Living in New York City, you can’t help but become a foodie and enjoy the nearly 14000 restaurants that dot the city’s foodscape. Since New York is a true melting pot made up of various nationalities and ethnicities, its restaurants also reflect the energetic multicultural vibe of the city.
My husband and I usually use the Zagat’s guide when choosing which restaurants that we will frequent. Recently we had guests staying at our apartment, a couple who were visiting us from Europe and they had brought along the Michelin guide to New York City for 2008.
While Zagat’s is essentially an American guide as it rates restaurants and stores in seven US cities and London, the Michelin Guide is an older and more established guide which has rated hotels and restaurants in Europe for over a century. The company employs a dedicated team of professionals composed largely of thirty something males who travel throughout the year visiting and reviewing the various establishments chalked out for inclusion in the guide.
The Michelin guide uses a star system to rate restaurants. These establishments are rated essentially on the food that they serve. A single star is awarded to a restaurant considered a very good restaurant in its particular category. Two stars are given to a restaurant with ‘excellent cooking’ and deemed worth a detour, and the coveted three stars are awarded to a restaurant that serves truly exceptional cuisine and is considered ‘worth the journey.’
The 2008 Michelin Guide to New York has awarded stars to 42 of its eateries with Per Se at the Time Warner Building, Le Bernadin and Jean Georges getting the coveted three stars.
Our friends made reservations for the four of us, at Per Se almost a month ago. Though my husband and I were excited that we were going to finally dine at a three star Michelin restaurant we were secretly worried about the price tag. We had heard from other friends who had dined there that Per se was wildly expensive but everyone had said it was worth the experience. We decided to throw caution to the winds and go along for the ride.
The nine course prix-fixe dinner served in extremely elegant environs with a spectacular view of Central Park was exquisite and delicious as it featured delicacies such as foie-gras and black truffles. Our meal lasted three hours and at the end of the long gastronomic journey, to our surprise and delight, our friends picked up the hefty $1500 check as a ‘Thank you’ for our hospitality during their stay in New York City. They reasoned that they had saved more than twice the amount on hotel bills by bunking down at our apartment. It was an experience in a life time to have eaten in a three star Michelin restaurant but not an experience I can afford too often.
Later that night back at our apartment while leafing through guide I was secretly happy to discover that I was already a member of the legion of Michelin guide devotees as in my two years of living in New York City I had in fact dined at several of the one Michelin star rated restaurants in New York City such as Devi, the Spotted Pig, Babbo and the premier steakhouse of New York City Peter Lugers in Brooklyn.
To know more about the 2008 Michelin stared restaurants in New York City and to make a reservation visit http://www.michelinguide.com/us/stars_nyc_08.html. The Michelin guide has plans to expand in North America and has introduced new guides for Los Angles and Las Vegas for 2008.
