Word: zagat
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Licking their chops at Americans' growing taste for game, restaurants are now serving more of it than ever before. Food Arts, a magazine for professional chefs and restaurateurs, puts game high on its list of gastronomically fashionable items this fall. Four years ago, the Zagat survey could name just 13 New York City restaurants that served game; today there...
According to Tim Zagat, whose pocket-size books rate restaurants in 14 American cities, game has taken off this season partly because of "an overall interest in finer foods." Joseph Baum, co-owner of New York City's Rainbow Room and Aurora restaurants, agrees. "Flavor is in again, and game is full of flavor," he says. "It's evocative of the past, of tradition. It's romantic." This season Aurora has set up a special game menu for its dinner guests. Last week's offerings included medallions of venison with dried fruit, saddle of hare with black- and white-peppercorn...
...Zagat counters that several palates are better than one and that his reviewers hardly lack for experience, since they eat out on average 3.5 times a week. Burly and gregarious, Zagat does better than that: about five times weekly, plus table-hopping jags, in which he eyeballs 20 or so establishments just to check out odors, ambience and customer enthusiasm...
Close readers of the New York surveys observe that they invariably list Vinnie's Pizza, a nondescript takeout joint near the Zagats' Upper West Side apartment. But Zagat denies the guides reflect a personal taste, noting that his reviewers rate one posh Manhattan bistro higher than he does. "I've never liked La Cote Basque," Zagat says, "but there are 500 of them and only...
...serious eaters got free copies of the guide, as well as anonymous ego trips. That guide sold in excess of 200,000 copies and was bought in bulk by some 300 corporations to hand out to favored customers. Over the years, the surveys have earned "several millions," admits Zagat, whose possible future projects include a theater survey, a restaurant guide for kids, a telephone-access national data bank of restaurant information. And what about, um, Paris? "We may do other places," he says, "but the no word is for France." Breathe easy, Michelin, at least your home turf is safe...