AM Thai Bistro Among Many Ditmas Park Eateries in New Zagat Book

Though relatively new to the neighborhood, Am Thai Bistro is making an impression on the restaurant community. The Church Avenue eatery, which first opened its doors in January, was included in the new 2013 Zagat survey book.

Also featured this year are Mimi's Hummus, The Farm on Adderley, Purple Yam, Picket Fence and the Castello Plan. 

The Ditmas Park restaurants are among 250 Brooklyn eateries to make it into the guidebook. In Zagat's history, this year's book has the most Brooklyn restaurants, says the New York Daily News.

“Brooklyn has more good restaurants than any other borough except Manhattan – and not by a small margin either,” founder Tim Zagat, who started the survey with his wife 32 years ago, told the paper.

According to Zagat, the book listed only 77 Brooklyn restaurants in 1998. He says that gentrification of the borough may be one of the reasons for the foodie renaissance.

“Whenever you have more middle class and upper middle class people living in the area, you have more good restaurants. And sometimes I think it’s the good restaurants that are causing them to come,” Zagat told the paper

The list included perennial mainstays like Peter Luger’s in Williamsburg and DiFara’s in Midwood, but others like Lucali, Saul, Brooklyn Fare and Tanoreen also broke the top 50.

Other outer boroughs also made it to the list, with 117 Queens restaurants, 33 Bronx eateries and nine establishments on Staten Island making this year’s guide.