How our Halal Confidence Score works

Every restaurant on Halal Joints carries a score out of 10 and a plain-English label — something like 9.6 · Certified halal — HMC certified · no alcohol. This page explains exactly where that comes from, because a trust score you can't inspect isn't a trust score.

One question, one number

The Halal Confidence Score answers a single question: how confident can a Muslim diner be eating here? It does not measure how good the food is, how nice the room is, or how famous the chef is. A glamorous restaurant with unverified sourcing sits below a takeaway with a current certificate — on purpose.

(Great cooking still gets its due: our editors award a separate Rated Wonderful laurel for experience. It sits beside the score and never changes it.)

The ladder

Every restaurant sits on exactly one rung. The rung is decided by evidence — who vouches for the food, what they vouch for, and how recently.

Certified halal (9.3–9.8) — A current certificate from a recognised certification body: HMC or HFA in the UK, JAKIM in Malaysia, MUIS in Singapore, and so on. The certifier's name is always printed.

Naturally halal (9.0–9.2) — No meat on the menu at all. A fully vegetarian kitchen has nothing to certify.

Verified halal (8.0–8.9) — All meat halal, backed by documents: supplier letters, invoices, or a certificate displayed on premises — but no current third-party certification.

Confirmed halal (6.5–7.9) — All meat halal on the owner's word, given to us within the last two years. No documents yet.

Halal-friendly (5.8–6.4) — Only part of the menu is halal: the chicken, the beef, a specific cut. The label always says which. Check before ordering.

Ask before ordering (5.0–5.7) — Halal options on request, pork on the premises, or a confirmation that has gone stale. We tell you what we last knew and when.

Not yet verified — No number at all. If we haven't checked, we say so rather than guessing.

The decimals are earned, not styled

Within a rung, small verified facts nudge the score: no alcohol on the premises, separate preparation areas, community corroboration, a certifier that runs continuous unannounced monitoring. Each one is worth a tenth or two — and none of them can ever lift a restaurant into a higher rung. A 9 means certified or meat-free. Always.

Every score decomposes. 9.6 = 9.3 (certified) + 0.2 (Tier-A monitoring) + 0.1 (no alcohol). If you ever want to know why a number is what it is, the answer exists on paper.

Where the evidence comes from

A single restaurant's rung can draw on five kinds of sources: certification bodies (we check their published lists), owners (through a verified update link we send every quarter), our editors (visits and phone checks), diners (reports we review before recording), and community curators and other directories (only ever counted as supporting evidence — never enough on their own for a top rung).

Evidence ages. An owner confirmation older than two years stops holding a restaurant's rung, and the listing says so plainly: "Owner confirmed 2020 · due a re-check · ask before ordering." A lapsed certificate gets a short grace period, then the rung drops. Honesty about staleness is the whole point.

What we never do

We never rule on fiqh. Stunned versus non-stunned slaughter, madhab differences, whether alcohol service matters to you — these are between you and your standard. We record the facts (each certifier's published slaughter policy, whether alcohol is served, whether preparation is separated) and give you filters, so you apply your own bar. The score measures confidence in the evidence — not conformity to any one school.

We never sell a rung. Restaurants can't pay for a score. Owners improve their rung one way: better evidence — a certificate, supplier documents, a fresh confirmation.

Are you a restaurant owner?

If your listing is out of date, the fix takes two minutes: use the verified update link we send each quarter, or get in touch and we'll send you one. A current confirmation moves you up the ladder the moment we record it.

The ladder, its evidence rules, and each certifier's recognition tier are published and versioned. When they change, this page changes.