This Idaho restaurant made Yelp’s Top 100 Places to Eat. Swallow your pride, Boise
Each year for the past decade, Yelp has released a list of the Top 100 Places to Eat in the United States.
The 2023 version just came out — and Idaho has a winner.
Izzy’s Comfort Kitchen of Coeur d’Alene was named the 43rd best place to eat. The family-owned restaurant, which describes itself as an upscale comfort food bistro, is located at 726 N. 4th St.
Izzy’s acknowledged the honor with a thank-you note on social media.
“We are surrounded by greatness,” Izzy’s posted on Facebook, “and know this win for us is a win for everyone in this industry who dared to just keep going.”
Those are gracious sentiments. With such a sweet reaction from Izzy’s, it’s hard not to simply offer congratulations, and ponder the next trip up to North Idaho.
But ... nah. Boise deserves to, er, needs to vent.
Come on, Yelp! What the %$#@? Shouldn’t at least one restaurant from Idaho’s capital city make the list?
Four Treasure Valley chefs were announced as James Beard Awards semifinalists this week! Four!
Last year, Food & Wine named Boise one of “America’s Next Great Food Cities”!
Does none of that matter?
It does not.
In 10 years, a Boise restaurant has never been on Yelp’s list.
Yelp is a user-generated reviews site. This list’s methodology is entirely Yelp-driven. “To determine Yelp’s Top Places to Eat in 2023,” the website explains, “Yelp reached out to the user community first, requesting individuals to submit beloved restaurants across the U.S.”
From there, the process involved a “data science team” analyzing “ratings, number of reviews, and volume of submissions, with geographic representation based on equal share of submissions of top-rated restaurants nationally.” Then Yelp “further curated the list with the expertise of our Community Managers around the country to finalize the rankings.”
Gotcha.
In 2022, Junkyard Bistro of Salmon was #7 on Yelp’s top 100 (impressive!); Brick 29 Bistro of Nampa was #27. (Hey, that’s close to Boise.)
Brick 29 also made 2021’s list at #78. (It should be noted that Brick 29 owner and chef Dustan Bristol is a three-time James Beard Award semifinalist.)
In 2020, Ten/6 of Coeur d’Alene was the only Idaho restaurant included. It closed weeks later.
Prior to that, the Gem State had never made the Yelp list.
