I recently spoke to Jacqui Lim, owner of Jacqui’s Food Fetish. Qualified with a Masters in Gastronomy from Le Cordon Bleu/University of Adelaide, Jacqui has dined at ALL the Australian Gourmet Traveller Top 100 restaurants. The list keeps changing every year so she’s on a quest to keep up her perfect record. On the blog she shares her reviews of her favourite places and has amassed quite a following.
Jacqui’s been on her quest for years. It was when The Advertiser published a story about her favourite places to eat in Adelaide that friends encouraged her to capitalise on the exposure. One of the Top 100 restaurant owners encouraged her further by heaping praise on Jacqui’s photos and writing style and that is “what really pushed her to start the blog.” She says, “I was so nervous posting my first blog post!”
The blog started to take off when Jacqui linked her blog with Zomato and the blog gets a lot of traffic from her review there. Also, Gourmet Traveller mentioned her blog which generated “some more interest”.
She says that Adelaide is an important part of her blog as it’s “where I live and dine when I’m not travelling the country to do my Top 100’s”, but that the blog “covers restaurants around the country.” In terms of food bloggers in Adelaide, “there’s really only a smallish group of hardcore bloggers”, but “there are quite a few bloggers who only post from time to time.” Jacqui notes that the top ten blogger list on Zomato “doesn’t change much.”
How does Jacqui come up with articles?
When it comes to writing reviews, Jacqui warns that “it gets difficult…there are only so many words you can use to describe the place and the food.” She tends to stick to “places that have a bit of a story”. Jacqui goes to the heart of constructing the content of an article when she explains her process. “Generally I’ll talk a bit about the venue, the fit out, the owner, the chef and then talk about the food before a short summary”. Sometimes she’ll “tap out out a blog post quite quickly, other times it’s a bit of a chore” but she’ll write it “then run through it a few times and edit.”
What role does social media play?
She says “social media plays a HUGE role” in her blog and “always” post her latest blogs on Facebook. Instagram is big for her blog “in terms of becoming known in the scene as a credible food blogger”. Jacqui reckons its “so much easier than sitting down and writing a blog post”, she adds that she’s “somewhat obsessed with it as I try to increase my followers.”
Jacqui’s final observation is that “the quality of blogs and blogging is so varied.”
It’s been an amazing project to reach out to bloggers for their advice and views on where blogging is at…and get such amazing responses! Blogs are an amazing self-publishing tool and bloggers cover so many subjects! Some seem to rise and rise while others die off, some have rich detail and long histories. Others seem to take-off with next to no content. Rich in detail with a long history, Jacqui’s Food Fetish has great text and images and uses social media to great effect. It’s one to watch!
Next, I’ll be talking to Kimberley Reddy of NewMummaKim, click here!
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