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Zagat 2006 Hits the Stands
By
Laren Spirer
Published Oct 17, 2005
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Laren Spirer
Published Oct 17, 2005
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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The 2006 Zagat guide to New York City restaurants comes out today. First, the stats: Over 30,000 people surveyed 2,003 restaurants. The average meal cost in New York is $37.61, making it the most expensive in the U.S. The most popular restaurant list looks quite a bit like last year's: Gramercy Tavern, Union Square Cafe, and Babbo knocking Daniel out of it's previous number three slot. Top food rankings go to Le Bernadin, Daniel, and per se (which got the top ranking for service), while three Brooklyn restaurants, Tempo, Stone Park Cafe, and Applewood, made it into the top end of the newcomers' list.
Gothamist had a chance to speak to Nina Zagat about some of the strongest trends in the new edition. Specifically, we asked her if she had any sense of what created one of our favorite trends -- this year's barbecue explosion. Nina replied that "people love barbecue and this was missing in New York for a long time. Anytime Tim and I travel to a place with good barbecue, we always make it our first stop" Like Tim and Nina, we're pretty happy to taste barbecue influences from around the country without leaving our own backyard, with newcomers Dinosaur, Rib, RUB, and Smoked.
We also noticed that New York City diners eat out 3.4 times per week and 60% of our 14 available lunches and dinners are eaten out or consist of takeout, which is on the high end for most American cities. We asked Nina if she thought this was just because of the sheer number of restaurants and good takeout in New York. “Restaurants have taken up a key place in our lives in New York. They’ve become a place to concentrate on your guest or your friend rather than spend your time shopping or cooking.” She noted that New Yorkers’ use of restaurants as a place to catch up with friends led to one of the indices in the guide – the quiet conversation index. Because eating in restaurants is a way of life for many new Yorkers, some of this year’s notable closings for Nina included those that were a part of the New York landscape, like the Oak Room and Palm Court in the Plaza Hotel, and LeCirque.
As for restaurants due to arrive on the scene this year, we asked Nina if there were any in particular she was awaiting with baited breath. “We used to say Charlie Trotter’s. . . . we had been looking forward to that. But now, probably Buddakan and Morimoto.”
While we had Nina on the line, we had to ask some burning questions. Both Tim and Nina Zagat are both former attorneys, and the Gothamist Food team is fairly lawyer-heavy as well. Is there some sort of bizarre connection between lawyers and food? Nina admitted that lawyers love to eat out because it's part of their culture, "We take clients to eat as part of our job and it's customary to eat out or order in when we work late, but whether they love food more than other people, I can’t say." Fair enough. We also wanted to know how the king and queen of the restaurant ratings would decide where to eat if they had one last day to eat in New York. Would they go for the highest food-rated spots? Most popular? "Start with who you want to eat with. In our case, we'd start with our family. We'd probably all get together, talk it over and decide, but it’s likely we’d end up eating at home."
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