The Verme Firm - Zagat Survey

Behind the Scenes
1999-2000 Minneapolis-St. Paul Restaurants
Zagat Survey

Sometimes, it's just cosmic how things work out.

Among local food reporter Sue Zelickson's many talents was her moderation, several years ago, of a cookbook book club, held at the Barnes and Noble bookstore at the Har Mar Mall in Roseville, Minnesota. Each month, cookbook authors, chefs, food critics and food writers came to the Barnes and Noble to discuss and sign their latest book and to let all of us rapt audience members in on (to me) their wonderful world. I was so fortunate to have met many now famous authors such as Alice Waters, Ina Garten, and Lidia Bastianich. To me, that was like meeting Hollywood royalty.

Time after time, I sat there thinking about how much I love food and how bored I was with my conventional day job in the mortgage industry until one day, I decided to talk to Sue.

After one of the book club meetings, I introduced myself to her and asked if I could do an informational interview just to talk to her about her work in the food industry, suggestions she had for me, and the like. To my surprise, her first question was 'Are you a good project manager?' Well, I happened to be a great project manager with vast experience in managing all things great and small and so without knowing where she was going with that, I replied 'I am one of the best. Why?' (Why be shy?!)

Sue went on to explain that she and local restaurant critic, Carla Waldemar, had been retained by the Zagat Survey, based out of New York, to work on the 1999-2000 version of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Survey. Sue explained that she could use some help and asked if I wanted to sign on. Did I?! I did!!

For those of you who don't know, the Zagat Survey was founded by Tim and Nina Zagat, both attorneys (I took that as a sign), who, one day, put together an informal guide of restaurants and ratings, all of which were compiled by their friends. Over time, the guide itself grew as did the survey area. Minneapolis/St. Paul was first surveyed in 1996 so this would be the second survey to grace the Zagat line-up. Sue and my job was to coordinate the whole project which involved what restaurants to include on the survey, getting people to respond to the survey and finally, promoting the completed and published survey. Carla's job was to synthesize survey comments into three lines to give the reader the best overall picture of the restaurant.

And so we began. Sue and I compiled endless lists of restaurants, both restaurants previously surveyed in 1996 and new restaurants for inclusion in the 1999/2000 version.

Once our list was complete, we sent it off to the NY office to be proofed and printed. During this time, I was fortunate to be visiting friends in NY and so stopped by the Zagat offices. I was even more fortunate to meet Tim and Nina and especially pleased to be asked to stay for a buffet luncheon catered by Dawat, an Indian restaurant on the east side owned by Madhur Jaffrey. Madhur is the author of several Indian food cookbooks and can be heard from time to time on Lynne Rosetto-Kasper's The Splendid Table.

After the delicious lunch, I met with the New York project manager assigned to our guide, Ben Schmerler, who, years later, shocked me silly by appearing as a guest judge on Iron Chef America. I think I pointed wordlessly at the TV screen for about a minute before I could spit out how I knew him. Ben and I went over the final proof of the survey, how many were needed in our market and our distribution plans. After that, Sue, Carla and I were off and running.

In addition to handing out the survey to everyone we knew Sue also contacted local newspapers to arrange for the inclusion of the actual survey in the next couple presses. Our goal was to increase the number of completed surveys by at least half of the previous one. We wanted great representation by our Twin Cities.

Once the completed surveys were tallied and the comments culled to three lines per restaurant, Carla, Sue and I had the fun job of proofing the text. In my opinion, Carla was especially brilliant at stringing together reviewer's comments into the essence of the restaurant. Some made me laugh out loud, others were insightful. Almost all made me want to eat out more. I couldn't wait to get my hands on the final version.

When the final version came out, Sue and I, and sometimes Carla, hit the road running, promoting our little project. We had a booth in the food building (where else?!) at the Minnesota State Fair, Sue set up panel discussions with some of the top chefs from the survey who talked about their restaurants, their food and their philosophies, and Sue talked about the survey on her radio show.

I'd like to think that these efforts made the Twin Cities' public much more aware of what wonderful eating establishments we had to offer and the absolute depth of talented chefs we have in this area. And I'm not talking about the well-know, expensive places, I'm talking about some of the hidden gems we have in, for example, the Vietnamese community, the Hispanic community, and even in the 'comfort food' community of small, often family-style restaurants sprinkled here and there that kick out satisfying meals day after day, year after year. The survey pretty much took all comers and it was just a joy to behold.

Sadly, in the last few years the Zagat Survey decided to incorporate the Twin Cities' best in a compilation survey - America's Top Restaurants - published annually rather than publish a separate guide but the spirit of the Zagat Survey lives on - to find and recognize the talents that the Minneapolis-St. Paul restaurant scene has to offer. And for those of you holding the 1999/2000 survey, consider it a collector's item!