A guide kept by curators
How we choose
Good is not the test
The test is whether a place is worth changing your route for, and nothing is unless there is nothing nearer that would do instead. So a mark says how far a place is worth going, not how good it is. Everything in the guide is exquisite. Only some of it is worth the detour.
- E
In the guide, which already means exquisite. Worth knowing about while you are in the city.
- X
Worth crossing the city for.
- Q
Worth building a day around.
- Z
Worth the trip on its own. A few a year, in any city.
The marks are the masthead, and the masthead is a short way of writing exquisite. E is the most-used letter in English, Z the least used, and the scale runs in that order.
Curators live in the cities they cover and were already the person their friends asked. They put places forward, editors decide what runs and how it is marked, and a place is measured against the rest of its city rather than against its own press. Most curators stay unnamed: one who gets recognised is one who gets looked after, and that ruins the question.
Masthead
Who makes it
- David Yoon
- Cherlyn Lee
- Curators
Get in touch
What we publish
Guides, entries, and articles
- Curated guides
A run of places held together by one idea: a city in a weekend, or one thread across several cities.
- Places and events
A single entry on its own terms. One room, one opening, one night worth planning around.
- Articles
Reporting on what is opening, what is being built, and the people behind it.
Exqz Guide, on iOS
All of it is free to read here, and all of it is in the app, arranged by city and put on a map.
Disclosure
What is and is not for sale
Exqz is funded by brand partnerships, and a partnership can only ever produce an article. Guides, places and events are not for sale: no budget has moved a place into the guide, up it, or out of it.
Articles say at the top how they were paid for. They appear in the app alongside everything else, never in the guide, which curators alone decide.