Tim Zagat founded the ubiquitous Zagat restaurant guides with his wife, Nina, as a hobby in the late 1970s. Today, they produce the guides for 71 cities–and sell 650,000 of them in New York alone. The Zagats also rate hotels, resorts and spas in 94 countries. This bellwether of taste talked with Worth features editor Emily DeNitto about high-end restaurant trends just as his 2006 guides were rolling off the presses. New York’s much lauded new restaurant, Per Se, has recently
replaced tipping with a flat service fee. Is this approach becoming more
common?
 Some have tried it here and
there, but it’s not a trend. All of Europe, all of Japan have been doing this
forever. We do it differently. They believe in their system, and we have
surveyed people and found that, overwhelmingly, we believe in our system.
I don’t see any realistic sign there will be a sweeping change
in the way we tip in the U.S. But there are some things that are happening in
lots of restaurants that most of the public doesn’t realize. Thomas Keller,
owner of Per Se, was pooling tips anyway and distributing them according to his
own formula. There are a lot of top restaurants that pool tips. Sometimes the
allocation is done by the workers themselves and sometimes by the owner. So when
people give a tip and think they are thanking a particular waiter, they’re not;
they’re thanking everyone in the restaurant. The fact that it’s Per Se, well, others think he can get away
with it. Most restaurateurs are not going to take a chance at annoying that many
people.
Because diners prefer being able to tip?
Overwhelmingly. It may be
inertia, but they do prefer it. They feel they have some control. The French or
the Japanese would say it is the manager’s job to make sure the waiter acts
professionally, and it is a matter of the waiter’s self respect to do the job
well. They think there is something almost unattractive about throwing money at
people who are just doing their job. What is interesting is Thomas has taken tipping from the front
of the house (the dining area) and put it in the back of the house (the
kitchen). How he has allocated it I don’t know. All I know is he’s very, very
smart and very empathetic with his people, and I would assume what he is doing
has been well thought out. No one over there is complaining.
Is it true chefs make less than waiters?
It depends on who the chef is
and what type of restaurant you are in. The top chefs at top restaurants make a
lot of money and some of them have become owners, so you have people like
Jean-Georges Vongerichten probably making millions. Thomas is probably making a
lot of money. They are also celebrities in many cases, so they’re making money
on the side from endorsements and products and all kinds of things. The chefs at the top level have become highly respected
professionals with very good, independent training. There are now more than 100
culinary schools in the U.S. I’m involved with the Culinary Institute of America
(CIA), which is probably turning out 2,000 chefs a year and is a first-rate
academic institution that is appealing to upper-middle-class and even to wealthy
people. The whole sociology of the kitchen has changed during at least my
lifetime from being a dirty, hot job for "foreigners" to being a highly
respected, well-paid, celebrated position. You have parents who are doctors or
lawyers or wealth holders who say with pride, "My son or my daughter is going to
CIA or works with David Bouley. Isn’t that wonderful?" That was inconceivable
when I was a young man.
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