Le Nouveau Duluth, a crowd favorite restaurant in Montreal, was causing a sensation on Tripadvisor but it’s nowhere to be seen on the streets. In reality, it’s actually a ghost restaurant with people singing praises online, even though it’s nowhere near being within reach to grab a bite.
Yoo Jung has a flower shop called Le Spot St-Denis, at the corner of Duluth Avenue and St-Denis Street for 22 years. According to the information on Tripadvisor, Le Nouveau Duluth, her flower shop is beside the top-rated restaurant and she had no idea about it. Jung isn’t new to the area but she was still stumped when directing the lost tourists toward the trending dining spot.
“But Nouveau Duluth? No,” she said and the listing sent off alarm bells to her. “There’s a very high ceiling [in the photos],” she said. “On Duluth, there are no high ceilings… it looks fake.”
The restaurant that held the number one position in the travel platform’s ratings doesn’t exist. People heading to this restaurant on an empty stomach will return with an unsatisfied appetite along with a vain search.
The page was removed after CBC reached out to Tripadvisor regarding the misleading information. The travel site replied saying that fake restaurant listings are “uncommon occurrences and do not share the characteristics of genuine instances of fraud.”
“On this occasion, a failure in human moderation practices meant the fake listing remained live on the platform longer than it should have. The listings — including the reviews and photos associated with the listing — are now inactive.”
Prior to being taken down, the restaurant had 85 reviews with all of them giving five stars. The top review was called “Can’t believe this place really exists.”
One of the photos featured the comedian Charles Deschamps, whose name is linked to the restaurant’s listed phone number. Deschamps has since confirmed he created the restaurant with one of his colleagues as a prank. He believes that reviewing platforms like Tripadvisor are not reliable places to gain recommendations. Deschamps will keep the pages going for content to entertain his comedy-driven audience.
“I received one call a month to book,” Deschamps told Radio-Canada. “I said we were full for the next two months. When people would ask for the menu, I would respond with ‘we make tapas!'”
Deschamps said he had to take the geolocation tag off the website after someone showed up at his friend’s house.
Since the goal of the platform isn’t to make new friends, take the recommendations with a grain of salt. Instead of a business owner, you could have a comedian on the other end looking to use you as inspirational content to gain a few laughs.