NewYork.SavoryCities.com - NY Restos Videos and Chefs

Savory New York is taking the NY dining scene by storm. It’s appropriating the crown title of internet dining guide propped up with in-depth videos which get all up close and personal with the kitchen meat and the chefs. You get interviews with some of New York’s finest spice handlers, pastry makers, and pie throwers; they even toss in their own eating out recs, giving you the inside scoop on hot restos in the Big Apple. The videos are well done, with clean, expansive shots of the dining facilities and kitchens. Restaurants are grouped by neighborhood and cuisine, plus they’ve got an extra section for novelty features and specialty food e.g. slow eats, brunch, BYOB, and open late. Each review comes with the standard Google map, ratings and service info.

“Like many people we've spoken with over the years, we found ourselves disappointed that popular restaurant guides were more "like a phone book" than a "trusted source" of information or that user reviews seemed too frequently to be written by the chef's mother or a recently fired line cook. We knew there had to be a better way. So in April of 2006 we launched our first site, Savory New York, with the idea that a combination of in-depth restaurant information, hand-aggregated critical reviews, recommendations from top chefs and documentary-style video profiles of notable restaurants would go a long way toward helping people make better decisions about where to dine out.”

Savory New York is ambitious, and it’s well done at that. The groupings and categories are pretty standard, but the videos make it stand out. You’ve got the inside word from top NY chefs. Given that we’re talking about New York, not just any piecemeal site can do the city justice; Savory does get pretty close.

Despite what the founders say, this isn’t so much more than a phone book type site with modestly expanded contact details/service info. The videos are a nice touch, but will they draw in traffic? What other cities are in the works?