Restaurantor.com
Meet the contributor

Tessa Rowan

Restaurantor contributor

Tessa Rowan covers restaurants in the states of Virginia and North Carolina and Washington, D.C., for Restaurantor. However, her specialty is not only the choice of restaurants per se but rather the reasons for which these particular establishments deserve customers' trust. In fact, she analyzes the entire dining experience, including booking, atmosphere, service, food, and even minor things that influence one’s decision to come again.

1 Published guide
From this contributor

Latest guides by Tessa Rowan

Browse restaurant guides, dining recommendations, and local food stories researched and written by Tessa Rowan.

1 guide

Dining Is About the Occasion

Tessa’s approach to the research of restaurants is colored by her love of tourism, communications, and hospitality, which allows her to go beyond such basic criteria as “it was good / it was bad.”

It is possible that a noisy brunch restaurant may be ideal for your friends but inappropriate for a business lunch. A fancy dining room will be suitable for your wedding anniversary, while it will be too much for a casual weekday dinner. Tessa takes these factors into consideration, as any good restaurant recommendation must be provided in context.

Her strengths lie in the sphere of Southern cuisine, brunch, fine dining, independent restaurants, and those providing a high level of hospitality.

Where She Works

Tessa covers areas ranging from Richmond and Virginia Beach to Raleigh, Charlotte, Durham, and Washington, D.C., dining. In addition to major cities and neighborhoods, Tessa looks for local spots that might not necessarily get as much national attention as their culinary offerings deserve.

For each guide, Tessa analyzes menus and prices, trends in service, customer opinions and reviews, ambiance, accessibility, and common strengths and weaknesses. Personal observations are used where available, but no restaurant is mentioned to be personally experienced by Tessa unless that was actually the case.

Her Standard for a Recommendation

Tessa poses an important question for her research: Is this a restaurant worth visiting for the reader?

This question guides all of Tessa’s efforts at Restaurantor. In lieu of following the hype, Tessa focuses on those restaurants that fit their audience and are worth choosing.