Privacy Policy

Meat Hause™ is an independent publication of New York steakhouse reviews, written and scored by a private group of diners we call the Council. We are not affiliated with the restaurants we review. This policy explains what information the site handles, why, and the choices you have.

Questions or requests about your information: email thecouncil@meathause.com.

Messages to that address reach the people who run Meat Hause, and we answer from there. We use what you send only to reply and to handle your request.

You can read every review without an account, and we don't ask who you are. Like any website, the servers that deliver Meat Hause receive standard technical details with each request, such as your IP address, browser type, the page requested and the referring page. The site is built and hosted on Lovable, and its backend runs on Lovable Cloud; those details are used to deliver, secure and troubleshoot the site.

A few things load from other services as you browse: our typefaces come from Google Fonts, so your browser requests them from Google; the map on The Index loads map tiles from OpenStreetMap when you scroll to it. Those services receive your IP address and browser details as part of serving the file.

Our public pages, including reviews and Council member profiles that members have agreed to publish, can be found through search engines such as Google and Bing. Sign-in, member and newsletter confirmation pages ask search engines not to list them.

What runs today. The only analytics on Meat Hause is Lovable's built-in visitor analytics. It gives us aggregate counts of visits and page views, how long visits last, referring sites, countries, device types and page-load timing. It uses no cookies and stores nothing in your browser; each visit gets a temporary random identifier that is discarded when the visit ends.

Google Analytics is not active. Google Analytics is not installed on Meat Hause, so it sets no cookies and Google receives no analytics data from this site. We may add Google Analytics 4 later to learn which pages and features readers use. If we do, we will update this policy and the date at the top before it starts, and explain the choices you have; where your permission is needed, we will ask for it before any Google Analytics cookie is set.

What Google Analytics would involve. If it is turned on, Google Analytics sets first-party cookies on this site, named _ga and _ga_ followed by an ID, to tell repeat visits from the same browser apart. It sends Google information such as the pages you view, actions like following a link, your browser and device type, the referring page and an approximate location worked out from your IP address. Google processes that information to provide the analytics service to us. Google explains its cookies in Google Analytics cookie usage, and how it uses information from sites that use its services in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services and the Google Privacy Policy.

Your options. Whatever we use, you can block or delete cookies in your browser's settings or browse in a private window. Google also offers the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on for browsers that support it. Questions about analytics: email thecouncil@meathause.com.

Meat Hause sets no advertising, tracking or analytics cookies today, and we don't run advertising trackers or sell information to anyone. Our visitor analytics works without cookies. If we add Google Analytics, it would set the cookies described under Analytics, and this page would say so before it starts.

If you are a Council member and sign in, your browser keeps your sign-in session in its local storage so you stay signed in. Signing out removes it.

Reviews link to restaurant websites, booking services (such as OpenTable, SevenRooms and Resy) and Google Maps. When you follow a restaurant website or booking link, it carries a short tag naming Meat Hause as the referrer and the page you came from; it contains nothing about you. Once you leave Meat Hause, that site's own privacy policy applies. We never see what you book.

The Next Cut is our email list for new reviews. Joining is double opt-in: after you enter your address we send one confirmation email, and you are subscribed only after you confirm. Unconfirmed requests receive nothing further.

We store your email address, where you signed up (for example the footer or a review page), the consent wording you agreed to and its version, and when you asked to join, confirmed or unsubscribed. We don't ask for your name. To limit abuse we also keep records of sign-up attempts, stored as one-way codes rather than your email address or IP address.

Confirmation and welcome emails are sent through Lovable's email service. Once you confirm, your address and subscription status are also shared with Brevo, the email service we use to manage the list and deliver the newsletter; Brevo tells us about unsubscribes and delivery problems such as bounces so we stop emailing that address.

Newsletter issues are delivered by Brevo. Like most email services, Brevo can record whether an email was opened and which of its links were clicked. Links to our reviews in the newsletter also carry a short tag naming the newsletter as the source; the tag contains nothing about you. We use this to see which reviews readers open and to fix delivery problems.

Every newsletter email includes an unsubscribe link. Unsubscribing takes effect on our list straight away. We keep a record that you unsubscribed so we don't email you again; joining later needs a fresh confirmation.

Council accounts are private and by invitation only; there is no public sign-up. Members sign in with a link sent to their email address. For each member we keep the account email address, an access role, profile details they choose to add, and what they contribute: dinner scorecards, written and recorded dinner notes (with transcripts), photos and audio.

Member scorecards are combined into the published Council scores. A member's codename, short bio or portrait appears publicly only after the member has agreed and an administrator has approved it, and members can withdraw that agreement from their profile. Email addresses are never shown publicly or to other members.

Photos and recordings that members upload stay private until an editor approves them. The notice shown above every upload button explains the license a member grants Meat Hause; members keep ownership of what they upload. Recognizable people are never published without a separate check, and published photos are copied without the hidden file details (such as location data) that phones add.

If you appear in a photo or recording on Meat Hause and want it removed, or you believe something we published uses your work without permission, email thecouncil@meathause.com and tell us the page. We will review it and remove it from the site where appropriate. Copies already saved by browsers, search engines or other sites can take longer to disappear and are outside our control.

Only the people who run Meat Hause can see newsletter records and private member data. Our service providers (Lovable for hosting, the backend, email delivery and visitor analytics, and Brevo for the newsletter) process it on our behalf to run those services. We don't sell or rent personal information, and we don't share it for advertising.

Newsletter records are kept while you are subscribed; after you unsubscribe we keep the record of that choice so it can be honored. Council records are kept as part of the publication's scoring history, unless a member withdraws a contribution as described above. Technical logs held by our hosting providers follow those providers' own schedules.

You can unsubscribe from The Next Cut at any time. You can also ask us what newsletter or member information we hold about you, or ask us to correct or delete it: email thecouncil@meathause.com. Council members can manage their profile, public consent and uploads after signing in.

Meat Hause is written for adults. It is not directed at children, and we don't knowingly collect information from them.

If how the site handles information changes, we will update this page and the date at the top. Read alongside our Terms of Use.