The future of restaurant discovery may well be the state of the art 40 years ago. Before restaurant reviews and reservations were on platforms, one of the more reliable ways to find both was in a little red book known as The Zagat Guide.
Launched 40 years ago when Tim and Nina Zagat had their friends rate New York restaurants, the little red books were wildly popular and dependable with a number system ranking food, service, ambience and price. The Zagats sold their company to Google LLC in 2011 for $151 million. The little red books disappeared five years later. They “went online,” where they were lost in the cyber-verse of Yelpers and Googlers looking for not so much reliable information on restaurants but visceral “hot takes” on the next new place.
Google sold Zagat last year to Infatuation, a restaurant-rating and guides platform. The company’s CEO said the first job it was undertaking was researching how people had used Zagat in the past. Apparently, it didn’t take long to uncover the way was in little red books. According to the New York Times, a 2020 version of the Zagat New York City restaurants guide will be issued in print this fall.
There are currently no plans to bring back Zagat Guides in other cities, including Providence. Back in 1997, Tim Zagat stated on my radio show that there would not be a Providence edition of the guide because Providence “was too small.” The online Zagat does list Providence as one of its reviewed cities. However, information on local restaurants has not been updated in quite some time. A listing of “new restaurants” is dated October 2017.
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REOPENING: Pictured from left, Corey Barriera, regional director of operations, Newport Harbor Corp.; Casey Riley, chief operation officer, Newport Harbor Corp.; Derek Emery, general manager, Iron Works; and Warwick Mayor Joseph J. Solomon celebrate the reopening of Iron Works.
/ COURTESY IRON WORKS/REGAN COMMUNICATIONS[/caption]
There have been numerous new restaurants that have opened in the last one and a half years, many of which have been reported on quite dependably in print and broadcast media. Newport Restaurant Group, for example, took over the former Iron Works Tavern on Jefferson Boulevard in Warwick at the beginning of April. The burgeoning employee-owned hospitality company undertook a refurbishing and a menu revamp. A new logo and a slight name change came with the reopening of Iron Works.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Iron Works into our family of employee-owned restaurants,” said Paul O’Reilly, president and CEO of Newport Harbor Corp., the parent of the restaurant group. “We appreciate the loyal following that it has had over the years, and we’re confident that both longtime guests and new ones will feel at home, enjoying a modern take on classic comfort food.”
The Iron Works executive chef is Joe Caldarone, a native of Cranston, who has been cooking in local kitchens since he was a teenager. After helming the kitchens at Besos Kitchen and Cocktails and The Grille on Main, both in East Greenwich, Calderone has created a menu that he describes as “classic American gastropub.”
Caldarone’s wood-grilled Rhode Island mushrooms with herbs, smoked mozzarella and lemon includes the brand name of a successful local food purveyor, the Rhode Island Mushroom Co. The South Kingstown-based grower and supplier services dozens of restaurants throughout the state, including James Beard Award finalist chefs Ben Sukle of Oberlin and James Mark of north.
Bruce Newbury’s Dining Out radio talk show is heard Saturdays at 11 a.m. on 1540 WADK-AM, through various mobile applications and via smart speaker. Email Bruce at Bruce@brucenewbury.com.
