Zagat: Grocery is the 7th best in NY

[glenn]

Has this been discussed? 1000 pardons if so. The most interesting/outrageous part about this is that Zagat refuses to give complete disclosure.....

"Exactly how many diners evaluated the Grocery? Mrs. Zagat would say only that it was fewer than a quarter of the number that rated their experience at Daniel but "considerably more than the cutoff number" of 100. She would not say how many had reported on Daniel. Until 2002, the guide listed how many people had surveyed each of the 50 most popular restaurants. That year 2,592 dined at Daniel. So that could mean that anywhere from 100 to 650 people surveyed the Grocery. "

Congrats to the Grocery owners for their humility.

Fabricant article

Grimes article

[mamster]

I couldn't possibly agree with Grimes less.

"Olympic diving might offer the best analogy. A perfect reverse somersault with one turn cannot earn as high a score as a perfect reverse somersault with two and a half turns. By the same token, the perfect three-minute pop song cannot grip the imagination and hold it the way a three-minute polonaise by Chopin can."

Pop music is my favorite thing in the world. If you told me I could eat all the rest of my meals at Burger King and keep my music collection or choose any restaurant in the world every night for the rest of my life but never hear Belle & Sebastian's "Dirty Dream Number Two" or the Pernice Brothers' "Working Girls" again, it would be me and Rick Bayless chowing down on our crappy baguettes night after night at the BK and rocking out. With another analogy (the diving one is also stupid), Grimes might have convinced me, but (a) this is a classic asshole comment, and (b) last night Laurie and I went out for tacos and had our imaginations gripped every bit as much by the tacos as by the ten-course "modern European" tasting menu of the previous night (which was also very good).

I don't know or care whether Grocery's food deserves a high Zagat rating. Zagat ratings are subjective, manipulable, and unreliable. But the only fair measure of a restaurant is how well it succeeds at being the type of restaurant it is. If I want to go out for a burger, I want to know who is serving a great burger. I don't want to be told that I really prefer steak tartare because it satisfies the soul or something.

edit: misplaced paren

Edited October 20, 2003 by mamster (log)

[Bux]

I've never been a fan of Grimes, but I think he's right on the money in this case. "The Brooklyn Cyclones could win all 76 of their games, but they would still be a minor league team. A great one, but still minor league." If there's one guide with a scale of ratings, those ratings must be relative to each other for them to have any value to a stranger to the restaurants involved. The one thing Michelin has done well is to emphasize that their stars are relative to the time and trouble it's worth to get to the restaurant. When I go to one of the best restaurants in France on the basis of three Michelin stars, I'm not guaranteed I will personally like the food, but I am guaranteed that it will be a world class restaurant. I would feel cheated if I picked up a Zagat guide overseas, made my reservations based on their ratings, got into a cab in NY and wound up at a great neighborhood restaurant when I was expecting major league food.

You want to award top marks for a burger? Fine, but put it in a burger guide, or divide your general guide into meaningful sections. That the Zagat's are so fond of this place just make's me think they're pushing their weight around a bit as well. I've come back from Paris with fond memories of meals at stratospheric prices and equally fond memories of chitlin' sausages in a chain brasserie, but I never confuse the two. Zagat is blurring the lines and failing to communicate with these kind of ratings. It's what they've always done and one reason why they've always been unreliable for serious diners.

[mamster]

Of course they'd still be a minor league team. And no matter how well the Seahawks play, they'll never join the NBA.

I agree completely that dining guides should be well-categorized. It should be clear whether the review is of a fine-dining establishment or a burger joint. And then it should tell me whether this is a good example of its genre. Grimes's criticism of Zagat is right: if I look at the food ratings alone, I can't tell whether it's one of the city's best French restaurants or a hole-in-the-wall run by a cranky soup genius.

Grimes sounds like a critic who has started to believe his own hype: there is his opinion and then there are bad opinions. Everyone is tempted to fall into that trap, but grownups can often avoid it. It's true: I think rock and roll is the best music on earth, but I'm capable of understanding that some people enjoy classical music or opera or jazz just as much as I enjoy rock and roll, and I respect that.

Anybody who purports to put out a guide ranking all restaurants in a city from best to worst is in for an impossible job. Grimes seems to be taking Zagat to task not for thinking they can do this, but for not doing it right.

[slkinsey]

I couldn't possibly agree with Grimes less.

"Olympic diving might offer the best analogy. A perfect reverse somersault with one turn cannot earn as high a score as a perfect reverse somersault with two and a half turns. By the same token, the perfect three-minute pop song cannot grip the imagination and hold it the way a three-minute polonaise by Chopin can."

Pop music is my favorite thing in the world.

I think the comparison being made here is one of "high food" and "high art" versus "low food" and "low art" (or middle or whatever). In this sense, it is proper to associate Verdi with ADNY and Dave Matthews with Burritoville. This is not necessarily saying that Verdi and ADNY are intrinsically "better" than Dave Matthews and Burritoville -- sometimes a good burrito is exactly what you want -- but it does accurately reflect the different traditions, levels of complexity, etc.

[SethG]

That the Zagat's are so fond of this place just make's me think they're pushing their weight around a bit as well.

The Zagats have to say positive things about the restaurant or admit the weakness of their entire enterprise. They have to know that sample size is not the only question. A bigger problem than sample size is that very different groups review restaurants in different parts of the city. The Brooklyn folks have given restaurants like Convivium and Al Di La ridiculously high food ratings, and this is because they are not generally reviewing Le Bernadin and Bouley, and vice versa. (And by the way, I happen to like Convivium and Al Di La very much.) I think the effect of a new scene taking shape also inflates the ratings; this happened previously with the Upper West Side. What had previously been a restaurant wasteland got a few good places to eat, and these restaurants got ratings out of line with simlar, often better and cheaper restaurants downtown.

I think Grimes' point is sound, but his analogy to music is not. I had a lengthy argument I was going to make on this subject, but I think I'll leave it at that.

[mamster]

In that case, Grimes is spending a slow news day rehashing an extremely old and correct argument against the Zagat method and throwing in offensive and lame analogies.

[slkinsey]

In that case, Grimes is spending a slow news day rehashing an extremely old and correct argument against the Zagat method and throwing in offensive and lame analogies.

What, exactly, are the "offensive" analogies he employed? Are you seriously offended that he had the temerity to suggest a difference between the substance of Chopin and Pearl Jam?

[mamster]

Sure I'm offended. I understand that some music is traditionally upper-class and that some music takes more training to write and perform. At the same time, I like Pearl Jam better than Chopin. If I were asked to rank a Pearl Jam song against a Chopin etude in a Zagat-style rating, I would rank the Pearl Jam song higher.

At the same time, if someone tells me he likes Chopin better than Pearl Jam, or classical better than rock in general, I can't argue with that and I wish them all the best. But that's not what Grimes said. He said:

By the same token, the perfect three-minute pop song cannot grip the imagination and hold it the way a three-minute polonaise by Chopin can.

He is profoundly wrong, and it's just as offensive as if he said that people who like Thai food have unsophisticated palates, because Thai food can't grip the imagination the way French food can. It's the same old shit: my art is better than your art, and in the end this tells us more about Grimes than about whatever belabored point about Zagat he was trying to make.

[slkinsey]

Matthew, I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill here because you think someone put down your musical preferences.

As I suggested before, I think he was making a comparison between "high" and "low" art/cooking/whatever -- and it seems an apt one. Whether or not you like Pearl Jam better than Chopin, there is no measure by which you can suggest that Chopin's music is not more complex, more nuanced, more subtle, more varied and with a richer and more developed tradition. That doesn't make Chopin's music better, but it does make it fundamentally different for people who care about such things. Similarly, it does seem to make sense to compare cooking on different levels such that high-fine dining and medium-fine dining are not evaluated on the same level. Furthermore, if one is going to consider things such as the degree of difficulty and the level of expertise it takes to produce such products, it makes sense to rank the "higher" things as "higher" on the scale, if one is going to use such a scale. And I think most people would agree that it's a lot more difficult to pull off a meal at ADNY or to write Rigoletto, and that the abovementioned qualities are more developed in these examples than at a taqueria or in a Pearl Jam song.

I note, by the way that Grimes did not say "Thai food can't grip the imagination the way French food can." What I think his example implied is: medium-fine dining is not able to grip the imagination the way high-fine dining can. And when he says that, he is saying it from the same perspective from which one would say the same thing about Chopin versus Pearl Jam... of course, it's only true for one who appreciates a certain complexity, nuance, subtlty, variation and rich, well-developed tradition. I don't think there can be any argument that there exists such a separation between restaurants such as Grocery and ADNY, nor do I think there can be any argument that such a separation exists between Chopin and Pearl Jam.

All this said, I think one should enjoy what one enjoys and not worry that someone else might be looking down their nose at it.

[glenn]

The Grimes pop vs. classic music analogy hit a nerve with me too, but it's merely a questionable analogy. I thought Grimes was right on target with the gist of the article for reasons stated a lot more eloquently than I'm capable.

It's funny how this stuff pisses people off in different ways. For me, it was the Zagats' GARGANTUAN balls in manipulating numbers and feeling they don't need to account to anyone at how they arrive at their conclusions. Having seen them in action first hand, I can also state as 100% fact that they are the LOWLIFES of the restaurant industry.

[vengroff]

A bigger problem than sample size is that very different groups review restaurants in different parts of the city.

That's exactly the problem. By far the most important questions to ask are how many respondents ate at least two or three times at both Grocery and Jean Georges last year, and what was their relative preference? I don't know if the Zagats themselves track their respondents closely enough to have this data or not.

[dbrociner]

And I think most people would agree that it's a lot more difficult to pull off a meal at ADNY or to write Rigoletto, and that the abovementioned qualities are more developed in these examples than at a taqueria or in a Pearl Jam song.

Sam, what kind of music does that ferret like?

I'm with Matthew on this. Can I supersize my meal at Burger King?

[jogoode]

I'm happy that food is getting more attention these days, but how the hell did this article make the front page on the Times? And I just saw the Grocery mentioned with the rest of the Top 10 Restaurants in Zagat's on the 10 o'clock news. Jeez.

[bpearis]

Pop music is my favorite thing in the world. If you told me I could eat all the rest of my meals at Burger King and keep my music collection or choose any restaurant in the world every night for the rest of my life but never hear Belle & Sebastian's "Dirty Dream Number Two" or the Pernice Brothers' "Working Girls" again, it would be me and Rick Bayless chowing down on our crappy baguettes night after night at the BK and rocking out.

I'm just adding in my two cents mainly because it's nice to see Joe Pernice get props on this site. Joe's a food fan, you know and actually has a cooking video on the Pernice Brothers website.

It's a bad analogy that shows he's maybe a bit out of touch. I'm not a huge Grimes fan but loved that piece about the chicken that showed up in his back yard.

[slkinsey]

Sam, what kind of music does that ferret like? 

Oh, he's not much of a sophisticate, despite my efforts to expose him to canzoni Napulitani.

Usually he likes it best when I pick him up and sing something along the lines of: "whooooo is the dorkiest ferret of all? Zebulun... Zebulun" (repeat ad infinitum with other ridiculous words while tickling ferret's tummy).

[Suzanne F]

I'm happy that food is getting more attention these days, but how the hell did this article make the front page on the Times? And I just saw the Grocery mentioned with the rest of the Top 10 Restaurants in Zagat's on the 10 o'clock news. Jeez.

Because the Zagat guides matter to the people the Times wants to reach. Zagat is big business, and therefore big news.

Not to folks like us, of course, but to a lot of other people who have money to spend.

[MichaelB]

I know that I am just a rube from the Hinterlands (or Heartland, or whatever); but I have been a big Grimes fan since he took over the reviewing job at the Times. And, I completely agree with his theory on awarding stars -- even before I read the explanation (of sorts) from yesterday. A group of us here talk about the review each Wednesday and have a shorthand for classifying a review -- a 1 star can be a great review (as in the case with Grocery) or a devastating blow for someone who had 2 or 3 star aspirations or something in between. Part of his job as reviewer, ansd ours as reader, is to communicate, and understand, which applies. I think he does an excellent job so communicating.

Maybe I am particularly sensitive because the reviewer in the morning daily here has no discernable standards for awarding stars. She recently granted 4 stars (highest rating) to a cafe serving MIddle Eastern ethnic fare -- a member of a small chain located in a mall. I guess the message to all the chef-owners who have recently gotten 3 or 3 1/2 stars from her is that if they lower their sights and their guests' expectations, they will get the coveted 4th star?

Sorry, rant mode off now.

[Bux]

When assessing any reviewer, it helps to have some familiarity with the restaurants he's awarding stars. It's one thing to read that a dish in a top luxury restaurant is inferior to what he's had in a meager trattoria, it's another thing to believe it when you're had the dish.

[ExtraMSG]

I think mamster has it right. While all criticism and all formats of criticism, especially on something as subjective as food and restaurants, has its limitations, the Zagat guide is quite useful, and for more than as an address book. It's one of the few guides that splits out a restaurants rating by food, decor, and service. It's also one of the few guides that gives you a variety of ways to find a restaurant, such as by cuisine.

Guides such as Michelin in Europe and Mobil here are rating restaurants, not food. Food is only a part of their ratings. As such, eg, a dive with great food may not even be rated or ma only get one or two stars in Mobil (a 5 star scale as opposed to Michelin's 3 star scale). Also, since Zagat is rated by customers as opposed to critics, places that serve just good tasting food from a variety of cuisines can actually compete with French and New American haute cuisine on the food column. eg, try to find an ethnic restaurant that scores 4 or 5 stars in the Mobil guide. It's very difficult. And they keep making their criteria stricter. It's difficult find a highly rated Italian place. Much of that is critical snobbery against anything that's not New American or French. eg, here in Portland, Cafe Azul, a regional Mexican place that's decent inside with a nice wine list, changes its offerings regularly, uses local and organic products when possible, etc, only gets 2 stars from Mobil making it appear that is rather mediocre. However, most actual customers would consider it in the same range as restaurants such as Wildwood, which at one time received 4 stars. In Chicago, Arun's, a Thai restaurant that does prix fixe tasting menus and wonderful food in a nice setting, once received 4 stars but has been recently down-graded to 3 stars. Topolobampo and Frontera in Chicago are also stuck in 3 star land even though many people put them as two of the top Mexican restaurants in the country (though I like Cafe Azul better than both).

Both methods have their problems and both have their advantages. But that's *both*. Zagat is very useful in its approach and I think the Zagats are correct to defend the results. They even provide indicators for the direction of the reviews over the years, for whether there were a lower-than-average number of people who responsed, or whether the acclaim was overwhelming.

My bigger problem with the Zagat guide is that they're no longer doing top 50 markets in the US like Portland and Dallas. And the Portland guide was previously part of the Seattle guide, so it's not like they even had many extra printing costs.

[sammy]

On the on-line version of NY Zagat, a place called the Garden Cafe in Brooklyn gets a 28 for food and is ranked 4th when sorted behind Le Bernardin, Daniel and Peter Luger. How come this place didn't get any publicity?

[skchai]

In case anyone here hasn't already read it, here's a link to a related thread going on in the California forum on David Shaw's putdown of the West Coast version of Zagat's.

L.A. Times article on Zagat

Anyone have an idea why Zagat seems to be suddenly coming under attack from multiple journalistic directions? It's not as if their methodology has changed or that it hasn't put up anomalies in the past. . .

[ExtraMSG]

Anyone have an idea why Zagat seems to be suddenly coming under attack from multiple journalistic directions?  It's not as if their methodology has changed or that it hasn't put up anomalies in the past. . .

Maybe with the growing popularity of FoodTV and "foodies" journalists are truly paying attention to such things or have a real audience for such gripes.

[Bux]

Guides such as Michelin in Europe and Mobil here are rating restaurants, not food.  Food is only a part of their ratings.  As such, eg, a dive with great food may not even be rated or ma only get one or two stars in Mobil (a 5 star scale as opposed to Michelin's 3 star scale).  Also, since Zagat is rated by customers as opposed to critics, places that serve just good tasting food from a variety of cuisines can actually compete with French and New American haute cuisine on the food column.

Your milage obviously varies, but I've found Michelin a hell of a lot more reliable than Zagat. Just the fact that it's got a consistent set of reviews across the board makes it better. I mean it's great that a connoisseur gives Le Bernardin a 28 and some kid who's never eaten in a restaurant with tablecloths rates a local dive as 27 throws the whole thing off beyond any recognizable value to me. Why place such a value on non-professionalism? Surely any job worth doing is worth doing by someone who's educated and trained.

[ExtraMSG]

Your milage obviously varies, but I've found Michelin a hell of a lot more reliable than Zagat. Just the fact that it's got a consistent set of reviews across the board makes it better. I mean it's great that a connoisseur gives Le Bernardin a 28 and some kid who's never eaten in a restaurant with tablecloths rates a local dive as 27 throws the whole thing off beyond any recognizable value to me. Why place such a value on non-professionalism? Surely any job worth doing is worth doing by someone who's educated and trained.

One of the problems is that Michelin and Mobil are directing their reviews and scores at a certain type of audience, primarily the gourmet. But most people who eat are not gourmets. They just want good food however it comes. At least in music you have rock critics, pop critics, jazz critics, etc, and often their reviews can all be found in the same publications. Fodor's and Frommer's do a better job than Michelin or Mobil in at least offering something for the average eater. Michelin and Mobil are elitist publications. That's not necessarily bad, just a fact. Zagat is a democratic publication. As such, it better reports for the masses, even the masses with taste, but who aren't looking for a place, necessarily, where they have to wear jacket and tie and remember that the long fork, for some reason, is the dinner fork, while the damned salad fork is the short stubby one.

BBQ tastes good. I'd say that a good hunk of bbq has more depth of flavor than most items I've had at The French Laundry, Charlie Trotter's, or the like. But you'll never see a bbq place with even 3 stars in Mobil, I would venture. Moles and curries are complex, deep, and interesting, every bit or moreso than any French sauce. But is there any 4 star Mexican or Indian restaurant in Mobil? Doubtful. It's not for lack of good food that these places are overlooked, it's because they don't meet the narrow requirements of the critics and because unlike Zagat, Mobil and Michelin are rating only restaurants, not food. Even there, I would say that many non-French and New American restaurants are undervalued in Zagat because we have bought into the same criteria that the editors of Mobil and Michelin use for what is good food.

Michelin and Mobil have very tough standards for restaurants. If something gets 3 stars in Michelin or 5 stars in Mobil, you are pretty much guaranteed not only a good meal, but a unique experience. But it doesn't mean that you can't get really great food, to many tastes better food, at a place that won't even show up in either guide and will show up with a relatively strong showing in Zagat.