POWERHOUSE ARENA in Dumbo (Brooklyn) hosts the launch party for the new Zagat Guide on December 11 at 7pm.
Can one find out from Zagat the longevity or life expectancy of the New York or other listed restaurants? This would depend on whether the years of opening were listed. On the Web one finds seven New York restaurants dating from the 1700-1800's, but only one in Chicago, the oldest as of 1898.
Given a total number of restaurants in New York City of 26,642, the oldest 7/26,642 indicate a rather short restaurant life expectancy.
It is clear that Zagat voters and NYT Restaurant Critic Pete Wells aren't eating at the same Peter Luger's restaurant.
I will side with Mr. Wells.
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Just in time for Christmas! Now I'll know where I can go to get unreasonably over-priced designer food, you know the kind, where you get and over-sized plate painted with colorful squiggles and a bit of food in the middle which has a sprig of something unsmokable sticking out of it.
And when you're done you go a grab a couple of slices on the way home 'cause you're still hungry.
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Except that nobody cares about a paper guide anymore. Reviews are all about apps and the internet now, especially for restaurants. The Instagram generation wants instant info. They don't want a collection of opinions that were gathered over a year ago.
Many of us foodies are tired of common-man opinion. Reviews from the TripAdvisor set are USELESS.
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@ Tara United States
Here is a list of about 16 to start with:
https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/illinois/chicago/best-restaurants-2018-chicago/
In Evanston, I recommend a seafood restaurant "Oceanique", there a long time, and their food is superb. When they opened, I thought that if they cannot spell the French name right (Océanique), they cannot cook either. I was pleasantly disabused of this fear.
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@Tuvw Xyz Thank You, will be trying Oceanique next time i am up North! Will also be checking out the attached list :)
One has to wonder if the folks at Zagat bothered to reassess their opinion and standing of Peter Luger Steak House, especially in light of a very recent, and far less than stellar, NYT review of the once great steak house.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/dining/peter-luger-review-pete-wells.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/dining/peter-luger-review-pete-wells.html
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Memories of things past--I was involved in constructing captions for another city's Zagat guide 15 or so years ago. It was Twitter before it existed. Weaving together the often hilarious quotes from the survey respondents was more art than science, especially for polarizing establishments. Unless the numbers were quite low, the tendency to prop up the entrenched and staid was more than obvious, but I think many a consumer of the product knew to take that aspect with a grain of salt. I wonder who writes those little nuggets today...
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While I’m just as nostalgic about the original Zagat guide, its heyday was a long time ago. Nowadays such a guidebook is anachronistic at best, and given how quickly things change inside of a year, with closings and openings, useless at best.
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Let's see. We have a base of 12,000 reviewers for Zagat's and a base of one reviewer for the New York Times. In the opinion of that portion of the 12,000 reviewers who eat there, Peter Luger Steak House is one of the three top favorite restaurants in all of New York, and consequently certainly its favorite steak house, while the one Times reviewer who eats there vilifies that same restaurant and awards it not even a single Times star. Whose opinion would go by?
@Joe Pearce
The Times reviewer.
Peter Luger Steakhouses are living off their past glory.
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Per Zagat, Peter Luger's is one of the top three restaurants. Um, wasn't it just ripped in an NYT review?
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"The three most popular restaurants — that is, the places the surveyors named their favorites: Le Bernardin, Gramercy Tavern and Peter Luger Steak House — were also the same as in the 2017 guide."
Didn't Peter Luger fare very poorly in a recent review in the NYT? And then the many commenters who agreed with the review.
I guess many surveyors just follow the name, even if the restaurant has lost its mojo.
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Just lost any trust I may’ve had in ZagAt’s. I prefer Michelline 1-Star restaurants. To any others.
While I'm "delighted" to see the return of this "essential guide" to the "best and worst" restaurants, I wish they'd "finally do away with" all those "excessive" quotation marks.
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Cool!
will get mine
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Would anyone please compare Zagat with Guide Michelin? This for the readers' general benefit, as I am not a great believer in restaurant guides. I tend to trust more the writers of the NYT Food Section.
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I once used used this to find the best lobster restaurants in the NYC area. Its top 2 or 3 recommendations had been closed down for a few years. A friend and I went to a NJ town where the "best" of these was located. We asked for help locating it from a cop, who said the restaurant had been closed for a few years.
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@ Paul O NYC
If you are still looking "for the best lobster restaurant", there was a review by Frances Fabricant of TAK room, in something possibly called "Hudson Yards", where they allegedly serve real lobster thermidor.
@Tuvw Xyz
Thanks for this. That was years ago, and I'm no longer looking. The price has probably quintupled since then.
This will make an excellent Christmas gift.
Yelp is overrated.
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@ Pat M
Did you know that for yelp, owners have to pay or they lose their ratings...
Yay! I can’t stand that Yelp requires signing on to the app to see reviews, etc., and have found them particularly unreliable in its comments and ratings. Like too many people who have never been to Venice, and think Vegas’s Venetian is the best.... LOL!
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I love the Zagat and have not found any online restaurant review sites that are anywhere as well organized and comprehensive as that iconic book. For years, all my mother ever wanted from me for the holidays was the new Zagat. It’s been hard to find anything she loves as much since it disappeared. This Hanukkah, she’s going to be thrilled!
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Hopefully it’s delivered alongside a print version of the Yellow Pages.
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'Pocket-sized'? Only seriously dorky cargo pants wearers would consider this 'pocket-sized'.
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Their best - Peter Luger.
Ironic.
One man's meat...
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Fun to read? Yes, but past its usefulness. Open Table and Yelp! have become the de facto source when researching and booking a table. Those ratings are as close to real-time as one can get.
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Like the dinosaur, this won’t last. Twenty-five years ago, Zagat ruled the earth, but Trip Advisor, Yelp, and Open Table are instantly available, constantly updated, on my phone, and at no charge.
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@Kayemtee TA, Y, and OT have their purpose, but so does Zagat. Think of the online sites as a map of a museum, while Zagat is a veteran tour guide.
Welcome news to New Yorkers and gastrotourists heading there! The latest Zagat online reviews of Chicago eateries are from mid-2018. In them, more attention is given to their decor and appointments than to the food. From the reviews in Food Section, I have a short list of restaurants in Manhattan yet to visit, but in Greater Chicago, I can count on tbe fingers of one hand the restaurants that I like.
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@Tuvw Xyz Hello, I would love to know the restaurants that are on your Greater Chicago list. Was just in Chicago and had a great brunch at The Gage. Always looking for great places to eat :)
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Yayyyy!! So happy it's back! Though it may need to be updated every quarter or so. There's just so much turnover in the city!
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Zagat delivers solid, succinct, reliable recommendations.
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Bring back the Best Buys category (sometimes called Bang for the Buck).
Also, I'm vegetarian. What's going on?
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