Eat.Shop NYC: The Indispensable Guide to Inspired, Locally Owned Eating and Shopping Establishments in the Five Boroughs

An excellent guide if you want your finger on the thumping pulse of New York's cutting edge. I have lived in Manhattan for several years, so I was immediately able to correlate reviews of the places I knew with what was written about them: bang-on, every time. The places that are recommended are off the beaten track, or at least not immediately apparent, but are equally spot-on. Quality, not quantity, is this watchword of this tight, elegant little guide. Worth the money, and far more useful than a standard bulky tour guide.

On a trip to France last fall I used eat.shop paris and it came through for me every time. Like the Paris guide, eat.shop nyc is a good directory of independent shops and restaurants in New York City and the boroughs. All of these shops and restaurants are small businesses, and many are owner operated. These are the types of enterprises we need more of in New York City: the shops that add vitality and individuality to neighborhoods. Some of my favorites being Greenwich Letterpress in the West Village, Kiosk in Soho and The Future Perfect in Williamsburg. Eat.shop's recommendations for eateries don't fail either: check out Birdbath & Lassi in the West Village and Dressler & Egg in Williamsburg. An entire vacation could be structured around stops in this book. The photography is well done and the first-hand accounts of each shop are helpful and usually on the mark. Legitimate criticism, however, might be made of the large swath of geography eat.shop, nyc covers. If you're in from out of town, or even if you're a local, some of the further flung jewels like the Bohemian Beer Garden in Astoria or Joe and Pat's Pizzeria on Staten Island take quite a bit of time to travel to. All told there could probably be an eat.shop guide to each of the boroughs. In which case, I'd buy all five.