Zagat

Of all the restaurant guides, I hold Michelin in the highest esteem.  They are as close to a no-nonsense, unbiased guide as you could ask for.  When I was working at John Clancy’s in New York’s Greenwich Village, it was pre Le Bernardin, and Clancy’s was considered the best seafood restaurant in the city.  The New York Times and Zagat lent credence to that.  There was no Michelin coverage of the U.S. at that time.  The Times, covering fully only one or two restaurants a week, was relatively sporadic in reviews of any given restaurant.  Zagat was annual.  For some reason--perhaps my being a newbie on the New York restaurant scene--working in the kitchen of a restaurant that was highly rated by Zagat was a thrill.

So perhaps you can imagine how I felt the day the phone rang at the Rendezvous when Zagat was calling to do some “fact checking.”  I knew we were going to be in the guide.  We were to be in the San Francisco/Bay Area/Wine Country edition.  They never give out the scores ahead of time, so it was hurry up and wait for the guide to be published.  This was exciting.  Zagat’s reach had never extended this far north.  It had never gone beyond Napa and Sonoma.  We did well...a 24, I think, for food, which is not at all shabby.  We improved from there.  One year we were knocked back down from a 26 to 24, and that was a major disappointment.  Most years we were in the 26 to 28 range (out of a possible 30).

The first few years we were in the guide, I had a sense of when it would be published, but never really knew the exact date.  Over time, that changed.  Each year I’d be on tenterhooks awaiting the new ratings.  Zagat is different now, as I’ll explain in a bit.  Back then, each point-tick up in the ratings was roughly logarithmically more difficult to achieve.  To have a 26 or 27 for food was most, most excellent.  One year, on the morning I knew the ratings were going to be released, I was online checking every 15 minutes or so.  We had been a 27 the previous year.  I was hoping we’d hold that, but wouldn’t be totally disappointed with a 26.  26 was still excellent.  When I saw a 28 pop up, I was literally shaking.  That must be how actors feel when they win an Oscar.  I was in complete shock.

As far as Zagat was concerned, that put us in the top five restaurants in the Bay Area and Wine Country.  There were two restaurants at 29--Gary Danko in the city and the French Laundry in Yountville.  They were a point better than we were, and there were two others at 28.  That was pretty amazing.  I know that for several years a lot of our guests had been comparing our food most closely to the French Laundry, and our Zagat review that year alluded to the fact that we served food at “laundromat prices.”  But, the problem was, expectations would now be huge and, in my heart, while I was thrilled at the 28, I knew we really weren’t at that level.  It was a tough year for my anxiety level, and I actually welcomed the next year’s guide with what was to have been another 27 rating.

The Zagat guide was pretty fair, but relied on reviews from diners.  The Zagat staff would comb through all the write-ups to come up with common themes, and include quotes from participants in compiling the written reviews.  Each participant had to give point scores for food, service and décor, which were averaged.  Our strong point was the food, but it’s rare that it’s otherwise for any restaurant.  If you’ve been to the Rendezvous, you know that the décor was on the rustic side--Craftsman-style house, redwood paneled dining room.  Down home, but short of elegant.  Our service was always very good.  Given our three ratings, we were always rated as a restaurant of excellence by Zagat.  The problem with Zagat, though, was that some restaurants would try to get their patrons to “stuff the ballot box.”  That we never did, which made our high scores even more satisfying.  We always encouraged people to participate, but also to be honest.  Sadly, a lot of restaurants have gimmicks to try to up their scores...write a good review and be entered into a drawing for dinner for two...

Zagat was well known by food geeks.  I use that term because I loathe the term “foodie,” for reasons I might explain in the future.  Sometime after we closed the Rendezvous, Google bought Zagat, bringing it more to the masses and, I believe, making it a far less reliable source.  I haven’t investigated that thought thoroughly, to be honest, but just having glanced at some of the scores that local restaurants have received, that’s the way it seems.

Michelin now has extended its reach, and that’s a good thing.  I don’t think they cover Mendocino County yet, but they are in Napa and Sonoma.  Having lived in France and dined in many one-, two-, and three-star restaurants there, and given our consistently high ratings in Zagat, I was (and still am) convinced that we would have been rated two stars by Michelin.  But Zagat was fun.  It was always nice to be the “highest rated restaurant in Mendocino County.”  We had a really good team.