Levine-Zagat Throwdown: Tim Responds

Well, that didn't take long. Just a few hours after Ed Levine slapped Tim Zagat upside the head for alleged doctoring of Zagat Survey results, Tim emails Eater with his stinging riposte. "Dear Ed," it begins...

Dear Ed,

Over the last 27 years, Zagat Survey has provided a trusted forum for the organized word of mouth of more than 250,000 surveyors worldwide. Zagat’s success is based entirely on the trust and loyalty of our valued customers, surveyors and the public at-large. So maintaining the integrity of our content has always been our number one priority.

And let me be perfectly clear, Nina and I have never voted in any of our surveys since day one.

Having said that, let me take a moment to explain to you and your readers how the list of Top NYC Newcomers was determined.

This past year, 31,604 surveyors were asked to rate the restaurants they visited on a 0-3 scale (0=fair-poor, 1=good, 2=very good, 3=excellent) in three different categories - Food, Décor, and Service. The ratings are then averaged and multiplied by 10 and rounded to the nearest whole number (i.e., a 2.54722 becomes a 25). Thus, this year’s list, based entirely on our surveyors’ Food ratings, produced the following list of Top Newcomers:

Telepan 25.4722
The Orchard 25.0617
Ureña 24.5070
A Voce 23.5416
Morimoto 23.4710
Country 23.3576
Del Posto 23.1836
Cookshop 23.1619
Buddakan 23.0000
Bouchon Bakery 22.5899

And by the way, Nina and I have made the trip down to Del Posto many more times than we have visited Telepan, though we have enjoyed them both very much.

Tim Zagat