> One practical problem I ran into early on is that Google Maps is surprisingly bad at categorising cuisines. A huge share of restaurants are labelled vaguely (“restaurant”, “cafe”, “meal takeaway”)

It's not only that; cuisines are also difficult to label as certain countries simple do not exist for Google when it comes to that.

I recall last year I wanted to change the type of "Alin Gaza Kitchen", my ex (closed now, unfortunately) fav. falafel place in Berlin from the non-descript "Middle-Eastern" to "Palaestinian" category.

I assumed this was available for any country/cuisine, like "German", "Italian" or "Israeli". But "Paleastinian" didn't exist as a category.

The vague categorisation is likely on purpose, done by the business owner thinking that it would attract more clients.

You can change it yourself and Google will accept it but if the owner is adamant they will change it back.

of course not. There is not such country after all.