Registration phase

Restaurants and bars can register for the awards by paying a nominal participation fee. Registration stays open till 60 days before the food award event.

Nomination phase

From the list of registrants, the critic panel chooses nominees for the awards and sorts them into categories based on their cuisine/theme/speciality. 

There are two defined sub categories where the restaurants and bars compete. These are based on price points benchmarked for every city.

Restaurants and bars falling above the predefined price point compete in the Premium Dining and Luxurious Nightout category and ones falling below in the Casual Dining and Casual Nightout category.

The outlet needs to be rated 3.5 or above to be considered for the nominations.

Voting phase

The nominated outlets are all assigned a unique voting number and the outlet promotes the same to induce public voting for their outlets. This lasts a total of 20-30 days.

Winners decision

Each nominee is assigned the ratings by the critics based on a scale of 1-5 with a 0.25 gradient. The ratings are given for food, décor and service for restaurants and buzz, décor and service for bars.

Winners are generally chosen based on whichever outlet has the higher overall weighted average rating, derived from a combination of critic panel ratings and public voting.

Chef of the Year, Restaurant of the Year, Restaurateur of the Year, Nightlife Venue of the Year, Mixologist of the Year.

These are chosen from the winning list of restaurants and bars for that year.