A Brief History of Restaurant Discovery
Oh, and we’ve added a “For You” Discovery video feed – it’s a game-changer
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My first job after college was as an assistant at a magazine. I made a lot of appointments for my boss, many of which were restaurant reservations. For those I turned to Zagat, the roughly 4 x 9 inch guidebook with the unmistakable burgundy cover. Every assistant at the magazine had one. Ditto their bosses. So did my friends. To have a copy on one’s bookshelf or coffee table signaled that one took dining—and, by extension, both the city and oneself—seriously.
“Zagat was my everything,” Blackbird’s head of marketing Vanessa Leitman tells me. “I color-coded the restaurants – pink was where I’d been and loved; yellow was where I wanted to go; green was for places I didn't need to return to. Every year when the new one came out I'd rush to get it and read it like a book every night.”
Perhaps you’re nodding in recognition. Perhaps Zagat sounds as archaic as the Gutenberg Bible. But chances are you had your version of it. Eater Heatmaps. Resy Hit Lists. Infatuation (which acquired Zagat in 2018) guides. Beli and TikTok. They’re all just iterations of the same joyful thing — tools that help us discover restaurants.
To that tradition, we’ll add one more: Blackbird’s new “For You” Discovery feature, which quietly debuted in the app yesterday. While the map remains (who doesn’t love a good map?), it’s been augmented by our “For You” Discovery feed, which pulls in vertical social videos shot at each Blackbird restaurant — because as useful as it is to read about a restaurant and its cuisine, nothing conveys the experience better than videos capturing the essence of a spot. What you see in your “For You” Discovery feed is a curated assortment determined by three criteria: 1.) restaurants popular on Blackbird; 2.) restaurants near other places you’ve previously checked in; and 3.) restaurants based on the type of restaurants you’ve frequented before. Over time, this feature will evolve and deepen and become even more personalized, but for now, we hope you enjoy its magic as much as we do.
With restaurant discovery on the mind, let’s take a deeper look at the evolution of how humans have decided where to dine.
Chinese Plates
Most historians trace dining back to 12th century China, where restaurants catered to the tastes of traveling tradesmen. According to historical evidence, guests were greeted by "a selection of pre-plated 'demonstration' dishes representing hundreds of delectable options.”
The Guide Book
France enters the culinary conversation a few decades before the Revolution with bouillon restaurants (an etymological play off "restaurer," meaning to restore oneself, something bouillon was believed to do). Soon enough, their menus evolved and more indulgent fare was served (wine, chicken etc.), and by 1805 we got our first culinary guidebook – "Almanach Des Gourmands.” Nearly a century later, the Michelin Man took over with his eponymous guide, and by 1926 his star system was introduced to the equation. Other guidebooks in other countries followed.
The Critic
Perhaps the first restaurant review to appear in a newspaper ran in The New York Times on January 1, 1859. The spot reviewed? Delmonico's, believed to be America's first official restaurant. The paper's first official critic, however, wasn't recognized until 1963, when Craig Claiborne was anointed with the title. At roughly the same time, culinary magazines like Gourmet, and later Bon Appétit and Food & Wine devoted glossy pages to restaurants. By 1981, Esquire kicked off its annual “Best New Restaurants” list.
Billboards
Travel and restaurants have long been synonymous, and the automobile only further solidified this relationship (see Michelin Guide). Enter billboards in the early 20th century, many of which promoted roadside diners. By the 1960s, the Interstate system saw more and more billboards for chain restaurants.
Crowd Curation
In 1979, Zagat—extolled enough above—brought crowd curation into the restaurant discovery mix, as founders Tim and Nina Zagat surveyed their friends for their takes on New York City restaurants. As cities expanded, so did the guidebook’s reviewers, believed to be some 250,000 by 2005. The evolution—or democratization or degradation, as the snobbier among us might argue—of this crowdsourced method has continued with sites like Yelp and apps like Beli.
Foodtainment TV
Julia Child entered our households in 1962 with her first cooking show, Emeril Lagasse and Iron Chef followed decades later, but it was truly Anthony Bourdain who made us want to embark on pilgrimages to the hole-in-the-wall joints he patronized. Collectively, we've never looked back.
The Internet, its bloggers, the apps, and their algorithms
And here we are, in what feels like the perpetual present. Blogs like Eater and Grubstreet disrupted the culinary reporting game, Instagram gave everyone a platform to become a food pornographer, and today TikTok—with its ring lights and viral pastas—has given us the influencer/critic – hello, Keith Lee.
Yes, there are tons of options and tons of voices, and this is the soup through which we now all must wade to discover where to eat next. If only there was a simpler way 🧐…
Small talk sucks, but so does having nothing to say. Consider this your cheat sheet for a weekend’s worth of meals ahead. Consult it anytime there’s a lull in conversation.
Hot Ones has no wings?
The celebrity interview series with the high-concept hook and the a-list roster can’t find a bidder to pony up BuzzFeed’s $70m asking price.Cervo’s new sister spot
Over on Found NY, the ever erudite Foster Kamer’s got the goods on Eel Bar, which—if it’s half as good as his writing—is sure to be stellar.Borrowed time
The epic tale of what happened to John Lennon’s stolen Patek Philippe watch, and why its fate hangs in the ruling of a Geneva court.
4 Billionaires, 1 clam shack
The news out of Nantucket (which probably hasn’t been a lede since Captain Ahab’s era), is that the beef between four billionaires—led by Charles Johnson—and a clam shack has been solved thanks to a new HVAC system. Hallelujah.Should we all rawdog dinner?
Bros are “rawdogging” flights, a new viral trend in which one forgoes food, drink, and entertainment. Could the same be done with dining (minus the no eating thing)? Sit at the bar, no phone, no book. Just order your food, drink your wine, make nice with the bartender.I don’t wan’t no bros
Speaking of which, the term “bro” has now been flattened by—you guessed it—social media. Who knew it was such a complex identity to begin with?Sex sells
The “Hawk Tuah Girl” (if you have no idea who that is, congrats, you don’t suffer from brain rot) is being courted by UTA, while “Monster Sex” is trending among female readers on BookTok. Rawr.
Everyone cheats
For those of us in a committed relationship, liking someone else’s Insta photo is now a form of “micro-cheating.” Deal with it.You are what you eat
Didn’t think horror film “The Menu” was as disturbing as it could’ve been? Enter “What You Wish For,” a thoroughly twisted, well, twist, on the life of a private chef, now streaming on Amazon.There are no clocks in restaurants
Ever wonder why? We got you.
love this post, let’s go Blackbird 🚀