IT COULD WORK!

CraveIT does something that no other app does: a restaurant ranking that is specifically based on the quality of a particular dish; this, of course, is a result we cherish. On the other hand, it poses a problem: it’s an unsupervised process for the validation of which we have no obvious label. We don’t know what is the correct result that our ranking is supposed to return.
Therefore, in order to validate our results, we have scoured the web in search of newspapers, magazines, and food blogs articles that had compiled a specific list of “The best places to eat a x in Rome”. The outcome took us by surprise.

Validation

Let’s start with carbonara, by far the most popular among the dishes we selected; here are the most reputable pieces we found:

Il Messaggero – Carbonara: le dieci migliori di Roma;
la Repubblica – Carbonara day: mappa delle più buone secondo i lettori;
SkyTG24 – Carbonara: I migliori ristoranti d’Italia;
Puntarella Rossa – La migliore carbonara di Roma;
Gambero Rosso – La migliore carbonara di Roma;

Three restaurants consistently appear in these articles, Roscioli, Luciano Cucina Italiana and Eggs: all of them are in CraveIT’s top five. As for the other restaurants appearing in CraveIT’s carbonara top ten, they are all extremely popular places, variously mentioned on social media and YouTube videos (e.g. La Fraschetta, Tonnarello, Osteria da Fortunata).
Online articles are obviously not as detailed about other, less iconic, dishes; however, we still found plenty of possible comparisons. Let’s move to cacio e pepe:

Vice – Migliori cacio e pepe a Roma: il nostro tour;
la Repubblica – Cacio e pepe: ecco le 30 migliori di Roma;
Skyscanner – Le 10 migliori Cacio e Pepe di Roma;
Puntarella Rossa – Le migliori cacio e pepe di Roma, le sette imperdibili;
CarloZucchetti – Le Migliori Cacio e Pepe: i premiati;

Again, three restaurant consistently appear in the articles: Felice a Testaccio, Roscioli, Flavio al Velavevodetto; Repubblica also mentions Osteria Cacio e Pepe, while Skyscanner suggests Roma Sparita. Again, all of these restaurants are in CraveIT’s cacio e pepe top six.
As for saltimbocca, both Il Corriere della Sera and La Cucina Italiana strongly suggest Armando al Pantheon, while Visitare Roma mentions Saltimbocca: both restaurants are in CraveIT’s top five. Moving to coda alla vaccinara, La Cucina Italiana, Roma Today, Vice, RomaIt, Finedining Lovers and Scatti di Gusto dedicate articles to Checchino dal 1887, the birthplace of this dish, and also mention Sora Lella, SantoPalato, and Lo Scopettaro: once again, all of these restaurants are in CraveIT’s top ten. As for trippa, Il Corriere della Sera and Finedining Lovers recommend Osteria della Trippa, CraveIT’s second top result. For abbacchio, la Repubblica lists Matricianella, which is in CraveIT’s top five. Let’s take a look at supplì:

Gambero Rosso – Dove mangiare i supplì a Roma: i migliori della Capitale;
Finedining Lovers – Dove mangiare i migliori supplì di Roma;
Roma Today – Dove mangiare i 5 supplì più buoni di Roma;
Turisti per caso – Ecco dove mangiare i 5 supplì più buoni di Roma;
La Cucina Italiana – I migliori supplì a Roma;

The articles agree on six spots for supplì: Supplizio, Seu Pizza Illuminati, 180g Pizzeria Romana, Trapizzino Trilussa, L’Elementare: all of these appear in CraveIT’s top ten, five of them making up its top five. For offal, Finedining Lovers and La Cucina Italiana mention Osteria La Sol Fa and Trattoria Pennestri, both in CraveIT’s pajata and coratella top five.
Coming now to gricia, we find:

Puntarella Rossa – Le migliori gricie di Roma, sfida a sette;
Pagine Gialle Magazine – Pasta alla Gricia: i migliori 5 ristoranti di Roma;
Itinerari – Tutti pazzi per la gricia: dove mangiare la più buona di Roma;
Giallo Zafferano blog – Le 4 gricie più buone di Roma;
2night – Pasta alla Gricia, ecco le 10 migliori di Roma e dove divorarle;
Foodoso – Dove mangiare la miglior pasta alla Gricia a Roma;

Consistently recommended across these articles are Osteria Bonelli, Da Enzo al 29 and Flavio al Velavevodetto: all of these are in CraveIT’s gricia top ten, Osteria Bonelli being first spot. As for baccalà, Bernabei Magazine, Puntarella Rossa and Tavole Romane agree on one place, Dar Filettaro a Santa Barbara: this is CraveIT’s top ranked restaurant. Closing with a peculiar and particularly interesting result, let’s talk about carciofi alla giudia. Both Marie Claire and 2night suggest Giggetto al Portico d’Ottavia and La Taverna del Ghetto, both of these are in CraveIT’s top ten, the former being the top result. More importantly, both of the top two places among CraveIT’s “carciofi alla giudia” results are restaurants located at the Jewish ghetto, an area where no restaurants recommended by CraveIT for other dishes appear.
This kind of artichokes are widely cooked and eaten in any restaurant offering Roman cuisine but are, of course, a classic of Roman Jewish tradition; as such, CraveIT correctly spotted that their heart lies in the ghetto.

Conclusions

CraveIT’s rankings and scores are extremely diverse, varying deeply on the basis of the selected dish, and they seem overall more than sensible, being validated by plenty of the dish-specific sources we could find.
What’s more important about these results, and somewhat surprising, is that virtually none of the above-mentioned restaurants are highly rated on the generic online sources, proving that CraveIT’s sentiment analysis and ranking algorithm are the ones doing most of the work. CraveIT is returning accurate, but not obvious, results: it’s singling out restaurants that are world-class on a target dish, but that are for the most part not included by traditional apps among their generic usual suspects. So, if you are still not convinced about CraveIT, all you have to do is try it out for yourself: what are you craving?