Every restaurant, bar, shop, and thing to do on this site was picked by a person who knows New Haven. Here's exactly how a place earns a spot — and how it loses one.
How places get picked
We start with places we'd actually send a friend to. Candidates come from our own visits, reader tips, and watching what locals talk about — never from pitches or payments. A place makes a guide when it does something distinctly well: the food, the room, the value, or the role it plays in its neighborhood. Being new, loud, or heavily marketed isn't enough.
Nobody can pay their way in. Advertising and sponsorships are sold separately, labeled clearly, and have no bearing on who appears in a guide or where they rank — see our editorial policy for the full rules.
How we review
Recommendations are grounded in real visits and local knowledge, not aggregated star ratings. We cross-check the practical details — hours, menus, prices, addresses — against each venue's own website and recent local coverage. Where a listing shows a “Last verified” date, that's when an editor last confirmed those details directly. Guides get revisited on a rolling basis; when a spot closes, changes hands, or slips, it comes out.
Editorial standards
We write what we'd tell a friend: specific, honest, and about New Haven — not filler. We don't accept free meals or comps in exchange for coverage, we disclose relationships when they exist, and reader submissions are reviewed by an editor before anything is published. Ranked lists reflect our judgment, and we're comfortable being disagreed with.
How we use AI
We use software — including AI tools — to gather event data, watch local news for openings and closings, and produce first drafts of roundups. Every AI-assisted draft is reviewed, fact-checked, and edited by a human before it's published. The picks themselves — which places make a guide and what we say about them — are human decisions.
Corrections
When we get something wrong — an address, a closing, a price — we fix the page as soon as we know, rather than letting the error stand. If you spot a mistake, email supnewhaven@gmail.comand we'll sort it out.
Who's behind this
Meet the team on our authors page, or read the broader editorial policy covering news aggregation, event listings, and reader contributions.