NYC’s Top-Rated Cupcake; Zeta-Jones Doesn’t Care About CookingSugar Sweet Sunshine comes out on top of Zagat’s new survey of the city’s top cupcakes. [NYP]
No Reservations had a $10,000-a-week food budget and in Catherine Zeta-Jones a star with zero interest in cooking: “I mean, if I was playing a brain surgeon, could I actually do brain surgery?” [Entertainment Weekly]
There are now the same number of Dallas cooks as New Yorkers on Top Chef. [Dallas Morning News]
Related: ‘Top Chef’ Non-Winner Lia on What Went Wrong
Mediavore
Pastis Atop Zagat Nightlife Ratings; City Trans-Fat Seminar FlopsPastis sits atop Zagat’s just-released nightlife rankings, with Buddha Bar, Balthazar, and Spice Market following close behind. [NYDN]
The city invited 33,000 restaurant and food-supply workers to attend their trans-fat seminar, and only 20 showed up. Half of them were city employees. [NYP]
Maybe Tony Bourdain doesn’t hate The Next Food Network Star as much as he makes out. Today brings another suspiciously obsessive-sounding post by the acerbic chef-author. [Ruhlman]
Mediavore
Beard’s Finances Questioned; Restaurants Manipulate ZagatThe Beard Foundation, in the spotlight as Monday’s awards approach, is still on shaky ground financially, and questions still linger about the way it spends its money. [NYT]
Restaurants are lobbying customers to vote for them in the Zagat survey, a trend nobody likes, but which few in the business can stop or resist. [NYP]
The days of the fat chef seem to have been passed, leaving mostly whippet-slim cooks to inherit the world’s kitchens. [Waitrose via Serious Eats]
Back of the House
The Zagat Guides Suck, Yes, But Here’s WhySmartMoney has asked a question we often hear: Can Zagat reviews really be trusted? The long and well-researched article describes a number of questionable practices by the company, mostly centering around their cozy relationship with the restaurant community and their immense power over it. Having actually co-edited a Zagat dining guide, Long Island Restaurants 2006/07 (that was the beginning and the end of our professional relationship), we feel pretty secure in saying that the Zagats don’t need any help inflating grades (if in fact that’s what they’re doing).
NewsFeed
Junior Zagat ResignsTurns out the just-published post-Katrina New Orleans edition isn’t the only news in Zagatland. We’ve received a tip that the company’s president and former COO resigned earlier today. Director of Communications Mark Kornblau confirms: “Ted Zagat will be leaving the company sometime in 2007. He has worked for Zagat for seven years officially and a lifetime unofficially and has decided to branch out and try new things.” No word on what those other things are. The son of Tim and Nina, who graduated from Harvard Business School in 2004 and was described as a “boyish prince” when he took a Times reporter on one of his club crawls, joined Zagat to (in the quotation-centric parlance of the guide) “spearhead the launch of its nightlife guides” and eventually “moved his way up the company ladder” before “calling it a day.” — Daniel Maurer
Back of the House
Zagat Fails to Number-Close Milk and HoneyThough we agree that table-scoring strategy is important (we winced when we recently overheard a woman pleading with a French gatekeeper, “I speak French, does that matter?”), Zagat’s recent tips of the trade aren’t exactly that useful: As the authors admit, all you really have to do to score a table these days at La Esquina is call, and their advice on clinching the perennial prize of every Moscow Mule worshipper (Milk and Honey’s secret number) doesn’t quite ring true. Per Google, the new number is nowhere on the Internet (owner Sasha scolds sites that post it, and he disconnected the old one 212-625-3897 not long ago), so don’t waste time on the recommended Web search. Next time the digits change, simply ask sister bar Little Branch for them. In the meantime, call two, one, two, eight, one, zero, seven, six, five, four. —Daniel Maurer
Back of the House
Mario Slammed for His Crocs; Zagat’s Dinner Prices a Crock?Plenty of new chefs and openings to report, but the real hubbub is over the persistence of Batali’s orange shoes and a certain skinny red book.
• Per the Flo chart, Boulud opens a wine bar, Tourondel opens a burger joint, and Neiporent teams up with Bao 111’s Michael Huyn for a Vietnamese venture. [NYT]
• Batali wears the Crocs for a movie premiere and our friends the Fug Girls declare him “the poster child for this crime against global retinas.” Meanwhile Radar reports he dishwashes his 30 pairs. [Chow]
• New chefs attempt to breathe life into Gilt (Chris Lee; lobster sliders), Thor (Kevin Pomplun; oxtail fettuccini), and tapas bar Marbella (Fernando Echeverri, squid-stuffed chorizo). [Strong Buzz]
• Zagat drops, and Jennifer Leuzzi asks the usual chefs how they feel about landing the usual spots. [NYS]
• Meanwhile, Steve Cuozzo complains that Tim and Nina are still lowballing meal costs, which have climbed 14.5 percent at top spots: “Many figures given as the ‘average estimate of the price of a dinner with one drink and tip’ at specific restaurants still seem more like cheapest-case scenarios than averages.” [NYP]
• Finally, last call for the chipotle-gorgonzola-black-bean-lasagne at Williamsburg’s eatery-cum-screening-room Monkey Town. [Eater]
Back of the House
Owner’s Existential Rage as He Discovers Zagat SnubWe happened to be present when the owner and senior management of a critically acclaimed, major new Manhattan restaurant got their mitts on the spanking-new Zagat guide and discovered that they’d been left off the all-important “most popular” list (which once again featured Gramercy Tavern and Union Square Cafe in the number one and two positions, respectively).