How Can Restaurants and Hospitality Businesses Get Featured in the Media?
By Jordan Baker, Founder of Fair Public Relations and former UK national journalist
A restaurant can serve brilliant food and still give a journalist absolutely no reason to write about it.
A hotel can have beautiful bedrooms, excellent service and hundreds of happy guests without automatically becoming a travel feature. The same is true of cafés, bars, pubs and hospitality venues. Being a good business is obviously essential commercially, but being good at what you do and being interesting to the media are not quite the same thing.
When I was working as a journalist, the hospitality stories that caught my attention usually had something more behind them. There might be interesting people involved, a strong history, genuine novelty, a connection to something currently happening in the media or a reason the story made particular sense at that point in the calendar. Newness is incredibly useful too. A genuinely new restaurant, experience, concept or destination naturally gives the journalist a reason to look at it now rather than six months from now.
That distinction sits at the heart of hospitality PR.
The objective is not simply to tell journalists that your restaurant is lovely or your hotel deserves more bookings. It is to identify the things inside the business that can become useful editorial material. Sometimes that will be the venue itself. Sometimes it will be your chef, founder, history, menu, local community, an event, a new experience or something completely different.
And sometimes the most effective piece of PR for a restaurant will not actually be an article about the restaurant.
How do restaurants and hospitality businesses get featured in the media?
There are far more routes than simply asking a journalist to come in for dinner.
A new restaurant may have an opening story. A long-established one may have an extraordinary history. A chef can become a useful media expert. The founder may have an interesting personal or business story. A bar can create a genuinely unusual event. A hotel might offer an experience that fits naturally into a destination feature. A café can become relevant through its community, local story or a distinctive concept.
There are also opportunities around business developments, trends, seasonal occasions, research, customer experiences and local news.
The appropriate route depends enormously on what sort of hospitality business you are.
A small neighbourhood café in Saskatoon does not necessarily need the same media strategy as a five-star hotel in London. A private chef can create national visibility through expertise without having a restaurant for anybody to visit. An unusual glamping business might be far more interesting to a travel writer as an experience than as a conventional accommodation review.
That is why hospitality PR works best when you start with the assets inside the business rather than deciding that everybody needs the same restaurant-review campaign.
Why isn't having a great restaurant or hotel enough?
Because journalists are not restaurant directories.
Their job is not to identify every competent hospitality business and give each one a turn.
They need stories for a particular audience.
If I am working on a newspaper, magazine or website, I need to be able to explain why this restaurant, hotel or experience deserves editorial space today instead of one of the thousands of alternatives available.
This is where business owners understandably become frustrated. They may know that their food is better than somewhere that has just received a big feature. They may have better customer reviews, more attentive staff or nicer interiors.
None of those things necessarily explains the editorial decision.
Perhaps the other venue has just opened.
Maybe its founder has an extraordinary story.
It might be the first restaurant in the city offering a particular experience.
Perhaps a celebrity chef is involved.
There could be a highly visual feature journalists can photograph.
The venue may have created an event tied perfectly to something in the cultural calendar.
Or the journalist might simply need a completely different story from the one you are offering.
Good PR therefore starts by separating two questions:
Is this a good hospitality business?
and:
What is there here for a journalist to cover?
Sometimes the answers overlap perfectly. Sometimes we need to create a stronger editorial opportunity around an otherwise very good business.
What makes a restaurant genuinely newsworthy?
Being new certainly helps.
Newness gives the media a natural "why now?" A new venue, new chef, new concept, new menu, new experience or substantial redevelopment can all create a reason to talk.
But newness alone is not enough indefinitely.
One of the recurring situations we encounter is a restaurant that opened a year or two ago and now decides it wants serious PR. The owners say, "We would love to get some restaurant reviews."
My first question is often: What has changed?
If the answer is nothing, we have a problem.
A journalist who reviewed you when you opened has very little reason to review exactly the same restaurant again a year later. The food may still be fantastic, but editorially the story has not moved.
Now tell me you have appointed a new chef, launched an ambitious tasting menu, completely changed the drinks offering, opened a second site, created an unusual event programme or introduced something genuinely new to the customer experience, and I have another conversation to start.
Hospitality businesses need content.
That does not mean manufacturing meaningless stunts every week. It means understanding that media attention usually needs fresh material.
The people behind a restaurant can be more interesting than the restaurant
People give hospitality stories personality.
A chef with a distinctive background immediately creates possibilities beyond a straightforward venue listing. A pair of siblings launching a business together may have a stronger human-interest angle than either one of them individually. A founder who changed careers, recovered a family business, revived a historic venue or brought a cultural tradition to a new city may have an interesting story.
We are currently working around the launch of a Moroccan café in Saskatoon run by two sisters. One of the sisters is naturally more comfortable being visible than the other, but journalistically I think the story of two sisters building the business together is much stronger than reducing it to one founder simply because she is more willing to do interviews.
That does not mean somebody should be forced into publicity they do not want. It means part of our job is identifying the strongest truthful version of the story and then discussing what the people involved are genuinely comfortable doing.
The venue is new, the concept is relatively novel for its market, and there is a human story behind it. Those factors give us much more to work with than simply telling local journalists there is another café they can visit.
Why chef expertise is one of the strongest hospitality PR opportunities
I think expert positioning should be explored for almost every hospitality business that has credible expertise inside it.
There is a huge appetite for practical food knowledge because food touches everyday life. Journalists write constantly about how people cook, store food, choose equipment, entertain, shop, prepare meals and avoid common mistakes.
A professional chef can potentially help with all of those subjects.
The resulting article may have nothing whatsoever to do with the restaurant itself.
That is the point.
The chef might explain why somebody's roast potatoes never become crispy. They might discuss storing bread, preparing a barbecue, choosing a frying pan, food safety at Christmas or a common mistake people make with an air fryer.
The restaurant then appears through the chef's attribution.
That creates brand visibility without requiring the journalist to write another article saying, "This is a nice restaurant."
Tower Tandoori is a good example
Our work with Tower Tandoori demonstrates the distinction particularly clearly.
Instead of depending entirely on restaurant reviews and announcements, we positioned Head Chef Saifur Rahman around his genuine professional knowledge. He had more than 20 years of kitchen experience, which gave us credible areas to work with across cooking techniques, Indian cuisine, recipes, cookware and hospitality.
During the three-month case-study period, the campaign recorded 16 published media opportunities across 12 publication titles, including The Independent, The Guardian, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror and Daily Express. The subjects ranged from frying pans and air fryers to bread, French toast, mushrooms and restaurant expertise.
None of that required a journalist to review Tower Tandoori every week.
The chef's knowledge was the media asset.
The restaurant benefited from the visibility around it.
The same principle can keep working long after launch
Harper Privé is an even longer-term example.
The campaign centred on founder and qualified chef Dean Harper and used his professional culinary knowledge across subjects people encounter in ordinary life, including food storage, cooking techniques, kitchen appliances, ingredients, food safety and seasonal cooking.
The current case study records more than 80 published articles and syndicated pieces over the two-year campaign, with coverage spanning national, consumer, food, lifestyle and homes media.
Again, the important lesson is not that every chef should expect 80 articles.
It is that expertise gives a hospitality business renewable editorial material.
A restaurant opening happens once.
Your chef's knowledge exists throughout the year.
That is why I see expert positioning as one of the foundations of good hospitality PR.
It can also contribute to the wider online footprint around a business through published mentions and, where publications choose to include them, editorial links. That may support wider search visibility and authority over time, although no individual article can guarantee a particular Google ranking or appearance in AI-generated answers.
Can an independent restaurant really get national coverage?
Yes, but you have to understand what the national story is.
A national food editor is not going to cover every independent restaurant simply because the food is excellent.
That would be impossible.
What they may cover is an extraordinary restaurant concept, a strong founder story, an interesting chef, an unusual trend, something connected to a national conversation or a genuinely remarkable experience.
Expert commentary also gives a small restaurant access to national media without requiring the publication's readers to live nearby.
That is particularly useful.
If a chef in London gives excellent advice in a national article about Christmas dinner, the reader does not need to be planning a trip to that restaurant to find the contribution useful.
The media opportunity travels further than the physical venue.
Sometimes you have to create the thing journalists want to cover
One of my favourite examples of hospitality PR is our work with 5th & Mad in New York.
5th & Mad was a gastropub and entertainment venue. It was a good venue, but if we had relied entirely on telling New York journalists they should come and review its gastropub food, I do not think we would have created anything like the same campaign.
There are a lot of good bars and restaurants in New York.
So I suggested we create something.
We developed a programme of themed brunches around recognisable cult entertainment and cultural moments. Instead of asking journalists to cover another gastropub, we could pitch a specific experience that their readers could actually attend.
The campaign ultimately promoted eight events across five months. Fair PR's current case study records 1,122 ticket sales, approximately $45,000 in ticket revenue and another $30,000 in food-and-beverage revenue associated with those promoted events, alongside around 28,000 new unique website visitors during the campaign. Coverage included Eater, New York Post, Observer, Time Out New York, Bustle, Thrillist and Daily Mail.
That is a very different kind of hospitality PR.
We were not just seeking coverage.
We were creating something that could become a story and also give people a reason to walk through the door.
Why the 5th & Mad strategy worked
There were several layers to it.
The event itself needed to be interesting enough that somebody would buy a ticket.
It also needed to be editorially interesting enough that a journalist could justify writing about it.
Then we made sure there was somewhere useful for readers to go after seeing the coverage. The events had dedicated web pages, which gave the media a natural destination to reference and helped move attention towards the practical action of finding out more or booking.
The people who came through the door then experienced the venue.
Some might return for a sports game.
Some could organise a birthday.
Some might come back with friends.
Others might consider the venue for a corporate event.
They could join the email list and remain part of the audience afterwards.
That is where hospitality PR can become particularly interesting commercially. A good media idea can connect the article to an actual experience somebody can buy.
The published case study shows those commercial outcomes alongside the coverage, but I would still avoid claiming that one individual article independently caused every ticket sale or website visit. Marketing activity rarely operates that neatly.
Don't give up simply because the first headline doesn't work
Gardenia in New York is another hospitality campaign that taught me something useful.
We were promoting a Mediterranean-style beach party at the restaurant. There was sand on the floor, a small paddling pool and guests could attend in beachwear.
We originally pitched the event essentially as a beach-themed restaurant party.
Nobody cared.
The event had not changed, but we had not identified the strongest part of it.
We reframed the headline around the fact that it had a beachwear-only dress code.
That tiny shift suddenly made the idea much more distinctive, and the media response changed completely.
It is a good example of why silence does not always mean the underlying hospitality idea is bad.
Sometimes the editorial framing is wrong.
The solution is not necessarily sending exactly the same pitch another five times. It may be finding the genuinely interesting part and trying again.
What makes hotels and accommodation interesting to travel journalists?
Hotels are slightly different because the destination and wider experience can matter as much as the accommodation itself.
A travel journalist is not simply assessing whether a bedroom is attractive.
Why would somebody go there?
What are they going to do?
What does the destination offer?
Is the property itself unusual?
Is there a particular view, activity, design or experience?
Is it new?
Has it changed substantially since it was last covered?
A beautiful property is obviously helpful because travel journalism is visual, but beauty alone does not guarantee a story.
Our accommodation work has included review opportunities and destination-led media for independent businesses such as Hadspen Glamping, Apple Camping and Unique Cotswold Cottages, with coverage recorded across national, regional and specialist travel media.
The common thread is that the journalist needs an experience they can turn into useful travel content rather than simply a list of room features.
Why previous press coverage matters for hotels
Travel businesses sometimes come to PR after already receiving substantial coverage.
That changes what we can sensibly pitch.
If the same hotel was reviewed by all the relevant travel publications relatively recently and almost nothing has changed, there may be limited appetite for another identical feature.
But perhaps a lot has changed.
There is a new restaurant.
The rooms have been redesigned.
An unusual new experience has launched.
The destination has changed.
A spa has opened.
The property is now offering something it did not have last time journalists visited.
Those developments give us another reason to talk.
Once again, fresh content matters.
How important are local and regional journalists?
Extremely.
Hospitality is inherently geographical.
If you operate a café in a particular neighbourhood, the people most likely to become regular customers may live, work or study close by.
A respected local newspaper, radio station or city publication can therefore be enormously valuable.
Sometimes owners become fixated on the prestige of a national article even when most of that publication's audience lives nowhere near the venue.
I would rather have a good piece of local coverage read by potential customers than chase a national logo simply because it looks impressive.
Local stories can include openings, investment, job creation, community involvement, interesting founders, events, charity partnerships and changes to familiar venues.
But local journalists are not free advertising either.
The fact that you have opened does not automatically guarantee an article.
You still need to think about why it matters to people in that area.
What would I do for a small independent restaurant with a limited budget?
If the restaurant were genuinely new, I would make as much as possible of that launch period because newness is an asset you only have once.
I would want professional photography before anything else goes out.
Not mobile-phone pictures taken quickly while the tables are being set up.
I want good photographs of the venue, food, drinks, founders and key people. Ideally there is enough variety that different publications have something they can use.
Then I would consider a proper preview or opening event.
Journalists should be invited, of course, but I would think more broadly about the people surrounding the business.
Depending on the venue and community, that could include local media, radio, influencers, schools or universities, community organisations, charities, recognisable local personalities and appropriate civic representatives.
The aim is not just one press article.
You are introducing the business to the community in which it needs to survive.
Press launches work best when the event itself is worth attending
A launch party should not simply be a crowded room where somebody has put out drinks and hopes the press arrive.
Give people a reason to come.
Make the food representative of what you actually do.
Allow them to meet the chef or founders.
Give journalists useful information.
Have professional images ready.
If there is an interesting story behind the business, make sure somebody can actually tell it.
A smaller, well-organised preview where journalists properly experience the venue can be much more useful than packing hundreds of people into a noisy room where nobody can ask a question.
Hospitality is experiential.
Let the media experience it.
Should you invite influencers as well as journalists?
They can both be useful, but they are not the same thing.
A journalist producing independent editorial coverage is operating in a different environment from an influencer creating paid, gifted or organically shared social content.
Both may help a hospitality launch.
Just do not confuse the two.
If somebody is being paid or receiving something under an arrangement that requires promotional content, that is not the same as independent earned editorial coverage.
A sensible launch can include different types of guests while understanding what each relationship actually is.
Are complimentary meals and hosted stays worth it?
Often, yes.
A journalist cannot properly describe some hospitality experiences without actually experiencing them.
If you want somebody to review your restaurant, it may be perfectly sensible to host them for a meal. A hotel review may reasonably require a stay.
There is usually a practical understanding about why the journalist is being hosted, but I would never translate that into a promise of a favourable review.
Publication policies vary, and the journalist and PR team should be clear about expectations before expensive arrangements are made.
If the business is paying for a major hosted trip, travel or accommodation, I would want everyone to be particularly clear about what is being proposed and what the journalist or publication can and cannot commit to.
If coverage is contractually guaranteed, controlled or paid for, it may be a commercial media arrangement rather than independent earned editorial and should be treated transparently.
Don't overspend simply because somebody is a journalist
Hospitality businesses are naturally generous.
That can occasionally get out of hand.
If I invite a journalist to review a restaurant, I want them to have a good and representative experience. A set menu or tasting menu can be a very sensible way to let them try several things.
I do not think the business needs to start opening expensive bottles of champagne and throwing everything it has at the table just because the guest works for a newspaper.
Be hospitable.
Be generous enough that they can actually experience what you offer.
But remember that your products cost money.
If the relationship develops, the coverage is valuable and you decide you would happily host that journalist again, you can always be more generous next time.
There is no prize for creating the most expensive press meal.
Sometimes hosting a journalist with no guaranteed article can still pay off
Years ago, we represented a 90s-themed brunch in London and invited contacts from Cosmopolitan.
They were upfront with me that they probably could not feature it. In fact, they told us they did not expect to have a home for it.
The client decided to host them anyway.
The thinking was simple: we liked the publication, we wanted to build the relationship and the marginal cost of extending some tickets was acceptable.
They came.
They enjoyed it.
And ultimately they did find space, resulting in a double-page feature.
I would not turn that into a rule that giving journalists free experiences eventually forces them to cover you. It absolutely does not.
The lesson is about judgement.
Sometimes there is value in giving the right journalist an experience without treating every plate of food as a transaction.
What photographs do hospitality journalists need?
Professional photography is exceedingly important.
For a restaurant, that normally means high-quality images of the food, venue, exterior where useful, interiors, drinks, chef and founders.
For a hotel, you are likely to need bedrooms, public areas, exterior shots, distinctive amenities, food and drink, relevant experiences and good destination imagery where appropriate.
Every image should accurately reflect what the customer will actually encounter.
Journalists also need practical information.
Captions should make sense.
Photography credits should be clear.
Menus and prices need to be current.
Opening hours should be accurate.
The address should not require detective work.
If booking is necessary, explain how.
If the article is about accessibility, the information needs to be reliable rather than vague.
Do not make journalists chase basic facts after you have asked them to cover the business.
How do you remain newsworthy after the opening?
Keep giving the media something worthwhile.
That could be a new seasonal menu.
A tasting experience.
A new chef.
A genuinely interesting cocktail.
An event.
A refurbishment.
A significant anniversary.
An unusual collaboration.
A community initiative.
Founder news.
Customer data.
A new location.
Or expertise from the people inside the business.
Fair PR's current hospitality offering reflects that broader approach, covering areas such as chef interviews, seasonal menus, hospitality expertise, local stories, events, founder visibility, customer stories and genuine business developments rather than treating hospitality PR as a one-off opening announcement.
The important word is genuine.
Creating new things does not mean creating pointless PR gimmicks.
It means remembering that a hospitality business changes constantly and identifying the changes audiences may actually find interesting.
Seasonal PR can be particularly useful
Hospitality follows the calendar naturally.
Christmas.
Valentine's Day.
Mother's Day.
Father's Day.
Summer.
Major sporting events.
School holidays.
Wedding season.
New Year's Eve.
Local festivals.
Those occasions create predictable editorial demand.
But preparation times vary.
A print magazine may be planning seasonal pages much earlier than a digital city guide. A local journalist may decide next week's restaurant feature at relatively short notice.
I would therefore avoid universal rules such as "always pitch Valentine's Day exactly eight weeks early".
Prepare the assets early enough that you are ready.
Then understand the publications you are approaching.
How should you approach hospitality journalists?
Make the opportunity immediately clear.
Do not begin with half a page explaining that the restaurant is passionate about creating unforgettable culinary experiences.
Tell the journalist what you have.
If it is a review invitation, say so.
If it is a new menu, explain what is genuinely different.
If it is a chef interview, establish the chef's credentials and what they can discuss.
If it is an event, explain the event.
If it is a hotel stay, tell them where it is, what the experience involves and what is actually being offered.
Then make the practical assets easy to obtain.
At Fair PR, our current hospitality work is built around proactive story development and targeted media outreach, with the wider Standard PR approach shaped around the things inside a business that have genuine editorial potential.
And as with our wider pitching approach, if a journalist ignores an initial cold pitch, I do not believe repeatedly chasing them with the same email is usually the answer.
Bring them something new.
What are the biggest hospitality PR mistakes?
The first is expecting journalists to care because you care.
The owner may be incredibly excited about a new menu. That does not automatically make it national news.
The second is relying entirely on reviews. Reviews can be valuable, but they are only one route. A chef, founder, event or broader hospitality story may create much more sustained visibility.
Poor photography is another huge problem. Hospitality is visual, and weak images make the journalist's job harder.
Businesses also sometimes treat hosted experiences as if they have purchased an article. That is the wrong mindset. Clarify expectations, understand the publication's process and respect editorial independence.
Another mistake is disappearing when the journalist actually needs somebody. If we position the chef as an expert and then every answer requires a week of internal approval, we lose many of the opportunities that make chef-led PR worthwhile.
Finally, do not assume that one good article should immediately fill the restaurant for six months.
PR can support awareness, credibility, search discovery, referrals and bookings, but customer behaviour has many influences.
How should a hospitality business judge whether PR is working?
Start with the media itself.
Are you appearing in publications that make sense for the business?
Are the stories relevant?
Are journalists engaging with the material?
Is your chef beginning to appear around the subjects you want them associated with?
Are people discovering the venue through coverage?
Then look at commercial indicators where you can genuinely measure them.
Website referral traffic can sometimes be tracked.
Event ticket sales may be directly observable.
Booking enquiries may mention an article.
Branded searches might change.
People may tell staff they read about the restaurant somewhere.
But attribution is rarely perfect.
Someone could see a newspaper article, follow the restaurant on Instagram, walk past the venue two weeks later and finally book because a friend recommends it.
Which thing "caused" the booking?
Probably several.
PR should therefore be judged intelligently rather than forcing every outcome into a neat last-click spreadsheet.
What have I learnt from promoting hospitality businesses?
Probably that hospitality businesses often have far more media potential than they realise, but not always in the way they originally expect.
They come to you asking for restaurant reviews.
You discover their chef is the strongest media asset.
They ask for a hotel feature.
You realise the destination or experience is the more interesting story.
They want publicity for an ordinary bar.
You create an event people genuinely want to attend.
They want to promote one founder.
You discover the story is actually about two sisters.
That is the fun of hospitality PR.
The business gives you the raw material, but you still have to think like the journalist.
What is new?
What is different?
Why now?
Who is interesting?
What can readers actually do with this?
Is there something useful here beyond the company wanting publicity?
When the answers are strong, hospitality can be a fantastic sector for PR because it combines people, place, experience, food, travel, culture and everyday life.
But you cannot simply open the doors and wait for the media to arrive.
You have to keep giving journalists a reason to walk through them.
Frequently asked questions
How do I get my restaurant featured in a newspaper?
Start by identifying what is genuinely newsworthy about it. That could be a new opening, unusual concept, founder or chef story, event, expertise, substantial business development or another timely angle. Then approach journalists who actually cover that type of story with clear information and strong imagery.
Can a small independent restaurant get national coverage?
Yes. The restaurant does not need to be part of a major chain, but there still needs to be sufficient national editorial relevance. Chef expertise, an unusual concept, founder storytelling and wider trends can sometimes be more useful than a conventional restaurant review.
Do journalists accept complimentary meals or hotel stays?
Some do and some publications have specific policies around hosted experiences. The arrangement should be clear in advance. A complimentary experience should not be treated as buying a positive review, and editorial independence still matters.
How do restaurants get reviewed by journalists?
Usually by having something sufficiently relevant for the journalist and publication, making a clear review opportunity available and providing the practical information needed to arrange the visit. Reviews cannot be guaranteed simply because an invitation has been sent.
Does a restaurant need a PR agency?
No. A restaurant can contact journalists itself. Professional support becomes useful where the business wants help identifying stronger angles, creating a sustained flow of stories, preparing media material and managing outreach over time.
Can a chef become a media expert?
Absolutely, where they have genuine professional expertise and can explain it clearly. Cooking techniques, food preparation, ingredients, equipment, food safety within the person's legitimate expertise and seasonal cooking can all create editorial opportunities.
How can a new café attract local press coverage?
Use the fact that it is new, but go deeper. Look at the founders, concept, local relevance, cultural story, community relationships and anything genuinely distinctive about the business. Professional photography and a well-planned launch or preview can help.
Can hotels get media coverage without being luxury properties?
Yes. Travel journalists may be interested in unusual experiences, destination relevance, design, history, activities or a distinctive story. Luxury is only one possible angle.
How long does hospitality PR take?
Some launch and event stories can generate interest quickly, while expert positioning and broader reputation building usually develop over time. There is no guaranteed timetable because journalists ultimately control editorial decisions.
Can earned media increase restaurant or hotel bookings?
It can contribute to awareness, discovery, credibility and customer interest, and some campaigns can produce measurable commercial activity. It should not be treated as a guarantee that a particular article will generate a fixed number of bookings or sales.
Could Your Restaurant or Hospitality Business Have a Story Worth Telling?
Fair Public Relations helps restaurants, chefs, hotels, cafés, venues and hospitality founders work out what journalists may genuinely find interesting about their businesses.
That might mean a launch or review opportunity. It might mean positioning your chef as an expert, developing an event journalists actually want to cover, telling the founder's story or finding new reasons for the media to talk about an established venue.
Our role is not to promise that every menu, event or restaurant will receive coverage.
It is to find the strongest genuine editorial opportunities inside the business and give relevant journalists a reason to care.
Written by Jordan Baker
Founder of Fair Public Relations and former UK national journalist
Jordan Baker is the founder of Fair Public Relations and a former UK national journalist with more than a decade of experience in PR and media relations. He writes about hospitality PR, restaurant publicity, chef positioning, event PR, journalist outreach and earned media strategy.
