The NYC Zagat restaurant guide is back

Swipe left on restaurant “hot lists.” Toss the foreigners’ favorite Michelin Guide. The Zagat survey is back in print after a three-year hiatus. And despite my frequent past gripes about the burgundy book, I’m tickled pink.

Its three-year eclipse plunged our dining scene into the shade. In 2018, the Infatuation bought the Zagat brand from Google, which had bought it earlier from founders Tim and Nina Zagat. It was reduced to a weak online presence after that — until former book users begged for its return.

Zagat’s revival in the form of a 350-page, 2020 New York City Restaurants “special 40th anniversary edition” reminds me how much I — and the city’s dining zillions — missed it.

For years, it was the single most useful tool for navigating the restaurant wilderness — the definitive place to look when you were ready to head out to eat and party. That’s why so many friends had, like me, squirreled away the 2017 edition (the last published) and consulted it even though much of it was out of date.

Its usefulness lay less in its too-obvious or out-to-lunch entries than in its supremely well-organized format. You want to scan all Japanese places in the city, or all restaurants of all kinds in the West 50s? The back-of-the-book lists make it a snap.

Sure, the survey has always had its share of howlers. Earlier editions described Wu Liang Ye on West 48th Street — a high-ceilinged, chandeliered place with three distinct eating areas — as a “hole in the wall.” The 2020 book says that “the secret is out” about Nougatine. Out, after just 22 years?

But the Zagat survey in its original printed format — restoring the 30-point scales for food, service and decor that were dumbed down to five points by Google — is a reality check to flavor-of-the-moment coverage that emphasizes what’s new, esoteric, gimmicky and either bare-bones cheap (e.g., every Guatemalan joint in the Bronx) or too pricey for all but 1-percenters ($300-a-head kaiseki counters).

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Zagat reminds us of what most New Yorkers actually eat most of the time. If many of the “most popular” restaurants (again topped by “transcendent” Le Bernardin at No.1) are the same as they were three years ago, it means only that we have better taste than food snobs give us credit for.

The book’s hardly stuck in the past — or in Manhattan. The most-populars include Le Coucou, Don Angie and 4 Charles Prime Rib. The “top food” list includes Olmsted in Prospect Heights, Oxomoco in Greenpoint and Adda in Long Island City. But the overall picture is of continuity — healthy evolution in the face of economic headwinds and culinary upheaval.

The Infatuation won’t say yet whether there will be a new print version every year. Until a decision’s made, it “plans to rebuild Zagat’s digital platform to extend the brand’s global reach through user-generated restaurant reviews with a slated debut of summer 2020.”

In other words, they want to see how many books will sell at $17.95 — up from $16.95 three years ago. Since a book can still do things no website can, I’ll bet lots of them will.

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