How Do People Search For Restaurants In Their Local Area on Google UK?
With the rise of the smartphone “near me”-type searches have been trending (even before the pandemic) “[in 2017 Google] …. noticed that smartphone users were dropping location qualifiers like ZIP codes and neighbourhoods from local searches. Why? Because they assume the results will be automatically relevant to their location thanks to their devices.” See
5 of the top 10 general "restaurant near me" (I've removed types of cuisine / food item-related) type-searches on Google in the UK contain (superlative) adjectives like "good" and "best" for which GOOG will ONLY incorporate listings on Google My Business (aka Maps) with a default review rating of 4 out of 5 minimum. Note that Google Map results are the most visible non-paid results for many searches with a local intent on GOOG. For all of these 5 searches it's also worth noting that tripadvisor.co.uk ranks 1st in the 10 "blue link" 'normal' search results .
"Zero-click searches", which rose to 65% in 2020, mean more users than ever are reading Google reviews directly from search results. )
Thus your online reputation on Google Maps is key for your visibility for these types of searches...
See https://www.google.com/search?q=good+restaurants+near+me
Note that Google is currently testing a new review display feature in their search results: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/brodieclark_seo-searchengineoptimization-google-activity-6948514887501238272-yXEG.