Star allocation

1. Food – This is a very dense star and to many reviewers the most important one. Let your palate, not your heart, be your guide.

2. Service – Typically considered the next most important star. Loss of this star can affect the food star, dimming it by as much as half. When this star is in ascendance, it can brighten the Food Star by a magnitude of as much as one fourth.

3. Ambience – pronounced am-bee-ents except by Francophiles who pass ahm-bee-awns through the nose. Noise, the wrong music, jarring colors, and let’s not forget flies, can seriously compromise this star.

4. Mood – the fickle mood star. Almost impossible to see with the naked eye. The Fourth Star, as it is sometimes known, is usually awarded fractionally. Some reviewers include presentation in this star’s jurisdiction. Beware its 50 percent intensity when matched with three perfect preceding stars.*
 
How to award stars

We can’t possibly cover all variations here because we are not being paid. However, some elementary rules of thumb:
 
- The Food Star must be awarded with great care. Simply good food is worth half a star. Three-quarters star may be awarded when dishes are consistently excellent examples of good food. A full star may be awarded only to surprisingly good food, perfectly prepared good food, or free food.
 
- The Service Star: Half a service star is awarded competent service that renders one’s order as placed. Three-quarters goes to the attentive but not intrusive server who recommends the right wine and steers you to a better dish that happens to be less expensive. A full star goes to the empath who makes you feel like a star. The service star is easily eclipsed when a server fails to write down one’s order and then gets something wrong. Conversely, add one-eighth magnitude for flourish if the server goes by memory and gets everything perfectly right.
 
- Ambience: Award half a star to a decently appointed dining area; three-quarters if they get the music, spacing and decor right; a full star if you want to move in.
 
- Mood: All the leftover little things apply here, including your mood. If you come in crabby and depressed but leave revived by your world made, however momentarily, right, award a full star. Conversely, no restaurant, no matter how perfectly it comports itself in every other detail, may be awarded a full mood star if it allows a guest to enter wearing flip-flops.
 
* The EL Supernova – aka the 3½ Kiss-of-Death Star. Awarded a restaurant that has everything but good luck.
 
(STW star rating photo by Roger Kirby/Courtesy Stock Xchng. Note: Judging by her expression the woman with the wine glass will give this meal a 2½-star rating. While the chef is serving a wonderful meal, it's not what she ordered, the wine glasses are wrong and the candlesticks are heinous. Her dinner companion, her fiance, has just informed her he's sold the Jag to help pay off gambling debts. Theoretically that last fact should not affect the review, but it will.)

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