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World Hotels - Michelin Red Guide 2006 New York City: Hotels & Restaurants (Michelin Red Guides)
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List Price: $16.95
Our Price: $11.60
Your Save: $ 5.35 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Michelin Travel Publications
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 917
EAN: 9782067115552
ISBN: 2067115553
Label: Michelin Travel Publications
Manufacturer: Michelin Travel Publications
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 480
Publication Date: 2005-11-04
Publisher: Michelin Travel Publications
Studio: Michelin Travel Publications
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Editorial Reviews:
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The Michelin Guide New York City 2006 is the latest title in a world renowned series of hotel and restaurant guides. Michelin’s inspectors have selected over 500 of the best restaurants and 50 of the best hotels in all categories of price and comfort using a rigorous and anonymous inspection process. This guide is perfect for New Yorkers as well as the 4 million visitors who come to the Big Apple each year. Key Features: • Over 500 restaurant and 50 hotel selections • Two restaurant listings per page • Detailed descriptions for every esttablishment (in English) • Color photos for hotels • Recipes from chefs at star-rated restaurants • Neighborhood maps highlight the location of restaurants and hotels • Symbols convey a wealth of information in a small space, making the guide portable and easy to use. We use many of the same symbols found in our European guides.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: dumbed down & bad use of space
Comment: for those who have seen the information packed Michelin red guides for Europe, this NYC Michelin guide seems like a dumbed down picture book that simply reviews the most commonly known places and adds nothing new. If you have a Zagat guide, why ever would you want this book? Aside from the different rankings that some restaurants receive (which you could summarize in a 20 entry list) in comparison with other guides, there is nothing particularly worthwhile about the book.
Just imagine how much more useful these editors could have made their guide, with tons of short reviews of many local high quality restaurants, to sample the richness of the NYC food offerings. Everyone already knows the top 100 restaurants in the city -- what they would benefit from is an unfamiliar name down the street or in a different neighborhood that is worth trying. The editors could have reviewed 3 or 4x the number of places in a book this size. Instead, here we have one restaurant per page with a silly 1/3 of a page photo of the restaurant interior, and recipes on the facing pages. Is that what anyone bought the book for? It seems that they didn't have enough restaurants reviewed, so they had to add content with recipes (again, with pictures, a colossal waste of space).
Color maps are good, as other reviewers have said, but that was available in the traditional, information-dense format anyway. My suggestion to the editors -- make it a really useful resource by doing the legwork to research more restaurants, cut down the wasteful listing size and present it like the respected versions of the Europe guides. If the book is unacceptably thin as a result, then that speaks for itself and they need to do more work. NYC is not lacking for good restaurants to research. People read the Michelin guide for the rankings, *extensive lists* (only 25 restaurant listings in Brooklyn? 13 in Queens, are you kidding!), and short synopses. Not for rambling reviews and pictures (are we 5th graders?) in cases where it's clear what the situation already is (how is it that Zagat and even the other Michelin guides succeed with just 3 sentences of description?).
In summary, poor choices on the editors' part with regard to usage of page space and design, and an attempt to write a guide (and expand a publishing series' market?) beforegs the listinhave reached a respectable size and quality. Not worth the money once you take a quick look inside for yourself at your local bookstore.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Michelin Red Guide 2006 New York City: Hotels & Restaurants
Comment: Clearly one of the best available guides for NYC. I prefer it to Zagat because it has Star restaurant's recepies. Also, as opposed to Zagat, the restaurants are listed by area, which also helps alot.
Customer Rating:
Summary: better than the others, but not at par with the Red Guide for Italy or London
Comment: The Michelin Red Guide to New York sticks with their usual European format in some respects and deviates from that format in others. The deviations are not good.
Strengths:
1. It lists only restaurants that are worth listing. Most restaurants in New York are not listed; that is a good thing because most restaurants in New York are acceptable but do not deserve any specific recommendation.
2. Restaurants that are awarded one or more stars are about 50. That is also a good thing. That way you actually know which are the 50 restaurants in New York that are actually worth spending your money on.
Weaknesses:
1. There is even less description of the food itself than in the European guides. Now, if Michelin's guide to Italy had a weakness is that the description of the food is too short. The food description in the New York guide is even shorter! I would like to have a better idea of what I am going to eat if I go to certain restaurant.
2. Each restaurant has a lengthy description of the decor. That in my opinion is overdone.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Nothing like the You-Rip versions - Too Much Fluff
Comment: Color Pictures. Reviews that are mostly fluff. Glossy pages. Recipes, recipes for goodness sake! How the mighty have fallen. My Red Guide to Italy saved me from a ho-hum meal several times - in Verona, Venice and Florence. And I keep it near my passport whenever the inspiration calls for a trip to You-Rip. This guide is a pale imposter of the famed Red Guides that have given restaurant owners and chefs ulcers for decades. This book is written for out-of-towners and a real New Yorker would probably deem it shelf-ware.
I looked for two of my favorites - Café Des Artiste, Le Refuge and they are not there. Especially surprising since Le Refuge has been in New York Magazine's Top 100 restaurants many times and recent visits confirm consistent quality.
Zagat's and Time Out New York are better, more useful guides. My opinion - This book is barely enough information for an occasional visitor and warm beer for a local.
This guide could have been so much better. I hope they keep working at it. Please, get with the program!
Customer Rating:
Summary: It is about time some body said what some Restaurants are really worth
Comment: This book is really excellent for tourists and New Yorkers. Although, I believe it still needs a lot of improving in the "no stars" restaurant category.
I have been using Michelin guides in my travels to Europe for over 20 years now and I almost never had a complaint. I have been eating in NYC for 25 years and I can assure you that the restaurant that got their stars got what they deserve.
Unlike other reviewers on amazon.com I don't think Peter Luger is the best steak house in the world (How can you even say that). I have had better steaks in Argentina, South of France, Spain and even in Israel (for a much better price). It is the same kind of people that think that our subway is the best metro system in the world with out trying any other systems(I can name 3 big cities that have far better transportation systems than NY).
The book is excellent for tourists who have had it with the crappy restaurant they always fall into because of other guides, such as Zagat or Lonely Planet, which give amazing reviews to horrible places in the city.
So if you are a tourist and want to know where you can get good food and not take too many chances this is the book for you. If you are a New Yorker, like me, that wishes to find which are the best eateries in the city from an UNBIASED SOURCE, then you should definitely get this book.
For all the French conspiracy theories out there. This guide has over 100 years of reputation to maintain. It is not rating restaurant owned by France or any other European country. The owners of most of the French restaurant in NYC are Americans who pay their taxes to the USA and not to the European Community or Michelin. There is no interest what so ever to give bad reviews to American restaurant. In fact I know that the ones that got most offended buy the reviews where some french chefs in the city (i.e., Daniel).
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