US TV's warning over Angus Steakhouse lovebombing campaign

American TV broadcaster CBS has cottoned onto Londoners' attempts to keep tourists away from the capital's best restaurants - by sending them to Angus Steakhouses instead.

'They're playing a trick on us, people - don't fall for it,' said morning show host Tony Dokoupil about the ploy by locals to send tourists to the central London eateries - and keep them away from the 'real' hidden gems.

Tech-savvy Londoners have been exploiting the artificial intelligence technology now powering the world's biggest search engines to push the inoffensive - but pricey - neon-lit chain restaurants to the top of search results.

First started on Reddit in a complaint about Borough Market sandwich shop The Black Pig, the joke spread to TripAdvisor where reviewers left reviews claiming Angus offers 'the best steak sandwich in London'.

The gags built in number: Taylor Swift dined at Angus Steakhouse; it had been Freddie Mercury's favourite place to go; that a restaurant specialising in steak has a huge range of vegetarian options (it offers three main courses for veggies).

In theory, pranksters thought, if they mentioned Angus Steakhouse enough beside phrases like 'best hidden gem in London' and 'best steak in London', an unknowing visitor typing those phrases into Google would be directed to the tourist traps.

Nate Burleson, Dokoupil's co-host, added: 'They just think Americans are dumb, we're just going to follow all the leads online.'

The reasoning behind the joke isn't even that Angus Steakhouse is bad, necessarily. It is, as far as reviews go, distinctly average, if expensive - and that no native Londoner would ever be caught dead in one.

Comedian David Mitchell once said the eateries are 'are all that we have left of a proud heritage of serving shoe leather with Béarnaise sauce to neon-addled out-of-towners'.

But it hasn't stopped jokers from claiming to have been served a Desperate Dan-style 'cow pie' complete with horns poking out of the crust, or that 'for vegetarians... Angus Steakhouse is the best destination restaurant in London'.

'I just hope the tourists don't find out about it,' another commenter winked. 

Read More

Highgate locals slam Gen Z for overrunning charming cafe by posting about it on TikTok

Jim Waterson, author of newsletter London Centric, described it as 'just fine' in an article examining the lovebombing epidemic. 

Jay Rayner, the Observer restaurant critic set to move to the Financial Times, told the newsletter their locations gave them a reputation as 'a shorthand for where lazy people who can’t be bothered to walk 100 paces go'.

'If you did a little bit of research you could spend the same amount on something an awful lot better. But they’re not awful. There’s just better places to spend that money,' he said. 

Tourists who visited this week told the Times they wouldn't recommend a visit to Angus. One student noted that their burger 'tastes like it came out of the freezer', while a pair of Austrians glibly noted: 'You get a table, you get served.'

But has the attempt to direct people away from the Black Pig worked? MailOnline has contacted The Black Pig for comment.

Given that scores of people like its Instagram posts and identikit glossy videos of steak sandwiches continue popping up on TikTok, it doesn't look like the queues at Borough Market are getting any shorter.

And if the sites Redditors hoped to target with their pretend reviews of Angus Steakhouse are anything to go by, the answer to whether the joke has worked is a firm 'no'. 

Visitors to booking site OpenTable looking for the top steakhouses in London will find the Piccadilly Circus Angus Steakhouse recommended as the number one to visit over the likes of the Michelin-recommended Hawksmoor.

But typing 'best steak sandwich in London' into Google, for instance, brings up other restaurants, or articles about the Reddit joke - including reviews quickly written by news outlets to surf the viral news wave.

Websites have been caught out in the past - such as when online prankster Oobah Butler managed to get a restaurant to the top of TripAdvisor despite the fact it didn't exist.  

Angus Steakhouse doesn't even make the top 30 London steakhouses on TripAdvisor. The joke, it seems, might be over.

Not that Angus Steakhouse - a 60-year-old chain formerly known as Aberdeen Steakhouse - seems to care. 

It snapped up billboards to share the Reddit joke that it had the 'best steak sandwich in London', and is responding to what could be TripAdvisor lovebombs with genuine enthusiasm.

Paul Sarlas, chief executive of parent company the Noble Hospitality Group, said the restaurant chain was targeting younger people - hoping to use the Reddit campaign as a springboard to target Gen Z.

Read More

Britons are catfishing tourists by 'lovebombing' Angus Steakhouse with fake 5-star reviews to keep them away from London's best restaurants

'The whole scope for our marketing response to the campaign is to target the audience from 30 and under and encourage them to form their own opinions,' he told industry newsletter Propel.

The Noble Hospitality Group is ultimately controlled by businessman Philip Noble, who made his name in amusement arcades. 

He runs the company through a Russian nesting doll of holding companies from his home in Switzerland, according to company filings.

Day to day, Angus Steakhouse is run by 35-year-old William Noble, while the wider business runs Soho-based Japanese-Peruvian restaurant Chotto Matte and pizza chain Alley Cats.

It recently hired Jeremy Brown, the former boss of Gordon Ramsay's UK restaurants, to guide the business forward. 

There are just five Angus Steakhouses left after the pandemic but its owners say this is the 'start of a new era for the restaurants' that could include expansion.

Even more Angus Steakhouses in London? It might not be the ending the capital's Redditors had been hoping for.