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Zagat released its 2010 NYC edition and, as expected, old favorites remained on top. The most popular restaurants are Gramercy Tavern (number 1), Union Square Cafe, Le Bernardin, Babbo and Daniel while top food can was deemed to be founded at Le Bernardin (number 1), Daniel, Jean Georges, Per Se, and L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon. Asiate had best decor and Per Se has best service.
The top newcomer is Marea, followed by Porchetta, Buttermilk Channel, Txikito and Char No. 4. Tim Zagat also offered some observations from the over 38,000 who completed the surveys that went into calculating the rankings: 56% are finding better deals, 37% say it's easier to get a table, and people are eating out less—3 times a week, versus 3.4 times a week in previous years.
Zagat was also rah-rah about the industry, "The restaurant industry overall, continues to expand in a very healthy way and that's part of a restaurant revolution that we've seen in New York as long as I can remember. There were 150 good noteworthy openings and only about a hundred closings."
Of course, this comes as the Zagat guide is fighting irrelevance with more people turning to food blogs, Yelp and other means to help focus their dining decision. Are you reading Zagat anymore?
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I'm sorry I was too busy Yelp!ing to focus on this post.
IMO Zagat is no longer practical. It provides one review based on some snob's experience. Yelp! provides hundreds of reviews, suggestions, and pictures by real New Yorkers. It's free and you don't have to carry it around because it's in your phone-bobble.
I want Vegat
Had dinner at Per Se last week... the service was indeed incredible, as well as remarkably un-stuffy, with the staff making jokes with us etc. (even the sommelier!).
call me a snob then. I think Zagat's is getting more and more irrelevant (Union Square Cafe?, cmon) but I still prefer it over Yelp. The reviews on Yelp seem to be tainted by two types of people, shills who have something to gain by lavishing unworthy praise on say a mediocre Thai place or the other type is the cry-baby who will take down a place like A Voce because they had to wait too long for a table or someone spilled water on them. There should really be a Metacritic or Rotten Tomato type website that amalagates all critics reviews only.
I prefer Menupages, even if there aren't a ton of reviews there. Zagat's is good for about one thing these days, and that's for restaurants to buy their little plaques to hang on the wall.
Zagat's remains the best source for elite restaurants. Yelp remains plagued by too many snide kids pretending they are knowledgeable grown ups.
I agree with Angry, except that it is not snide kids that are the problem, but people who heap way too much praise on the most god-awful restaurants. I love Zagat and hope they figure out a way to stay relevant.
"[Zagat] provides one review based on some snob's experience."
Well, no. The premise of a survey is that the one review they provide for each restaurant presents a composite of the impressions of many people who've eaten at the restaurant. Maybe you're thinking of the Michelin guide?
Personally, I still read Zagat occasionally, because:
A) I get the book for free in the mail in exchange for spending 15 minutes filling out surveys once a year.
B) It's more portable then my laptop and not subject to AT&T's network coverage like my phone.
C) The reviews are concise and easy to digest, and more often than not are at least mostly accurate.
I still use Zagat's. Each review is an erudite summary of a restaurant's attributes, good and bad. As JGNY wrote, Yelp is weighed down by whiners, as well as idiosyncratic spelling and ALL-CAP POSTS sans punctuation. I like my reviews clean and to the point.
As stated above, there is still plenty of relevance surrounding the Zagat brand and they're doing a LOT across all mobile platforms (amazing Android app and one of Apple's all-time best-sellers in the Travel category)... plus the Twitter account is a valuable source for info and links (http://www.twitter.com/zagatbuzz)