This study explores the role of language style in the perceived quality of online reviews. Drawing from research in psychology and sociology, we posit that language style matching (LSM) of a review—the degree to which the language style of a review matches the language style of intended customers—directly influences the perceived quality of the review. We also propose that LSM should matter more when processing fluency is greatly needed such as when customers learn about new products and process complicated product information. Using restaurant reviews from Yelp, we calculate the LSM score for every review to measure the distance between the language style of the focal review and the typical language style of the restaurant's intended customers. We find that LSM has a significant and positive effect on the number of useful votes received by a review. In addition, the effect of LSM is more pronounced for less familiar restaurants and for more complicated reviews. We discuss the implications of these findings for online review platforms, restaurant managers, and online review writers and close by identifying several opportunities for further research. •Yelp review data indicates that the perceived quality of a review is impacted by the degree the review's language style matches that of the intended customer.•The magnitude of the LSM effect critically depends on the restaurant and review characteristics.•LSM's effect is more pronounced for reviews on less familiar restaurants like those mainly attracting travelers and non-chain restaurants.•LSM also matters more for complex reviews that require a higher education level to comprehend and reviews that use many informal words.