Some chefs relinquish their Michelin stars, citing the pressure to maintain them as being too stressful.

Explore the pressure pursuing a star puts on chefs—sometimes at the expense of their mental health, and social media's impact on the culinary landscape. A conversation with Nick Kokonas, co-owner of the three-starred Alinea in Chicago, gets into the ways Michelin's rankings affect business.

Michelin stars must be maintained year-to-year. Restaurants have lost their stars for a variety of reasons, including chef changes and inconsistent quality.

The Michelin Guide's influence appears to be waning, indicating a shift in the perception of fine dining in contemporary culture. Trends show that diners today prefer getting recommendations from more informal networks, especially after lackluster experiences at Michelin-rated restaurants. Some chefs claim the star ratings don’t significantly influence their business, and others reject the pressure of obtaining a Michelin star altogether. Read more about the shift in this article.

A major reason the Michelin Guide remains prestigious is the extreme secrecy surrounding its inspectors, sometimes assuming fake names and donning disguises, to ensure ratings are not influenced by special treatment.

A Michelin star generally increases customer traffic for a restaurant. Still, prestige does not guarantee improved finances. According to a 2017 report, half the European restaurants with more than one star weren’t making a profit. However, losing a star can also be devastating.

Earning a Michelin star is no easy feat; neither is cooking a steak. This tutorial, featuring three Michelin-starred chefs, shows how the pros tackle the subtle art, walking even the most kitchen-averse eaters through the best ways to cook a great cut.

Stars are the most prestigious of Michelin’s ratings and are often—but not exclusively—awarded to high-end, expensive restaurants. In addition to the Guide's famous stars, restaurants are also recognized for "Comfort and Quality," which includes a five-point scale.

Every year, Michelin—a tire company—transforms the culinary world through its prestigious Michelin Stars. Starting in 1900 as a guide to boost road travel, Michelin evolved into the global authority on fine dining. Today, anonymous inspectors assess restaurants across 30 countries, awarding one to three stars for quality, consistency, and creativity.

An anonymous Michelin inspector answers the most common questions about their job and explains how reviewing and awarding stars works. Covering everything from how they decide what to order to advice for young chefs, get a peek into the details of one of the most influential restaurant reviewing jobs.

Go behind the scenes with Gwendal Poullennec, international director of The Michelin Guide and the man who oversees all those anonymous inspectors. This short video dives into who the inspectors are, the training process, and what they look for in a meal.

Michelin may be chiefly concerned with tires, but it's also known for its restaurant rating system, commonly referred to as “Michelin Stars.” The guide awards restaurants between one and three stars to designate varying levels of excellence in cuisine.

In the 1920s, the Michelin brothers employed anonymous inspectors to review restaurants in their guides. Inspired by other popular European guidebooks, they added the Michelin Star in 1926 to mark the best restaurants in France. In 1931, it was expanded to the current system of up to three stars.

When the foundation initially asked judges to start considering chefs’ personal conduct in 2018, there was little pushback. By the time the 2023 awards rolled around, that was no longer the case. A chef’s nomination was pulled due to allegations of bullying, causing several previous winners to renounce their awards.

Countries with high GDP are the most highly decorated with Michelin stars. As this 2024 in-depth statistical analysis notes, though, that appears to be changing, with the Guide beginning to recognize other areas of the globe.

Winning the honor doesn't mean a restaurant will be set for the future. Most found that while winning gave an initial bump in the number of reservations, that pattern didn’t necessarily hold for long enough to make a real difference in the numbers.

Like a predecessor to today's Michelin stars, restaurants advertised their offerings and skill level based on the number of flags flown outside: a simple, one-dish diner had one; a sit-down restaurant with a proper menu had at least two; three flags was not used for superstitious reasons; four meant the chef had mastered a culinary style; five meant patrons could expect dishes from every region of China.

Chef Juan Manuel Barrientos is the first Colombian chef to earn a Michelin star. He talks about opening El Cielo, his modern Latin American restaurant with locations in Washington, DC; Miami; and Bogotá. Barrientos also shares his philosophy regarding food and how the Michelin rating affected his work.

The artist was commissioned to paint murals for a Four Seasons restaurant on the ground floor of New York's Seagram Building. After attending the restaurant, he demanded his paintings be taken down and agreed to return his $35K payment, saying, “anybody who will eat that kind of food for those kind of prices will never look at a painting of mine.”

Robin Goldstein submitted a fake restaurant to the well-respected Wine Spectator for a competition. He created a website for the fake Milan-based business, complete with a menu of wines the magazine itself had disparaged. That didn't stop Wine Spectator from naming Goldstein's ruse among that year's winners.

The annual awards recognize excellence in food, both in its creation and criticism. Notable past winners include Nina Compton, Ina Garten, and Grant Achatz

Although the 2010s and early 2020s saw fewer people eating red meat, the momentum has now swung in the opposite direction, with vegetarian spots closing and hip new restaurants slinging beef. Food writer Bettina Makalintal makes sense of the sudden shift by unpacking the steakhouse's resurgence.

In the ‘70s, few stand-up comics were bigger than Steve Martin, who released multiplatinum albums and regularly sold out arenas. As he detailed in his 2007 memoir, Martin had grown disillusioned with his success as a stand-up and pivoted into film.

In 2018, the foundation announced several changes to the nomination and judging process. One of them was the directive to consider nominees’ behavior, which came after several prominent previous winners were accused of sexual harassment.

Every year, the James Beard Awards spotlight the best in food, media, and hospitality—often called the “Oscars of the food world.” But behind the prestige is the story of James Beard himself: a failed actor turned culinary icon.

This video goes behind the scenes with chef Geoff Kie's stage (essentially a short internship) with nominee Crystal Wahpepah at her restaurant in Oakland. Kie learns practical skills from Wahpepah, but also discusses how the stage helped him understand the restaurant's role in the community—and how he might bring those lessons back to his own kitchen.

For 40 years, being a "foodie" meant possessing knowledge and expertise about ingredients, restaurants, and flavors. Now, the author argues, being a foodie has more to do with documenting aesthetically pleasing meals than critical consumption. She argues for increased attention toward the complex systems that bring food to our tables.

Competitive eaters make room for all that food by toying with the stomach's ability to expand and contract. Still, doctors warn that repeated stress can destroy that ability, leading to further issues.

After reaching superstar status by the 1970s, Minnelli was often mired in gossip, with reporters asking questions about nonexistent pregnancies or commenting on her appearance. Thanks to her upbringing in the industry, she often took these interactions in stride.

Before 2012, edomae omakase was an expensive sushi experience that was not particularly popular in the US. That changed with “Jiro Dreams of Sushi,” a 2011 film about the 85-year-old owner of Sukiyabashi Jiro, an omakase restaurant with three Michelin stars, that earned rave reviews. Demand for omakase exploded, and restaurants responded by raising their prices.

The New York Times critic began his column "Directory to Dining" in 1962. While there had been restaurant reviews before then, Claiborne's ethical standards and appreciation for a variety of cuisines established a new kind of food critic and, in the process, a new kind of eater.

Following accusations that the awards’ judges and winners were overwhelmingly white and male, the foundation conducted a 2021 audit focused on “equity and sustainability”; subsequent awards have been notably more diverse.

Founder Steve Ells was a chef at Stars, a tony restaurant in San Francisco. His original plan for Chipotle—which first opened in 1993 in Denver, Colorado—was to make enough money to open a separate, higher-end restaurant.

Food writer Jaya Saxena attributes the mainstreaming of the term to early-aughts TV shows, including “Top Chef” and “No Reservations,” as well as the dawn of social apps like Yelp, which turned everyday diners into critics.

With that kind of statistic as a backdrop, proponents of concierge medicine practices argue that concierge services could help keep doctors in medicine and thus help to address physician shortages.

Lorne Michaels left the show in 1980, citing burnout and disagreements with network executives. He tried several gigs, including a sketch comedy show called “The New Show” that was strikingly similar to “SNL,” but nothing stuck. He returned to "SNL" in 1985.

Before understanding why they worked, humans used scientific principles, including designing solutions and analyzing outcomes, to develop preservation methods like curing meat and fermenting vegetables. By the 20th century, the application of industrialized food preparation to smaller kitchens set the stage for the subdiscipline of food science.

Beard sought to fuse classic American dishes, like casseroles, with international flavors and locally-sourced ingredients. The James Beard Awards often reflect the eclecticism, honoring American chefs inspired by Filipino, Nigerian, French, and other traditions.

When the expert review panels for the Big Four awards were disbanded, it was with the hope that the decision would lead to a broader range of nominees and winners. But, in practice, it's not clear that it's playing out that way.

The 'drinks' included cocktails in the form of alcohol-infused sugarcanes, a cotton candy piña colada, and a dual-textured, temperature-changing gin fizz. Foods included a gorgonzola cheese sphere with the consistency of a chocolate egg and a dish of freeze-dried and foam tofu with the appearance and texture of tiramisu.

- Chef Julia Child (1912-2004)

Champagne’s prestige typically comes with a high price. So is it worth it? Professional wine judge Dr. Matthew Horkey invites a Champagne expert and a producer to a blind taste test to find out. The individuals try sparkling wines from across the world and do their best to sniff out (sip out?) which is the real-deal Champagne.

It's all fun until someone gets hurt. Here's an explainer on why Guinness, the world's official purveyor of superlative records, won't officiate certain events.

James Beard came of age when home cooking revolved around canned and frozen ingredients. Likewise, West Coast cuisine wasn’t on anyone’s radar. Beard’s appreciation of fresh, seasonal ingredients and regional influences provided a foundation for today’s movement toward local, farm-to-table cooking and the foodies who seek it out.

The French are well known for protesting, and their winegrowers are no exception. After years of disastrous harvests caused by bad weather, disease, and deceptive practices by large Champagne houses, smaller vintners fought back.