Friday, Sept. 20, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
Got an appetite. Got a big appetite. But you're looking for something different. No Mickey D's, no Subway, no "if it doesn't get all over the place it doesn't belong in your face." Clearly, your selection process demands more information than some dorky "Best of Las Vegas" newspaper insert can offer.
That's where the Zagat Survey comes in. The dining guide company, which already publishes volumes in 40 major U.S. cities, is coming to Vegas. Actually, it's already been here and eaten. Aided by more than 600 volunteer munchers who surveyed most of the significant eateries in town, Zagat has devised a booklet-length CAT scan of the local dining scene. It should be in bookstores next week.
The Zagat Las Vegas Restaurant Survey, edited by food critics Muriel Stevens of the SUN and Michael Paskevich of the Review-Journal, has three distinct sections. The first lists the top restaurants in various categories -- overall favorites, best food, decor, service, etc. That's followed by rankings of each establishment surveyed. Thirdly, all are indexed according to a variety of characteristics.
With this baby in hand, you can pick a place for its food, its "Outstanding Views," or -- and never underestimate this factor -- its fireplace. The "Jackets/Ties Required" list is a handy reference of places to avoid (note to Zagat: A "No Shirt, No Shoes, Full Service Anyway" list would make a fine addition to any revised editions). The booklet even breaks down the parking situations at each restaurant.
Putting the thing together must have been a logistical stomachache. According to the introduction, Zagat's galloping gourmands ate nearly 102,000 restaurant meals (an average of 340 per eatery), grading each on a 0-to-30 scale. Those numbers and surveyors' comments have been compressed into a document that -- with its lists, info symbols and air of statistical analysis -- resembles an engineering report more than the traditional single-author dining guide.
And all to tell us what we already knew: Spago is the favorite restaurant in town.
Yes, Chef Wolfgang Puck's mall-side hot spot in the Forum Shops at Caesars tops the list of overall fave locations. "Everything it's cracked up to be," gushes one surveyor. "Where Puck goes, good things follow," cliches another. "Revolutionized local dining," says yet another.
But the Puck stops there: Other joints outpace Spago in individual categories. Emeril's in the MGM Grand wins by a parsley sprig in the food-quality rankings, and Spago fades into the pack a bit when it comes to the decor and service. It does make a strong showing in a few secondary categories, though, coming in first for "Top Pizza" and "Top People-Watching."
"We certainly hoped we'd be on top," says Spago General Manager Neil Hedin, not altogether surprisingly. "It will be interesting to see how (the Zagat) is used here in Las Vegas. I know it's been successful in other cities, like New York and Los Angeles, places I've been."
Ranking just behind Spago on the favorites list are Andre's, Tillerman, Hugo's Cellar and Mayflower Cuisiner. But look before you eat -- the average price for the top five is around $32 per meal. "It's obvious that many of the restaurants on the above list are the most expensive," the guide admits.
So if your wallet is running on fumes, Page 17 is for you -- "Top 80 Bangs for the Buck." The five biggest bangs: Fatburger, Carnival World Buffet in the Rio, the Feast "Action" Buffet in the Palace Station, Bagelmania and Egg & I.
By design, the survey doesn't go into a lot of greasy details about the food itself, content to offer the general impressions of the surveyors. "Instead of reading a page and a half about how the creme sauce is made," says Tim Zagat, who founded the survey with his wife, Nina, "we want to give the bottom line from the standpoint of a large number of normal diners."
A typical listing offers numerical ratings of the food, decor and service, along with an average price per meal. The capsule description of the restaurant is a riot of quoted snippets from the surveyors, many of them contradicting each other.
"One of the good things about the survey is that it can reflect disagreements," Zagat says. Whereas one diner loved the chicken and was charmed by Tim Your Waiter, his companion's potato was overcooked and he thought Tim was a pain in the sauce.
"There's nothing wrong with that," Zagat says. "You just have two different views of the same experience." So, to pick a random example, the entry for the Fog City Diner praises its "interesting but limited menu" while simultaneously backhanding it as "California slick" at "rip-off prices."
The survey's index has every bouillabaisse covered. Restaurants are shuffled and reshuffled according to many useful categories: types of cuisine (from American to Vietnamese), location (downtown to out-of-town) and "special features and appeals."
Under this last heading you'll find lists of suggested breakfast spots, places suitable for business dining, dessert islands. Dining alone? Try Ammlee Gourmet, Hard Rock Cafe or Viva Mercado's. For the trendily inclined, there's a list of "In Places" -- Aristocrat, Coyote Cafe and T.G.I. Friday's among them. For proximity to the influential, there's a list of "Power Scenes" -- Aristocrat, Coyote Cafe and T.G.I. Friday's among them.
Or you can eat your way back through time by following the "Historic Interest" list, starting with Poppa Gar's (1965) and munch back to the Green Shack (1930). Other categories include "Offbeat," "Romantic Spots" and "Visitors on Expense Accounts."
The group survey approach, Zagat says, prevents any single participant's tastes from coloring the survey. Not even the editors'.
"The numbers (the 0-to-30 ratings) are the lines of the field in which the review has to play," Zagat says. An editor can't jack up the review of a favorite eatery if the surveyors give it low scores; nor do editors vote in the survey.
"Factual things that help fill out the review can be added by the editor," he says. It's also up to the editors to compile lists like "In Places" and "Power Scenes," Zagat says.
None of the foregoing should suggest the survey is without quibbles. For instance, loyal patrons of the Italian food at Capozzoli's may get their fettucine in a knot when they see the restaurant isn't in the survey. And why list Fatburger under "People-Watching"? Is the crowd there intrinsically more interesting than the gang at McDonald's?
The appearance of the Zagat Survey in Las Vegas says several things about the local dining scene, not the least of which is that you almost certainly won't go wrong eating in a restaurant named after someone -- almost half of the 40 "Las Vegas' Favorite Restaurants" have a person's name in the title.
What's more, that Las Vegas is worthy of Zagat's scrutiny indicates that, well, Las Vegas is worthy of Zagat's scrutiny. "Las Vegas is very quickly moving toward becoming a real culinary destination," Zagat says.
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