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The “tire guy’s” ratings for 2008 are out. Say what you want, but in this age of too much information, the guides are helpful in that they whittle the list down. No new three-starred restaurants were added, but The London and Picholine were new two-starred restaurants. See after the jump for a complete year-by-year table. More

Not too excited about the rash of paid table reservation services cropping up? Well, now you have a pair of WSJ reporters to thank for another cheapo option for the junior bankers out there not quite ready to BBall. Instead of just responding to inconvenience by throwing cash at it, as most NYCers tend to do, these two ladies took a bit of elbow grease, dug their heels in, put their noses to the grindstone, and actually collected the cell phone numbers and email addresses of the bouncers of the restaurant world.

So what works? The surprising thing is that explanations seem to be one real way to secure a table. Ben Chekroun, maitre d’ of Le Bernadin, suggests that supplicants should call him to “explain their case.” Same goes for Le Cirque. Who to call and what to say? Be curious to find out what works, but the numbers are all here.

Then there’s also the cancellation vulture strategy. That depends on luck as well as calling at the right time. For Nobu London, that’s between 5pm and 7pm, whereas the best time for Nobu Malibu is in the morning.

The other strategy that probably won’t work for 99% of you is to actually book tables right when they open, typically a month in advance. Gramercy Tavern opens its reservation window 28 days before the day you want on Opentable, at 9am on weekdays and 9:30am on weekends.

And if all that doesn’t work? No sweat. Hell, Even P. Diddy gets turned down.

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Paying for the Right to Pay for Dinner
Another Ressie Service

A reader writes in with a note about Weekend Epicure, another pay-for-play table reservation service. Says the tipster, “A friend used it to get a reservation to Daniel last week and it worked.”

The rules:

• Tables are only for 2, and for Friday and Saturday nights
• Each reservation costs $35
• Table availability is posted on their website on Wednesday at 9am. Each restaurant listed only has one table available.

As of Thursday, a table for 2 at Le Bernardin (9:30) and Bouley (8pm) were still available, among others. Meanwhile, NYMag writes that original table service PrimeTimeTables are now only available to those who want to pony up $450 for a “premium” membership.

This speed of this copycat has brought to mind two thoughts –

1) Clearly no barriers to entry here. For the restaurants where it’s impossible to get a reservation, regardless of how early you book, okay, there’s value there, but what’s to stop lots of others people from just squatting on a bunch of reservations and then selling them to the public when the time comes? It’s like scalping tickets.

2) Chances are you’re not going to go into this business. But here’s another idea — a friend who had a reservation at Babbo but can’t use it anymore recently offered it up to a circle of friends. Would be great to do something like this with perhaps a few more people, which I imagine would work pretty simply — someone with a reservation they can’t use, emails the list, first to respond gets the reservation. Anyone interested in joining a list like this, email us at editor at bankersball dot com and we’ll get a list going around.

Related:
Paying for the Right to Pay for Dinner

For $35 - $45 per reservation, PrimeTimeTables can get you a same-day reservations at “highly demanded” restaurants like L’Atelier de Jöel Robuchon, Eleven Madison Park, the Modern, and Blue Hill. Eater has done all of the due dilly, including quotes from several in PR and the food industry:

“We have created a system that allows business people who cannot plan in advance but need access to last minute reservations at what we call “prime time” (7 to 9pm) at some of the finest and most popular restaurants.” (PrimeTimeTables)

&

“It reminds me of the 80s when you waited on line and hoped to be chosen to enter a nightclub – that was inevitably empty inside anyway. I always said that if you were fat and ugly you shouldn’t even bother going out as you’d never get selected. This is the same thing. not only is lying to get reservations a sin, but the fact that you have to pay is disgusting.” (Anon PR person to Eater)

I think what it comes down to (and I have not used this service, and probably will not) is that it really is a world of the have and have-nots, so what’s the use pretending anymore? I intepret this phenomenon as neither a good thing or a bad thing, but just the market getting more efficient. If there’s too much demand for these restaurants, then they can either increase their capacity or up the price point. What this seems to be is someone else upping the price point because the restaurateurs don’t want to, possibly because they want to keep up some kind of notion that they actually are accessible to the public, even though they’re not.

Food can only get so good, so let people pay through the roof if they want to.

Updated: The NYT reports that more than 1,000 people have applied for the service, as well as some insight as to why exactly those tables are so hard to get: more than half of the spots at the top restaurants are already out of reach before they’re open to reservations — tables are reserved for friends & investors,  American Express cardholders and hotel concierges, among others.