top 10 referring sites during Q1, excluding search engines:
1. Urbanspoon
2. Twitter
3. Gourmet Chick
4. American in London
5. Hollow Legs
6. World Foodie Guide (Retired)
7. London Eating
8. Cheese & Biscuits
9. Eat Like a Girl
10. Mmm Yoso

And here's what I have in the hopper:
Chicago restaurant round-up
Frankfurt restaurant round-up
Rules
Fox & Anchor (revisited)
The Albion (breakfast)
L'Anima
New York restaurant round-up
Monsieur M
And a lot of photos of food where I'm not entirely sure WHERE they came from. London restaurant? Restaurant elsewhere? Where the hell was I? This is going to take some thinking.

Oh and hey…know where I'm going next month? JORDAN! And SYRIA. Can't wait!

The post My Q1 2010 Blog Stats first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

1. Twitter User Bios
Firefox plugin. Install Greasemonkey and then install the plugin. Here's what it does: Next time you go to your Followers page in Twitter in Firefox, it will show you each and every person's bio, a link to their Web site, how many people they follow/are followed by, and their last tweet. (Much easier than going through each follower individually.) Good for culling your followers on occasion. (Ever ended up accidentally following a right-wing fundamentalist?)

2. Twitter Karma
I like this one even better for periodically reviewing my followers. You can screen your followers by looking at mutual follows (i.e., you both follow each other), people who follow you but you don't follow back (useful for catching up and adding friends every so often), and people who you follow but don't share the love. (Do you dump 'em?) Takes a while to load, but still good. Also, I like to look at the people I follow by last update date. Periodically, I'll unfollow anyone who hasn't Tweeted in the last month or two.

3. Twitter Counter
I like graphs. Twitter Counter shows you how your followers and friends and have grown over time. This is what tipped me off to the two recent spam clean-outs. I know not everyone is into BlogHer, but to lose that many followers in one day on July 24th? Something was up! Want to do a little competitive analysis on anyone? You can! You can pull up the data on any Twitter user. Twittercounter also recommends friends (some of which you are probably already following though).

Do you have a favorite Twitter tool? Let me know…

The post My 3 Favorite Twitter Tools first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

I took a bit of a hiatus from my little London restaurant blog in December. You can tell. It took me a while to recover, traffic-wise. But hey, mentally, it was great. No self-imposed deadlines, no nothing. I highly recommend it.

Last year, I told you my blog stats every month. I haven’t quite gotten around to that this year, so I’ll try for quarterly.

Here you go…

Top 5 Referring Sites (Not including Search Engines)
: I’ve tried to be good about posting all my reviews to Urbanspoon. I’m a bit behind. Now if only I had an iPhone.
Twitter: Who would have thunk it?
An American in London: How does she do it???
Gourmet-Chick: A relatively new arrival on the London food scene who is very diligent in her commenting. It must be working, traffic-wise. This is her first appearance in my referring sites. (She just started up in Feb 2008.) I wish I did more commenting. (I do read you all, I swear.)
Londonist: They interviewed me last month. That was nice.

Top 5 Sources of Traffic that’s New to Me (Again, Not including Search Engines)

Twitter
Londonist
Stumbleupon: I still haven’t figured this site out.
Mmm-yoso: I still love these guys and hope I can make it out to the West Coast soon to try some of their favorites.

Update on the London Restaurant Widget
I have totally updated the London Restaurant Widget. Big-time. It is action-packed with London restaurant blogs now. You will love it. Install it on iGoogle or on your blog or on your friend’s blog.

For those of you new to widgets, my London Restaurant Blog widget searches across all the London restaurant blogs to find you first-person reviews from people you should trust. Go forth and install. Just click Get Widget to get the code.

The post My Blog Stats for Q1 2009 first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

I took a bit of a hiatus from my little London restaurant blog in December. You can tell. It took me a while to recover, traffic-wise. But hey, mentally, it was great. No self-imposed deadlines, no nothing. I highly recommend it.

Last year, I told you my blog stats every month. I haven’t quite gotten around to that this year, so I’ll try for quarterly.

Here you go…

Top 5 Referring Sites (Not including Search Engines)
: I’ve tried to be good about posting all my reviews to Urbanspoon. I’m a bit behind. Now if only I had an iPhone.
Twitter: Who would have thunk it?
An American in London: How does she do it???
Gourmet-Chick: A relatively new arrival on the London food scene who is very diligent in her commenting. It must be working, traffic-wise. This is her first appearance in my referring sites. (She just started up in Feb 2008.) I wish I did more commenting. (I do read you all, I swear.)
Londonist: They interviewed me last month. That was nice.

Top 5 Sources of Traffic that’s New to Me (Again, Not including Search Engines)

Twitter
Londonist
Stumbleupon: I still haven’t figured this site out.
Mmm-yoso: I still love these guys and hope I can make it out to the West Coast soon to try some of their favorites.

Update on the London Restaurant Widget
I have totally updated the London Restaurant Widget. Big-time. It is action-packed with London restaurant blogs now. You will love it. Install it on iGoogle or on your blog or on your friend’s blog.

For those of you new to widgets, my London Restaurant Blog widget searches across all the London restaurant blogs to find you first-person reviews from people you should trust. Go forth and install. Just click Get Widget to get the code.

The post My Blog Stats for Q1 2009 first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

Here’s my general breakdown of the type of traffic I get, according to Google Analytics…

 
Here were my top 10 referring sites in 2008…
Stumble Upon
An American in London
Stonch’s Beer Blog
Twitter
Ripe London
Mmm-Yoso
Cheese & Biscuits
London Review of Breakfasts
Food & Drink in London
London a la Mode

And Here are My 10 Most Popular Posts (No idea why for some of them, and not all of them are from 2008.)
My Top 10 in London
The Leicester Square Challenge
Hello 2008
Flat White
Your Perfect Saturday in London
Tomoe
Vinoteca
Hamgipak
The Yard
Polo

On tap for 2009…I finally implement my Google Map, and maybe just maybe, I redesign. Actively looking for designers…Think clean, neat, modern. And that’s all I’ve got for you. xx

The post 2008 Blog Stats first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

Back in July, I told you all about my London Restaurant Blog Search Widget. It searches across multiple London restaurant blogs to bring you all the reviews from all the London restaurant blogs, all in one place. I got the idea from ueber-blogger Elise at SimplyRecipes during BlogHer.

Back when I first set it up, Widgetbox didn’t give me many details about how many times it’s been installed, who’s installed it, how many times people have searched using it, or anything really.

But now they do! So I thought I’d share some stats with you and give a shout out to all the folks who took the time to set the widget up on their London blogs.

Since I launched the London Restaurant Blog Search widget in July, it’s been viewed 161,981 times. Yesterday alone, it was viewed 1089 times. It’s been installed on 24 sites.

Here are the top 10 referrers…
Food Stories: You know I can’t cook. But I read Helen’s blog and wish I could.
Cheese & Biscuits: Thank goodness Cheese of the Month is back!
Ripe London: Jess, we need to have dinner.
Wine Culture: He’s moved domains and he’s taken down the widget. But I’ll still give him some link love.
Gourmet Chick: Her dining exploits rival the best of us.
Game Well & Truly Over: Sadly seems to have removed the widget.
LoveLondon: Updated about twice a month.
Trivial Pursuits: Hasn’t been updated since September which is a shame, because she does good content.
Minding the Gap: Sadly, they moved back to the U.S. last month.
Southeast London Foodie: A nicely done restaurant blog that sadly hasn’t been updated since September.

One of the things I was most impressed with, however, is that I can see that a lot of people have added the widget to iGoogle. If you haven’t played around with iGoogle yet, it lets you set up your own personalized home page and you can add the London Restaurant Blog Search to your home page.

Anyhow, because it’s the end of the year, I’m out of content, and I just discovered the Widgetbox stats, I thought I’d bring the widget to your attention again. If you’ve blogged about London restaurants and would like to be included, please let me know. Previously, I was saying that I would only include blogs that were mostly restaurant reviews, but I’m going to relax that requirement. So if you’re a cooking/recipe blogger who does the odd London restaurant review, I’ll add you too. Just leave a message in the comments.

Note that some blogs don’t accept Javascript so the widget can be hard to install. On Typepad, I’ve been able to easily install the widget into my sidebar, just by using the Typepad option on Widgetbox. When I’m posting the widget in the body of a post, I have the most luck if I switch to “Edit HTML” and then drop the code directly into the HTML page and then save. Don’t switch back to Rich Text for this post, or you’ll lose the widget. Not sure why, but that’s how it works for me.

The post The London Restaurant Blog Widget, Again first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

 

November beat October by just a lttle bit. But it's still my best month ever, so I can't complain. Given the holidays in December and my little food and restaurant blogging sabbatical from December 15th through Jan 2nd, I expect traffic to tank big time this month. That's okay though. Everyone needs a break from the Internet every so often. Everyone.

In terms of referring sites, not much new to report. Stumbleupon is fascinating, although I still find that the traffic is predominantly American, and folks don't stick around long. They must not like London restaurants as much as the rest of us do.

Top 5 Referring Sites
Stumbleupon: Because I can.
An American in London: I finally got a chance to meet my fellow American London restaurant blogger Alice this month over macaroons at L'Atelier des Chefs. The funny part is that we are four degrees of separation from each other. I know Matt. She has a friend who knows Matt. So she's met Matt. Funny.
Twitter: Gotta love Twitterfeed!
: I really need to add more of my posts to Urbanspoon.
Facebook

Top 5 Sources of Traffic That's New to Me
Stumbleupon: Now if only they'd stick around.
Twitter: Readers, get with the times and tweet up!
: I don't have an iPhone so I can't use their app.
Mmm-Yoso: Love these guys. I wish I lived in San Diego.
Eat Like a Girl: She's not eating like a baby elephant, I swear. (If she is, well then, I'm eating like an I don't know what.)

In November, I had decaf at both Nude and Flat White. I went on a Korean restaurant crawl in New Malden and have been dreaming about the Korean pancakes at Hamgipak ever since.  My country elected a new president, who continues to impress me, a registered Republican (just being honest), with his leadership skills. And I've already mentioned the macaroons, with many thanks to the folks at Trusted Places and my fellow London restaurant and food bloggers.

Yes, I still have to install my Google map. And I think my time with the Nokia N82 and Nokia Vine is coming to an end. I'm taking suggestions for where I should have lunch in December while I have a little downtime. And well, that's all I've got for you.

The post November Blog Stats first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.