Restaurants

The Bib Tournament of Restaurants

by:
July 25, 2011
8 Comments

The Bib

16 new, noteworthy New York City restaurants. 15 opinionated judges. 3 weeks of head-to-head battles. 1 winner.

Welcome to The Bib!

Shop the Story

Inspired by our annual Piglet Tournament of Cookbooks, we've partnered with our hungry friends over at Eater and our Piglet co-conspirator Charlotte Druckman to see what happens when you bracket up the 16 most talked about restaurants to open in NYC in 2010-2011 and recruit a talented bunch of people to decide their fate.

Starting this Wednesday July 27th, we'll announce a decision every weekday for 3 weeks. Every day, 2 restaurants will face off and one of our judges (see below: writers, designers, musicians, web pioneers, and other mavens of pop culture) -- who has dined at both -- tells all and announces which restaurant will move on in the competition.

Eater.comThen, together with Eater, we'll throw a smashing party on Monday, August 15th to announce the winner, plus a People's Choice Award. (Remember last year's Piglet Party? It was a good time.) The results will be announced to the rest of the world online the following day.

And yes, we know a lot of you don't live in New York, but you can still follow along -- consider it vacation planning!

The Restaurants

 

The Judges

 

Tags:

See what other Food52 readers are saying.

  • edamame2003
    edamame2003
  • singing_baker
    singing_baker
  • mcs3000
    mcs3000
  • ATG117
    ATG117
  • nycguy66
    nycguy66
Food52
Food52 (we cook 52 weeks a year, get it?) is a food and home brand, here to help you eat thoughtfully and live joyfully.

Popular on Food52

8 Comments

edamame2003
edamame2003 July 27, 2011
love this idea and restaurant line-up! I've been to about half of these and look forward to making my must go list through eating vicariously along with the judges.
 
singing_baker
singing_baker July 26, 2011
This is a great idea! I wonder how ABC kitchen will do I have been wanting to go there for months!
 
mcs3000
mcs3000 July 25, 2011
Can't wait. Awesome restos + judges.
 
ATG117
ATG117 July 25, 2011
Love this idea. I always wonder what people who know food think about the of-the-moment, much hyped NYC restaurants. This will be an opportunity to hear an experts opinion and explanation behind that opininon in what I think will be a format that is both less formal than a review and possibly even more infomrative.
 
nycguy66
nycguy66 July 25, 2011
Great choice of restaurants and judges. Not to pile on Van Daag but... ditto. The rest of these will be so hard to choose that I believe we will really learn as much about how the judges are feeling as they have their meals as about the actual restaurants. Comparing Fatty Cue (best non-standard barbecue rib in the city and the toast - awesome & great, great drinks) to Locanda Verde (best lamb meal that I have had in a very long time) to Torrisi (sorri no review personally as the wait has scared me off - but still every single person that I know who has been there can't wait to tell you how great it is) will be almost impossible. The one common element is that most of these restaurants can be described with a common word - "great". I have to believe it will have much more to do with whether the judge is in a pasta mood or an asian fusion mood etc... Sorry to see Empellon and Traif left out - 2 other great restaurants.
And one final plug about the judges - great to see Andy Borowitz here. Everybody should sign up for his daily email. Incredibly entertaining.
 
lizzie_nyc
lizzie_nyc July 25, 2011
Any place, but Van Daag. One of the worst meals I've ever eaten in my 23 years of living in New York.
 
lizzie_nyc
lizzie_nyc July 25, 2011
Sorry for the double post. The first one didn't display when I hit submit.
 
lizzie_nyc
lizzie_nyc July 25, 2011
Great line-up of restaurants and judges, except for Van Daag. My husband and I can't figure out all the love for this place. We had an almost inedible meal there. Out of a party of 10 only one person liked their entree. The cocktails weren't even good.