Independence
Newcastle Eats has been running since 2011 and although I’ve had a mixed conscience on Sponsored content, it has always been editorially independent. No restaurant, PR company, or advertiser has ever had control over a single word or image, published here.
That’s not going to change.
Reviews and press meals
An overwhelming level of content on this site is from restaurants that are paid for out of my own pocket. I happily decline the majority of press meal invitations I receive.
‘Back in the day’ of blogging, it was all the rage to try and cover everywhere all the time. If you go back far enough, you’ll see posts from places I wish I hadn’t. And some fun ones, where I said what I wanted to. Things have changed, the furore around authenticity and sponsored content is very different now, and I’d like to think I stand on the right side of the fence. Please do challenge me.
On the rare occasion I do accept a hosted meal, it tends to be somewhere I’ve visited before independently, or plan to revisit, or I otherwise already know is good. Value for money is a huge topic at the moment, and will be assessed. The review is written the same way it would be regardless.
Of course, complete objectivity when you haven’t paid is impossible. I don’t pretend otherwise. What I can say is that I take it very seriously, and I wouldn’t publish anything I didn’t stand behind. I have removed swathes of content from this site that was old and I felt didn’t reflect my values.
Sponsored content
Sponsored posts are rare. I count two in the last four years.
There’s no programme, no rate card, no inbox full of pitches I’m working through. If you’ve come here looking for that, you might be best off with the usual social content creators in Newcastle.
The very occasional exception exists for two reasons: I’m approached by somewhere I’d already recommend independently, or by a charity/not-for-profit/otherwise feel good business is doing something genuinely worth writing about. I’m not going to post the usual non-opinion, might as well have been written by AI, you know nothing about food guff that blights social media. I feel very strongly about that.
Any sponsored post is clearly labelled like this at the top of the article.
Advertising
Display advertising runs on this site. Advertisers on this platform have zero sight of editorial content, and no influence over it at all. It’s hands-off.
The display ads are here for a straightforward reason: eating out is no longer a cheap activity, and neither is running a website. Display ads help cover both — the meals that end up as content here, and the roughly £300 a year it costs just to keep the site running. The goal is to stay as independent as possible, and this is how that gets funded.
For full details on how advertising cookies work on this site, see the privacy policy. It’s usual stuff, nothing nefarious.
What gets covered
There’s no formal commissioning process here. I cover places I think readers will find interesting — that’s genuinely the whole criteria. Newcastle Eats leans heavily towards independents over chains. If you want coverage of chain restaurants — go check out your favourite ‘content creator’. I’m not here for that. There are some OK chains nowadays, to be fair.
I also won’t cover somewhere if I have concerns about the values or conduct of the people running it. That’s a judgement call, and I reserve the right to make it. It is a complex area — Noma is currently taking a beating in the press as I write this in March 2026, for example — but I’d love to chat about it.
Keeping content up to date
Newcastle Eats is a hobby, run by me and me only. I do my best to revisit and update older reviews when things change — menus, ownership, closures — but I can’t guarantee every article reflects the current situation at a restaurant. I’m trying.
If you spot something that’s out of date or no longer accurate, please get in touch — it’s genuinely helpful and I’ll get it sorted.
Questions?
If you have any questions about any of this, don’t hesitate to contact me and I actually love chatting about it.