[macrael]

OP found no correlation

[dietr1ch]

Reviews probably have too much noise. It's not only the food that gets rated and people taking the time to rate a place might be doing so because of a particularly good or bad experience they just had. It's not really a day to day thing.

[serial_dev]

Reviews have a lot of noise, but it feels like it’s still the best source, unless anyone can recommend a better alternative.

Reviews are the worse way to test this hypothesis except all the others.

[crazygringo]

Not true -- restaurant reviews have a lot of signal. Generally an average score is quite reliable once you hit 100 or so reviews. Even 50 reviews is a pretty decent signal.

[calmbonsai]

Then OP shouldn't have used that title. My reasoning still stands.