The year in dish

Red-meat overload

It was a bad year to be a cow. Sprawling steakhouses and boutique burger joints sprung up on every corner, teaching diners the difference between kobe and corn-fed. And there was still an hour’s wait at Shake Shack.

Low-key debuts

Cool kids, take note: Mouse-quiet soft openings have replaced lavish grand splashes. Keeping a place under wraps for as long as humanly possible (the Waverly Inn, Gold Bar) is now de rigueur.

Bloggers’ rise

Food blogging went main-stream, as Eater, Grub Street and Ed Levine’s Serious Eats provided dish on all things edible, while independent grub bloggers such as NYC Nosh and Amateur Gourmet added the everyman’s take, alongside droolworthy pics. This was the year they all gained page hits—and respect.

Liquor-license tussles

Blind Tiger Ale House, the E.U. and Death & Co. trod a bumpy road to acquiring their liquor licenses, with community boards voicing loud opposition to more inebriation. Seems if locals had their druthers, every spot below 14th Street would go dry.

The 2007 Eat Out Awards:

• Readers' choices
• Critics' picks
• The year in dish
• The year in numbers
• A moment of silence: Stick a fork in these dearly departed restaurants.
• Online-exclusive photo gallery: Marvel at the craft of our Eat Out award winners in this mouth-watering display of superlative food and drink.
• Tell us what we missed: We'll be the first to admit that the five-borough eating and drinking universe is far too vast for us to cover everything. So let us hear from you.
• Nontraditional Eat Out awards: Help us decide a few less mainstream categories about the good, the bad and the ugly in New York dining.