‘I’ll Always Be a Champion of Little Spots’
Ligaya Mishan on how the New York Times’ Top 100 Restaurants list is made.
Last week, the New York Times released its annual list of the city’s hundred best restaurants, selected by Ligaya Mishan, the paper’s co–chief restaurant critic. Mishan has been reviewing the city’s dining scene for nearly two decades, contributing to previous iterations of the Top 100 list and, from 2012 until 2020, writing the “Hungry City” column, which focused on “New York’s great unsung restaurants.” Making a list, as she acknowledges, can mean inviting controversy—though, as she told me, “I actually love that.” She does not use objective criteria: ”When I first started, I tried assigning points in different categories,” she said. “But I’m not sure that it’s all completely measurable.” Her past endeavors in remote corners of the city influence her choices. Ultimately, a restaurant’s placement in the ranking comes down to a single mysterious criterion: New Yorkiness.
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