PrintTim Zagat Likes Close to Home Cooking
Like everyone else in NY I look forward to the new Zagat Guide coming out every year. This year's appeared this week, and it was mostly the same old same old. But there was one thing I noticed that stuck out like a sore thumb. The Best Newcomer was Telepan. Guess what? Telepan, a restaurant I really like by the way, is less than a five minute walk from the Zagat's house. So I find it very hard to believe that Tim and Nina Zagat eating there quite often didn't affect the Best Newcomer ratings and outcome. I have interviewed Tim many times, and we are always cordial and friendly when we see each other at events, but at some point he should fess up that his personal preferences and opinions matter more than other individual Zagat surveyors.
Other Zagat tweaks came from Steve Cuozzo at the Post, who noted the discrepancies between what the Zagat Guide says is the average cost of the meal, and what the meal actually cost. He cited both Gramercy Tavern and Chanterelle as places where the check will most certainly be higher than what the Zagat survey reported.
That said, let's face it, we all love the Zagat Guide for its easy to find addresses and phone numbers, its indices, and its handy shape for throwing it in your jacket pocket. I don't love it for the ratings, which I find woefully out of whack, or the blurbs, which are way too cute and don't really convey much useful information.
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10 Comments:
you hit the nail on the head, sir!
YumNYC at 1:32PM on 10/13/06
i "think" most sophisticated (whatever that connotates) foodies recognize zagat's for what it really is - an infantile workbook of restaurant reviews compiled by those who couldn't tell an onion from a shallot; much like those who write on egullet & chowhound; sites populated by either very young impressionable pompous members, or by incredibly non-sophisticated pompous members :)
HOWEVER, the genius of tim & the lovely nina should NOT be overlooked. most brilliant ideas or concepts are deceptively simple, & after-the-fact, thought of as "why didn't i do that". but it's those who actually dream up AND implement - that qualifies THEM as "geniuses"!!! with that being said, the zagat's have executed beyond (i assume) even their own imaginations, & now have a food empire. like it or not, it is embedded in our society, & THAT is incredible, & pure genius!!!!
baruch at 2:09PM on 10/13/06
The Zagats are just shills for the restaurant owners now and love how they
get fawned over and being interviewed etc and UNFORTUNATELY
have enough clout with the general public [sheep] to actually make an impact on the amount of business your restaurant will do.
I am sure the phone s at Telepan are ringing off the hook,but what about the aftermath for the Bill and his restaurant??
How many people are going to go there,drop a chunk of change,walk away saying "That's the best new comer in NYC???" and guess what?
They will never go there again.
The food at Telepan is just like Union Square Cafe.
Dull
Dull
Dull
shimmers at 2:29PM on 10/13/06
Dear Ed,
Over the last 27 years, Zagat Survey has provided a trusted forum for the organized word of mouth of more than 250,000 surveyors worldwide. Zagat’s success is based entirely on the trust and loyalty of our valued customers, surveyors and the public at-large. So maintaining the integrity of our content has always been our number one priority.
And let me be perfectly clear, Nina and I have never voted in any of our surveys since day one.
Having said that, let me take a moment to explain to you and your readers how the list of Top NYC Newcomers was determined.
This past year, 31,604 surveyors were asked to rate the restaurants they visited on a 0-3 scale (0=fair-poor, 1=good, 2=very good, 3=excellent) in three different categories - Food, Décor, and Service. The ratings are then averaged and multiplied by 10 and rounded to the nearest whole number (i.e., a 2.54722 becomes a 25). Thus, this year’s list, based entirely on our surveyors’ Food ratings, produced the following list of Top Newcomers:
Telepan 25.4722
The Orchard 25.0617
Ureña 24.5070
A Voce 23.5416
Morimoto 23.4710
Country 23.3576
Del Posto 23.1836
Cookshop 23.1619
Buddakan 23.0000
Bouchon Bakery 22.5899
And by the way, Nina and I have made the trip down to Del Posto many more times than we have visited Telepan, though we have enjoyed them both very much.
Tim Zagat
zagat at 2:53PM on 10/13/06
I realize that Zagat is influential in the Food industry, but now with few exceptions, it is a publishing empire, intent upon selling books and web subscriptions.
As bona fide food critics, forget it. Yes, they are critical-- but their credentials are based largely on years of amassing surveys and printing collective wisdom of the masses, punctuated with some pithy words of wisdom from staff. Once you get outside of New York, their hands-on influence is even less, even though travelers (and locals) buy their books.
I always found it peculiar that the Zagat publication standards are not uniform city to city. In some cities, a score of 28 is rare, in others (not NY,SF, LA) they are several. What gives.
Zagat is a Gallup Pollster, not a food critic. Yes, he has made money, but then so has the Nielsen ratings-- but what do they really know about quality.
cocopazzo at 3:09PM on 10/13/06
I "really" can't "imagine" using "Zagat" for any "useful information" these days.
There are so many other "good" guides for "food" on the "internet" that Zagat seems like a "relic" of "outdated" reviews and meaningless "ratings."
For those of us who like to read "coherent sentences" uncluttered with "cliched superlatives" or "total inaccuracies" it's much easier to turn to sites like Chowhound, Gayot, New York Magazine, Village Voice, and the dozens of individual food bloggers, all of which usually provide much better information than that archaic little book.
smalera at 2:14PM on 10/14/06
Ed, while I love your blog I was disappointed to see your comment on the Tim Zagat and Telepan.
I briefly worked at Zagat in 2000, and in fact reported directly to Tim and Nina. I can say many disparaging things about Zagat but I'll tell you this: Tim takes those ratings as serious as a heart attack.
I'm confident that Telepan ended up the #1 newcomer just as Tim describes in his post above: a simple mathematical averaging of the ratings submitted.
In the future, rather than accusing Tim of falsifying information, why not ask him for an interview and hit him with a lot of hard questions? I'm sure the resulting post would be much more interesting to your readers.
Peter at 11:57AM on 10/15/06
Im sorry Ed, I cant agree...Im suprised by what seems to be an ad hominem attack...not characteristic of your laid back, friendly style...It is a bit heavy handed to accuse the Zagats in an almost conspiratorial way...Yes we know many food critics may not be the most savory characters [ no pun intended !], but i would hardly think the Zagats would base a restaurants rating on its proximity...
Doctorted at 10:06PM on 10/15/06
WOW!!!! stop the presses!!! zagat's is actually being defended!!! say it ain't so?? actually, it's more like defending the integrity of tim & nina, which, in this case, seems to be justified. although it's nice to see ELE show some emotion, this may not have been the right battle. as much as i find zagat's to be a waste of time & comprised by amateurs making innane judgements, i doubt if it's necessary for tim or nina to skew the results, the "reviewers" do a good job all by theirselves.it's difficult to deny such a brilliant concept such as "zagat's", which has become a profitable franchise, regardless of how useless. it's all part of the grand design of dumbing down everything in our society, so it should not be such a surprise at how successful its become.
baruch at 10:25PM on 10/15/06
Smalera said "I "really" can't "imagine" using "Zagat" for any "useful information" these days."
How about address, telephone number, hours and credit cards?
DINO at 12:26PM on 10/18/06