Who’s paying for fake five-star reviews of The Ritz?

Plus: Scroll down for your chance to live in Boris Johnson's campaign headquarters.

Illustration by Carly A-F commissioned by London Centric

Welcome to London Centric, where over the last few months we’ve spent a large amount of time looking into some of the capital’s more questionable business practices. There’s been the scammers and illegal ice cream vans of Westminster Bridge, as well as the activities of the capital’s unofficial Harry Potter shops.

This weekend’s London scam story is a particularly weird one because, on the face of it, it makes little sense: Someone is paying people to write fake five-star reviews of the capital’s best restaurants, including the Ritz – the pinnacle of London’s high-end dining scene – even though the restaurants insist they’re not involved. After weeks in some of the stranger corners of the internet, we think we’ve solved the riddle of what’s going on. Paying subscribers (free trials are available, or join now for 25% off) can find out below.

Scroll down to read all about it — or first enjoy some London Centric bits.

---

---

The London cinema group having trouble keeping its screens open.

Exclusive: Really Local Group, a company which operates cinemas and cultural venues in unusual locations across the capital, remains of interest to London Centric. Their cinemas are sometimes backed by government funds designed to regenerate dying suburban high streets and tend to be loved by their customers. But the venues also have a habit of running up substantial debts then going bust.

In October Really Local Group’s Catford Mews cinema closed following a rent dispute with Lewisham council, while financial issues have also affected the company’s other sites in Ealing and Peckham.

Now they have another venue teetering on the edge. Over Christmas London Centric noticed that Really Local Group’s Sidcup Storyteller cinema in south east London is facing a winding-up petition due to debts it owes to a short-term loan company. The three screen Sidcup Storyteller operates in an architecturally-praised building which only opened in 2023, funded by millions of pounds of regeneration cash from the local council and the mayor of London.

A Bexley council spokesperson confirmed the local arm of Really Local Group is now expected to be liquidated: “This is clearly very concerning news, not least as the cinema and café are already proving very popular additions to the town and its economy. The council will be doing all it can to keep the site trading and will update as soon as there is further news.”

Really Local Group is run by self-described “founder and visionary” Preston Benson, an American accountant who previously worked for Deloitte. The company promised to get in touch with London Centric next week to set out its position. Financial trouble at four London venues in six months (plus another site in Reading) is starting to look like a pattern.

---

Preposterous London property of the week.

While browsing Rightmove, London Centric’s eye was caught by this recently-reduced 10-bedroom property on Great College Street in Westminster, just opposite parliament.

The Georgian house has just had its list price cut to a mere £9.5m after more than a year on the market. Recognise it from the news? It’s owned by shadow cabinet member Andrew Griffith, who lent it to Boris Johnson as the HQ for his successful 2019 Tory leadership campaign. Sadly, the subsequent economic flatlining means Griffith is struggling to sell.

---

A Rash decision.

Exclusive: What’s the future of the £200m-a-year holiday activities and food programme? It was funded by the Conservative government during the pandemic amid enormous pressure from Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford and Labour politicians.

The nationwide scheme has helped hundreds of thousands of London children from the poorest backgrounds by providing them with free meals and activities in a bid to alleviate poverty.

Now, the capital’s councils are preparing for the possibility that the new Labour government might not continue to fund the programme when the current three year funding settlement runs out at the end of March. A letter from Southwark council to youth service providers seen by London Centric states there is “currently no indication from central government” that more money will be made available. As a result, Southwark has decided to pre-emptively step in and declare it will fund the programme for local children during summer 2025 if necessary.

A Department for Education spokesperson could not confirm whether central government will maintain funding for the holiday activities and food programme because all departmental spending is currently part of chancellor Rachel Reeves’ ongoing spending review. This is due to finish in the spring, amid increasingly tight public finances. If central government does pull the plug then other London councils — and local authorities across the country — could choose to cut back on holiday food provision for their poorest children.

---

London Centric investigates: Who’s behind the fake, glowing, reviews of London’s most expensive restaurants?

The Ritz, located in the heart of London, is one of the best-known hotels in the world and a byword for high-end luxury experience. Staying in one of its five-star suites — such as the Trafalgar, made famous in the film Notting Hill — will set you back £3,889 a night. Alternatively, you could dine at the Ritz’s on-site Michelin-starred restaurant where for £170 a waiter will serve you Dover Sole with “Sentiments of the Sea” from a trolley beside your table. The hotel’s most recent accounts show that the venue, which is now owned by a Qatari investor after wrestling it from the control of the Telegraph-owning Barclay Brothers, had a turnover of £36m in 2022.

It seems strange, therefore, that someone, somewhere is paying people a few quid at a time to leave universally glowing five-star reviews of the Ritz on services such as Google Maps. This is a tactic more usually associated with a downmarket restaurant trying to shake off a reputation for a mice infestation.

As a result the flood of fake reviews on the Ritz’s Google listing has been the subject of gossip and bafflement among London restaurateurs for some months. But London Centric has discovered evidence suggesting the reviews are likely to be part of a coordinated effort funded by someone on the other side of the world.

The Ritz itself did not respond to a request for comment. But London Centric believes we’ve cracked what’s going on, and that the bizarre scheme takes in other Michelin-starred restaurants across London — in an extraordinary tale that stretches from the capital’s lucrative luxury dining market to forced labour camps on the borders of Cambodia and Myanmar.