What does a restaurant PR person actually do, and is one still worth paying for when a TikTok video from an influencer can fill a dining room overnight? In the first episode of Prep Talk, hospitality publicist Georgia Bateman walks through fifteen years in the job. PR works best when there is something real to point at, she argues.
Who is Georgia Bateman? The restaurant publicist from London to Bali
Georgia Bateman does restaurant PR. In her words, “restaurant marketing and PR, more PR.” She is from London, has been at it for about 15 years, and has worked across the UK, Australia, Spain and Bali.
Food came before the job. Her father was Michael Bateman, a British food writer who wrote for The Sunday Times and later The Independent on Sunday. She told us stories that PR companies sent food to the house every single day. Once, for a story on ice cream, the family had to buy a brand new freezer just to hold the samples. She only noticed how much that shaped her at university, when friends made curry from a jar of paste. She had grown up grinding spices.
She tried fashion PR first, when she said “it didn’t suit me at all”. Then she tried a gastropub kitchen, also where she finds herself producing just one sausage roll after a very long day. She was about to start at a cookery school in London when she saw a restaurant PR job advertised on Twitter. She applied, and got it. Every client was two Michelin stars or above. She calls it Michelin starred training in a tiny office.
Australia came next. She spent six months with a Sydney PR agency, then a visa change pushed her to a regional client, Harvest in Newrybar, near Byron Bay. Harvest worked with a local forager and ran guest chef dinners before most restaurants were doing them. The menu changed every few weeks around whatever was in season.
Then Bali. Before Covid, she wrote “I’d like a client in Bali” on a piece of paper. She swears that within an hour a journalist friend writing for Delicious magazine called and offered her one.
What does restaurant PR actually do for a restaurant
In short, a restaurant PR person finds the stories behind a venue and gets them in front of journalists and the right diners. The job also covers the venue’s reputation when things go wrong. That’s where it differs from marketing. As the US Chamber of Commerce puts it, marketing promotes your products while PR manages your image, mostly through coverage you didn’t pay for.
A PR person sits just outside the team. Staff can talk to her about things they wouldn’t raise internally. She reads what customers, journalists and reviews are saying, looks at the bigger picture, and gives constructive criticism. The other half of the job is digging out stories nobody thought to tell.
Her example is a hummus. A chef spends thirty years in kitchens and then decides this particular hummus goes on the menu. “This isn’t just hummus, this is 30 years of love,” she said. Her job is working out how to show that on camera and in writing, so diners know why it matters.
For owners, the useful part is this. Before you pay anyone to amplify your restaurant, find the dish with a story that nobody has told yet.
How to market a new restaurant in 30 days
I gave her a scenario. Best venue, best location, best team, opening in 30 days. What should the owner do?
Most guides on how to promote a new restaurant online jump straight to how to market a restaurant on social media. Georgia mentioned content first, but her real answer was local community. Get to know your neighbours and the restaurants next door. Do soft launches. Invite people to taste the menu before you open, ask for feedback, and actually listen to it, so the community feels part of the decision. Then make sure your staff make every guest feel at home. “And build from that.”
In Bali, where so much restaurant marketing chases tourists before they even land, this is a useful correction. Your first regulars live around the corner.
Should restaurants pay influencers, or hire PR
She refused to be mean about influencers. “There is value in it 100%,” she said. Her issue is shelf life. An influencer post often disappears within 24 hours. A feature in a publication stays online and helps your SEO. A mention in Vogue sits at the top of the pyramid, with a global circulation in the millions.
Plenty of restaurants pay influencers. Whether restaurants should pay influencers is where she gets careful. I asked about a venue paying 50 of them in a month, and she said it depends on the venue. A chef who has spent years building a restaurant probably wants an honest review and real feedback. A music venue trying to fill a room might sometimes need to pay for a crowd.
Does influencer marketing actually turn into sales? “I think that we have no idea. I think you can get more followers.” The people who influence her are chefs, food writers and travel writers. She would never put a beauty influencer in a restaurant. She also pointed out that some food creators in Asia have become serious voices and now vote for World’s 50 Best. Her verdict is case by case.
How to grow restaurant social media without sounding like ChatGPT
Most advice on how to grow restaurant social media starts with a schedule, and one question in particular: how often should a restaurant post on social media. Georgia didn’t talk about frequency at all. She talked about personality, and she loves silly. Her reason is sharper than you’d expect. ChatGPT, she said, has made everything uniform, with the same words everywhere: “deeply rooted, cuisine, gastronomy.” People want real personalities, bloopers included!
There are two conditions. The staff have to want to be in the videos, not be forced into them. And the content has to match who you are. “If the owner is silly, let them be silly.”
When I asked if silly content sells better than beautiful content, she wouldn’t pick. They reach completely different customers. If you post something silly, you still need to show how stunning the room is and how good the food looks.
How to respond to a bad restaurant review, with an example
Take it offline. Don’t be rude back. If you want an example of how to respond to a bad restaurant review, hers is short enough to copy: “I’m sorry you had this experience, we’d love to talk to you directly, can you please contact us.” Then leave it.
Arguing in public only escalates. Tripadvisor’s own guidance makes a similar case: keep it brief and professional, and don’t make excuses.
Is bad publicity still good publicity? She hesitated. Technically it’s still publicity, she said, but “it can make or break,” and she would rather never have any.. (which is relatable. Me too!)
How to increase restaurant sales with menu storytelling
Family recipes and a grandmother’s story are lovely, but the business still has to sell. Her advice is to point the story at your signature dishes and your more expensive dishes. People will spend more on a plate when they know its history, especially if they’ve seen it talked about in a few places.
Then there are snacks and sides, which used to be overlooked. People order one, then another, share, then order a few more. In Bali, where people eat out constantly and stay late, that slow build adds up.
Common restaurant marketing mistakes owners make
The first is stubbornness. Stick to who you are, but if something isn’t working, adapt. Listen to constructive criticism. The customer is always right, “but also sometimes they’re not.” And some customers, she added, “are actually evil.”
The second is following trends. Her Bali example is an ice cream shop opening and someone opening a gelato shop right next door. Do something different instead.
She also explained why chefs can come across as big egos. A chef puts their work on the table thousands of times a day, and diners can be flippant about it. Chefs are sensitive people. The ego is what lets them keep presenting the food and hearing complaints about the tiniest things.
Staying yourself pays off. She pointed to Cervejaria Ramiro in Lisbon, which still has queues around the block. She guessed it had been open 20 or 30 years. It has actually been going since the 1950s, which proves her point better. It never changed. And for any business, the real enemy isn’t controversy. It’s being forgettable.
Why the best restaurant marketing starts with the people
Georgia’s clients tend to be the venues people want to be seen in. When I asked if that was down to her, she joked that it was all her. Then she gave the real answer: she only works with people she loves. They are passionate about what they do, and nearly all of them have a sustainability side to the business. “If something comes from love, it exists as love. If something is just there as money making, it gets lost.”
This is a different picture of restaurant PR than most owners have. The job isn’t making a venue look good. It’s finding what’s already good about it and making sure people hear about it.
In simpler answer, restaurant marketing and PR is the work of getting the right people to hear about a venue, and making sure what they hear is true. Marketing is the part you pay for, like ads and promotions. PR is the part you earn, like press coverage and the reputation a venue builds over time.
You can find Georgia on Instagram at @georgiabateman and at georgiabateman.com.
Watch the full Prep Talk episode with Georgia Bateman on YouTube. [LINK]
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a restaurant PR person actually do?
A restaurant publicist sits just outside the team, reads what customers, journalists and reviews are saying, and gives honest feedback the staff might not raise internally. The other half of the job is finding stories nobody has told yet, like the hummus a chef spent thirty years arriving at, and working out how to show that on camera and in writing.
How do you market a new restaurant?
Georgia Bateman’s advice is to start local rather than chasing tourists. Get to know your neighbours and the restaurants next door, run soft launches where people taste the menu before you open, and actually listen to the feedback so the community feels part of it. Then build from your staff and how they make a guest feel at home.
Should restaurants pay influencers?
It depends on the venue, and Georgia won’t be dismissive about it. A chef who has spent years building a restaurant usually wants an honest review and real feedback, while a music venue trying to fill a room might sometimes need to pay for a crowd. Her bigger doubt is shelf life, since an influencer post can disappear in 24 hours while a published feature stays online and helps your SEO.
How should a restaurant respond to a bad review?
Take it offline and don’t be rude back. Georgia’s template is short: say you’re sorry they had this experience, that you’d love to talk directly, and ask them to contact you, then leave it. Arguing in public escalates, and those replies get screenshotted, so brief and professional beats making excuses.
Should restaurant social media be silly?
It can be, on two conditions: the staff have to actually want to be in the videos, and the content has to match who the venue is. Georgia likes silly because it cuts against the uniform, AI-flat language everywhere now, but a serious venue will attract serious diners, and even silly content still needs to show how good the room and the food look.
