By: Bruce Watson

When Tim and Nina Zagat agreed to meet me for lunch, they offered to let me pick the restaurant. For a split second, I daydreamed about demonstrating my culinarybona fidesto the world's most famous reviewers by taking them to one of the great hole-in-the-wall restaurants near my office. Ultimately, though, I decided to restrain myself and let them choose: After all, these were the Zagats, the people whose name appears on restaurant doors from Seoul to San Francisco.

Besides, based on previous experience (and the following video), I knew that they were already familiar with Luke's Lobster.

Starting With Friends

This mix of epicureanism and economy is hardly accidental: Like their guides, the Zagats' tastes range wildly across the spectrum, from food truck cuisine to white-linen table service. In fact, Tim Zagat's outspoken defense of the Grocery, a small neighborhood restaurant in Brooklyn, caused a kerfuffle in the New York restaurant scene. But more on that later.

Gourmet reputation aside, the Zagat's empire grew out of a decidedly non-hierarchical idea: Basically, they were convinced that ordinary people could review restaurants as well as professional critics. That's how the now ubiquitous guides began -- as hand-typed, mimeographed compendiums of their friends' reviews. Tim, who studied government at Harvard, was already familiar with surveying techniques: Prior to the 1964 election, he was part of a massive polling effort. "Everybody knew that LBJ was going to beat Goldwater," he recalled. "The key was to see how close we could come in more than 500 individual races." With the Zagat survey, he put his polling knowledge to work, setting up a review system that measured food, decor, service, cleanliness, and cost per person. By breaking down raw opinions into easily-understood, granular data, the Zagat system enabled reviewers -- and readers -- to standardize their reactions.

Struggling With Publishers

In 1979, when the Zagats started distributing their reviews, the restaurant criticism business was firmly in the hands of professionals, and the idea of soliciting the culinary opinions of average people bordered on blasphemy. "We were turned down by every publisher in town," Tim recalls. "They asked us 'Why would we want to hear from other people?' At the time, they were only interested in hearing from experts."

Four years later, Tim and Nina self-published 10,000 copies of the Zagat guide. Lacking a distribution network, they visited individual bookstores, where they pitched the book while their son waited outside in the car. Remembering those days, Nina laughs. "We've often joked that if Rudy Giuliani had been mayor, we both would have ended up in jail."

In the first year, they only sold about 7,000 copies, but their fortunes soared when the RR Donnelly printing company commissioned a special deluxe edition of the book to give out to its clients. In addition to setting up a lucrative sideline -- Zagat still prints special-edition guides for many businesses -- the Donnelly contract also supercharged the company's sales. Within three years, they were selling 40,000 copies annually, and had caught the attention of New York's restaurant culture.

Cleaning Up the Language ... and the Rating System

But success also brought changes in the guide. When their surveys were for private consumption, Zagat's reviewers were able to offer blunt, unvarnished opinions. For example, the original commentary for a restaurant named Charley O's offered the somewhat seamy analysis that it was a "Bar for middle lvl execs trying to lay their secretaries." As for the storied Algonquin restaurant, the review lamented that "Circle gone; nothing left; bad food but nice for a drink."

In the most recent Zagat survey, the Algonquin's listing is more mannered, noting that "...since the 'routine', 'over-priced', American food proves 'you can't eat history', some go 'round for just 'drinks and conversation.'" Asked about the change in tone, Tim Zagat points out that, as the survey has become more prominent, so has its duty to the restaurants that it reviews: "There's a sense of responsibility when you may affect somebody's business."

And then, of course, there's the legal issue. As Tim notes, "We have to be careful about lawsuits. When we edit the original comments, we become legally responsible for them." The same holds for the cleanliness reviews, which the Zagats retired when they went mainstream. While several factors went into the decision, the biggest was summed up in a few words of advice they received from famed food writer James Beard: "The day they sue you," he told the Zagats, "the restaurant will be as clean as a whistle."

Great Reviews Lead to Hard Times

In 1987, the year after Zagat's sales exploded to 75,000 per month, Tim quit his job and devoted himself to the survey full-time. By then, they were publishing guides for Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., Within six years, they had expanded their surveys to 21 cities, and Nina had joined her husband as a full-time employee of the company.

Soon, Zagat became the standard for many restaurant-goers -- and owners. A good Zagat review and a burgundy sticker on the door could make an eatery, while a bad review could take it down. And that's where our tale of the Grocery comes in. In 2003, the restaurant was a small locavore-centered neighborhood joint in Brooklyn. It entered the guide in 2001 with reviews that were good, but not stellar. Over the next three years, however, steadily improving word-of-mouth pushed its food score to 28, a rating that put it in the company of some of the city's top restaurants, including Jean Georges.

Stunned at the high score,New York Timesfood writer Florence Fabricant suggested that Tim Zagat's survey was flawed, noting that "even a superb rating like the 28 that the Grocery and the six other top restaurants received for their food, could be based on a relative handful of votes." Soon, the battle attracted the attention of anotherTimesreviewer, William Grimes, who had previously given the Grocery a one-star review. In a front-page article, titledOn Second Thought, It's Great for Its Kind,Grimes grudgingly admitted that the restaurant had improved vastly, writing that "For what it is, the Grocery is about as good as it can be." Still, comparing the Grocery to Jean Georges and its ilk, he argued, was like comparing a "pop song" to a "polonaise by Chopin." In the end, he sniffed, "art trumps craft."

And this is where the line between Zagat and mainstream reviewers lands. Tim Zagat, offering his own opinion of the Grocery, told Fabricant that ''I've been there, I think it's a delight .... The food is delicious, very simple.'' In the end, he stated, "We trust our surveyors." The same goes for Zagat's readers: Although the Grocery's score has slipped to a 26, it is still extremely popular.

Success and the Future

Today, Zagat surveys restaurants in 90 cities around the world, and reviews everything from golf courses to movie theaters to food trucks. Tim estimates that "somewhere between 375,000 to 400,000" reviewers contribute to the guides, while 40 in-house and about 100 out-of-house editors sift through the raw data to piece together the survey's distinctive, quote-filled reviews.

But while the burgundy books are still popular, Tim Zagat notes that "today, our business is 70% digital." The company's online resources enable readers to explore all of its unedited reviews, its finished analyses, and even the raw data that Zagat uses to develop its ratings. Readers can access the reviews on iPhones, Android phones and iPads, where, Zagat asserts, the survey is "the highest-grossing app."

As Zagat's familiar pocket-sized books are giving way to pocket-sized electronic devices, Tim Zagat is optimistic about the future: "32 years ago, we created what many people think of as social media," he smiles. "I think the new forms of social media are beginning to catch up with us."

Charlie Trotter became a foodie in college after learning a few cooking tips from his roommate. Fascinated by the culinary arts, he took a year off from earning his degree in Political Science at the University of Wisconsin's Madison campus to read every book he could, including a ton of tomes on cooking. After graduation, he went into the catering business, eventually deciding that he wanted to run his own restaurant.

Trotter opened his eponymous eatery in 1987, with his late father, Bob, as a partner. In the intervening years, Charlie Trotter's has blossomed into one of the finest restaurants in the country, developing relationships with Midwestern farmers in order to ensure the freshest ingredients are available at every meal. The menu changes nearly every day, but recent highlights include yellowfin tuna sashimi with English cucumber and Rashiri kombu, as well as Meiwa kumquats with frozen meringue and cured black olives.

Prix fixe options range from the $135 Vegetable Menu to the $225 Kitchen Table Menu, where no walls separate the guests from the cooks. For those who'd prefer to enjoy Trotter's delights from the comfort of their own home, Trotter's To Go offers all manner of gourmet take-home foods. Reservations for the restaurant can be made by calling (773) 248-6228.

Four Seasons (New York)
Most restaurants offer a menu that changes with the seasons; few boast an ambiance that physically changes as summer turns to fall, fall to winter, and so on. The Four Seasons in New York does just that, thanks to a canopy of trees located inside the restaurant-just part of the reason the vaunted eatery is a Luxist nominee in the best fine domestic dining category.

When Four Seasons opened in midtown Manhattan in 1959, it delighted patrons with sprawling dining rooms, opulent décor and a delicious menu. Little has changed, from the furnishings-a grand chandelier, works by Picasso and Pollack, a bubbling pool in the middle of one room-to the seasonally-influenced menu. The affluent clientele remains as well.

Helmed by a two-headed executive chef team of Larry Finn and Pecko Zantilaveevan, both of whom have trained at some of New York's finest eateries, Four Seasons still offers a menu that gives guests a true taste of the season. This summer, dishes included Shinnecock fluke carpaccio, Maryland crabmeat cake, and a risotto with prawns, summer corn and chanterelles.

Order dinner à la carte and the tab can easily exceed $100 per person before tax, tip and drinks. Early-bird diners can enjoy a pre-theatre prix fixe dinner for $65 a head; if that's too much, there's a two-course lunch available for $25.

The French Laundry (Napa Valley, Ca.)
Few fine restaurants boast a past as sordid as The French Laundry. Even so, the Yountville, Calif. eatery is consistently rated among the world's best, and makes for an easy choice as a Luxist nominee in the best fine domestic dining category.

In the late 1880s, the building that currently contains the three Michelin star French Laundry was a humble saloon. When a town ordinance mandated that no alcohol be served within two miles of Yountville, the building was converted first into a brothel, then to a French steam laundry by the 1920s. In 1974, the town's mayor bought the laundry and converted it into a restaurant; twenty years later it was purchased by current owner and chef Thomas Keller.

Keller had spent much of the prior decade working at some of the finest restaurants in the world, including Guy Savoy and Taillevent in Paris, both Luxist Awards' fine dining nominees in the international category . He used his experience abroad to create the French-influenced American cuisine that currently populates The French Laundry's menu-like a foie gras dish decked with a Riesling glaze, Silverado Trail strawberries, Piedmont hazelnut streusel, radish, watercress and black truffle.

The French Laundry's prix fixe dinner menu costs $250, service included; drinks can run the tab much higher. Throughout the nine-course tasting menu, though, no single ingredient is ever repeated, leaving the palate surprised and delighted at every turn.

Masa (New York)
In soccer, there's Pele. In music, there's Madonna. When it comes to chefs, one of the most prominent one---name wonders is Masa, owner of the restaurant of the same name in New York. Not only for its proprietor's reputation but for its vaunted menu, Masa is a Luxist nominee in the best domestic fine dining category.

Chef Masa didn't always have just one name---he was born Masa Takayama, son of a family of seven, in Tochigi, Japan. He learned cooking as a child, working for his parents' catering business and fish shop. After high school, Masa found a job at Ginza Sushi-ko in Tokyo, working his way up from dishwasher to sushi chef. He moved to Los Angeles in 1980, eventually opening his own restaurant.

In 2004, Masa sold his Los Angeles eatery and headed east to launch an eponymous restaurant in New York's Time Warner Center. Since then, his establishment has earned numerous accolades including three Michelin stars. There are no menus at Masa---just the chef's whims---and diners are served five appetizers before a sushi entrée, flown fresh from Japan.

For the honor of dining at Masa, guests must pay $400 each, excluding alcohol, tax and tip. Diners on a tighter budget can order à la carte from the adjoining Bar Masa, where meals can be had for a quarter of the price of the menu next door.

Restaurant Guy Savoy (Las Vegas)
When searching for a taste of the City of Lights in the City of Sin, look no further than Restaurant Guy Savoy. The Las Vegas eatery is chef Guy Savoy's only location in the U.S, and with two Michelin stars to its name, it's also a nominee for a Luxist award in the best domestic fine dining category.

At the tender age of 27, Savoy opened his first Paris restaurant in 1980. Seven years and two Michelin stars later, he moved into the current Restaurant Guy Savoy location on Rue Troyon (a Luxist Awards nominee for Best International restaurant). Savoy also helped to establish Nouvelle Cuisine, a lighter approach to French cooking. By the turn of the century, Savoy was one of the world's most famous chefs; he opened his Las Vegas location in 2006.

The menu at Restaurant Guy Savoy in Las Vegas includes some of the chef's signature dishes from Paris, namely artichoke and black truffle soup and oysters in ice gelée. For those with the most decadent of tastes, there's a caviar sampler on the menu, along with a host of other culinary delights. Order the 10-course Menu Prestige, the 90-minute TGV tasting menu, or dine à la carte-the fare is delectable either way.

For an ultra-luxurious experience, reserve the Krug Room, a private dining room where guests can enjoy dishes paired with the finest vintages of Krug bubbly (a Luxist nominee in the best champagne category). Just be sure not to drain your bank account at the poker table before dinner-a meal in the Krug Room will set you back $750, nearly three times the cost of the Menu Prestige.

Is there a domestic restaurant that you believe is the best of breed and should be on the top list? let us know in the comments.

Restaurant Charlie

 

Guests at chef Charlie Trotter’s latest restaurant will not have a Charlie Trotter’s experience—not, at least, of the type they have come to expect at that time-honored establishment, which has remained Chicago’s temple of haute cuisine since its opening in 1987.

"Chicago is the Holy Grail," says Trotter. "It’s a very serious, very formal degustation-dining format. People will tell us, ‘We love going there, but it’s sort of like going to church: You have to pay attention.’ So for Restaurant Charlie in Las Vegas, we let our hair down and had a bit of fun."

This sense of fun is reflected in the space itself, which is located in the casino of the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino complex’s 3,000-room Palazzo. Unlike most Las Vegas hotel restaurants, Restaurant Charlie is entirely enclosed against the chaos that accompanies the endless rows of slot machines and craps tables outside: Its exterior walls of knotted hardwood give the structure a cavelike appearance that belies its clean, geometric interiors, which are divided into a reception and bar area, a sushi bar called Bar Charlie, and a main dining room. One may also reserve the chef’s table, which is suspended above the fray of the main kitchen, over which chef Michael Rotondo—formerly of Trotter’s Chicago restaurant—presides.

This arrangement presents the diner with tantalizing choices. "The main dining room is à la carte," says Trotter. "We don’t want people to feel obligated to sit for three hours over 10 courses. They can order an appetizer, an entrée, and split dessert. Bar Charlie tends to attract the foodie-oriented folks who order eight to 18 courses."

In true Trotter fashion, the menu changes seasonally, with seafood—particularly exotic Asian fish—taking center stage, while meat and game tend to play supporting roles. Chef Rotondo also provides variety through the use of different cooking techniques. "Some things are cooked on a very, very high-heat charcoal grill," says Trotter, "while we like to cook other dishes sous vide, in vacuum packages. Others are raw or marinated."

Whether you stop in for a quick bite of cuttlefish with Asian pear and chervil or Japanese eel with grapefruit or you linger for hours over a multicourse meal culminating in seared hamachi with braised veal cheek in morels and chanterelle-mushroom sauce followed by a steamed cacao-nib cake with candied kumquats and tangerine, this Charlie Trotter experience will certainly be your own.

Restaurant Charlie, 702.607.6336, www.charlietrotters.com

 

Momofuku Ko

 

Since opening Momofuku Ko (www.momofuku.com) in New York’s East Village early last year, chef David Chang has been called erratic, intense, and original. Mining from a variety of world cuisines and reshaping them to conform to his avant-garde style of cooking, Chang—who is classically trained in French cuisine—has created a string of such imaginative dishes as an egg cooked sous vide with osetra caviar, triangles of pork belly, and deep-fried braised short ribs. "The massive problem with American cuisine is that everybody wants everything to be categorized," says the outspoken 31-year-old. "But it doesn’t have to be. Food just needs to be delicious and well-made." Indeed, the deep flavors, combined with contrasting textures and juxtaposed temperatures, of Chang’s daily tasting menu often have diners rethinking both the concept of fine dining and what they are willing to endure to experience it: The sparse, Michelin-two-starred restaurant offers 12 bar seats only. Reservations are accepted no more than seven days in advance, and only via the restaurant’s web site—no phone calls.

Adour at the St. Regis Washington, D.C.

 

Located two blocks from the White House, in the newly renovated St. Regis Washington, D.C., Adour (202.509.8000, www.adour-washingtondc.com) fast became a favorite among the capital’s power elite when it opened last September. The modern decor—which features sleek furnishings in bold shades of black, silver, brown, and gold—creates an elegant yet lush ambience; but the main draw is wine director Ramon Narvaez, whose singularly insightful suggestions of wines to pair with each course of the restaurant’s French-American contemporary cuisine have earned him a devoted following. In fact, Narvaez works side by side with executive chef Julien Jouhannaud to develop the restaurant’s seasonal à la carte and tasting menus.

"It’s a unique and time-consuming concept," says the 30-year-old Jouhannaud, who presents a variety of sauces and dishes to Narvaez; the wine director then selects from Adour’s 650-label cellar the wines that best enhance these flavors and textures. For the John Dory served on the winter menu with artichokes prepared three ways (sautéed, fried, and in a pureed sauce), Narvaez chose the Domaine Lamy Pillot Chassagne Montrachet Pot Bois, 2006—truly sublime.

 

L20

 

In American gastronomy, true revolutions are less common than minor revolts, but occasionally one flares up—as it did last spring in the kitchen of Chicago’s L2O (773.868.0002, www.l2orestaurant.com). Not since the opening of New York’s Le Bernardin two decades ago has a new restaurant done so much to change perceptions and concepts of seafood-based cuisine. Laurent Gras, the former chef de cuisine at Alain Ducasse’s restaurants in Paris and Monaco, has introduced a six-course "Tête à Tête" menu, with each course featuring a marriage of opposites—two seemingly disparate ingredients that, deftly combined, produce a harmonious flavor. While hamachi and foie gras, scallop and artichoke, and Arctic char and Cabernet Sauvignon may at first seem strange bedfellows, these artful if unusual parings, upon tasting, make exquisite sense.

XIV

 

Since 2004, when Michael Mina unveiled his namesake restaurant in San Francisco, the Egyptian-born chef has opened another 12 establishments. One of the latest—XIV (323.656.1414, www.xivla.com), which opened late last year in Los Angeles—departs from the tasting menu of trios on which Mina built his reputation: Rather than present a single primary ingredient (such as pork or duck) prepared three different ways, as he has done at his other restaurants, Mina instead designed a menu for XIV that encourages what he calls "social dining," which combines the communal charms of family dining (everyone orders the same thing) with the more elegant presentation of tapas (individual portions are served on beautifully arranged smaller plates). Each table as a group assembles a tasting menu from a seasonal master menu of 35 dishes that might include caviar parfait or A5 Kobe beef served with chanterelles. (For those vegetarians in the group, XIV also offers a vegetarian menu that mirrors the standard selections.) Diners who want more than several small bites of different items can opt to order from the recently introduced à la carte menu, which features such Mina specialties as lobster pot pie and the Kobe burger.

Maison Boulud

 

Just around the corner from Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, one finds the very Western Maison Boulud (+86.10.6559.9200, www.danielnyc.com), one of the latest fine-dining establishments from the French-cuisine powerhouse Daniel Boulud. Though Boulud is used to stately settings—his New York flagship inhabits the posh Upper East Side—the China locale is the most impressive of his restaurant stable. The elegant space, open since May 2008, resides in the former U.S. embassy where Henry Kissinger met with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai on the sly in 1971; it was also once a residence of the Dalai Lama. The neoclassical structure is set back from the urban hubbub in the gated Legation Quarter. Inside, a dramatic entrance punctuated by a sweeping mural and a double staircase does not disappoint—and neither does the food. Some dishes (such as baby-pig confit with daikon or vacherin with green-tea yogurt) incorporate Asian elements. But the menu overall—with a German-tinged Black Forest dessert and Italian angel-hair pasta with sea urchin—bears a more global imprint.

Luce

 

Named for the Super Tuscan wine that the Frescobaldi family of Florence, Italy, produces in partnership with the Mondavi family of Napa Valley, Luce (415.616.6566, www.lucewinerestaurant.com) draws on three distinct cultural influences—Northern Italian, Californian, and French—thanks to the career of peripatetic chef Dominque Crenn. Raised in Versailles, France, she learned from her parents an appreciation of great French cuisine. In 1988 she went to study the culinary arts in San Francisco, where she worked under Jeremiah Tower of Stars and then at Campton Place, among other top restaurants. When she learned that the Marchesi de’ Frescobaldi planned to open a restaurant in the InterContinental San Francisco, she traveled to Tuscany to meet the owners and study Italian fine cuisine. Her menus are sophisticated yet unpretentious, relying mostly on ingredients from the Bay Area. Italian classics, such as a wild-mushroom-and-truffle risotto, share billing with more exotic combinations like Teeccino-and-vanilla-encrusted venison with blackberry compote, asparagus, and spiced chocolate.