There's a demand for quality information about a place.
Professional critics may help with that, but they could suck at that, too. It's pretty common for them to echo common thought so they don't get considered a moron by the community of professional critics.
If you want to run a business that is professional criticism, my feedback to you is that while I'm in the market for quality information (so I pay the WSJ and the Economist), I won't pay for what you're talking about.
I would probably pay for a timely recommendation from a friend at 100x what I'd pay for a professional opinion. Maybe I'd pay like 5 cents for a professional opinion. Hope that helps.
I remember before online reviews were a thing, tv shows would make fun of how consistently out-of-touch critics were. Particularly those who who judge film or food.
I mean because a lot of critics were hopelessly out of touch. I don't fault them because they were part of a community that rewarded that behavior but evaluating a restaurant like it's an interactive art exhibit didn't help anyone except foodies find cool places to eat.
There was absolutely zero chance that a restaurant that made spectacular food but didn't do anything novel would even be on their radar.
As if, all problems can't be solved by building websites connected to databases.
Strange.