By Lenn Thompson, Executive Editor

One of the goals for the New York Cork Report is to shine the spotlight on the people, places and things that we are excited about in the New York wine community. Our "Wines of the Year" program was born of this goal and in discussing our goals going forward, the other editors and I have decided to add "Restaurants of the Year" to the site as well.

As with the wine program, this series of awards isn't strictly about the best restaurant in each region."Best" is vague at best and fact is, none of us claim to have eaten at every restaurant in any region.

But, our love of food, wine and everything local does result in us meeting many chefs, eating in their restaurants and understanding their style.

Based on those experiences, each of our regional wine editors has idenitfied a restaurant that shares and embraces many of the beliefs we ourselves have — local ingredients, local wines and local community.

With 2011 bearing down on us quickly, come back tomorrow for posts from me, Evan and Bryan as we tell you about our restaurants of the year from Long Island, the Finger Lakes and Niagara respectively.