Thoughts from an anonymous Michelin inspector

Michelin judges act as anonymous restaurant inspectors

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.

The Michelin Guide, explained

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.

There are roughly 90 Michelin judges around the world

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.

Chefs face intense pressure to maintain Michelin stars

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 awards stars (along with other distinctions)

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.

Some chefs relinquish their Michelin stars

Five years after Marco Pierre White became the youngest chef to ever achieve a three-star rating, he also became the first chef to “return” his stars and retire. Since then, multiple chefs have followed in his footsteps and requested to be removed from the judging process.

How Michelin-starred chefs cook steak

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.

What it's like to stage in an award-winning kitchen

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.

What it's like to be a competitive barbecue judge

Follow food writer and barbecue lover Mattie John Bamman as he tries to become a certified barbecue judge. The training is practical and subjective, involving learning the strict Kansas City Barbecue Society standards and the judges’ (literal) tastes.

In 2008, one writer demonstrated the fickle nature of wine reviews

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.

Craig Claiborne invented the modern food critic

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. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

An inside look at what it's like to be a consultant

This video explains the basics of consulting, as well as what it's actually like to be a consultant—from the lifestyle and hours to compensation.

Roughly 830 people are invited to anonymously vote for winners

These anonymous voters must see every show in order to weigh in with their vote, meaning a big part of being a voter is a time commitment: Every season has at least 30 unique productions to see.

An anthropologist spent years riding garbage trucks to understand what our trash says about us

Robin Nagle rode with New York City sanitation workers to trace the hidden life of what we throw out. Her research explores what the things we discard reveal about who we are. 1440 explores the hidden life of trash.

Watch a pyrotechnician answer questions about fireworks

Professional pyrotechnician Patrick Cyrana answers the internet’s most curious questions about fireworks, from designing ghost effects and exploring how electronic firing systems work to explaining what it takes to create displays in the rain.

See what it's like to work at the White House

Anita McBride discusses her experience working at the White House across three presidential administrations. She began in 1984 as a correspondence analyst, reading mail, and later served as chief of staff to first lady Laura Bush from 2005 to 2009.

A brief guide to espionage

Spies have one of the most challenging and dangerous jobs in the world, risking their lives and legacy to extract secrets in the interest of their country. This in-depth explainer breaks down one of the profession's oft-ignored aspects: The...

Explore a website dedicated to reviewing books about the advertising industry

“The Agency Review” reviews any book that touches advertising—from straight business books by the likes of David Ogilvy to a book about the history of bourbon. It has reviewed more than 200 books since the site started in 2012.

Red wine, 101

How does a bottle of red wine get to the table? In this podcast episode from VinePair, tastings director Keith Beavers covers this wide-ranging wine category. Learn about the entire process of red wine production, from grape to glass. The episode provides a great starting line for general wine knowledge and a jumping-off point into individual varieties or regions.

A doctor answers the internet's burning questions about the gut

Gastroenterologist Dr. Ugo Iroku answers the internet’s burning questions about digestion and bowel movements. Get the lowdown on what it means when your stuff is super dark, the impact of coffee on evacuating bowels, and much more.

An in-depth interview with Steven Spielberg

In this conversation with the Ringer's Sean Fennessy, the esteemed director reflects on his early life and how it inspired a career in moviemaking. In particular, Spielberg notes the impact of seeing Disney's "Fantasia" at a young age and how it terrified him in a way he found fascinating.

An archive of anonymous messages people wrote but never sent

The site invites users to submit unsent letters to people, pets, or moments, which are then published anonymously for strangers to read. Every post is moderated, and the design of the site—no likes or replies, just words—feels polished and somber.

An affineur is the person in charge of aging cheese to perfection

Their duties can include washing the rind with a salt solution, monitoring mold growth, adding herbs, and more. An affineur can take care of their cheeses from anywhere between a few months to several years.

A student researcher working on the Human Genome Project shares their perspective

In a conversation with Ewan Birney, Director of the European Bio-informatics Institute, he discusses what it was like to be a PhD student working on the Human Genome Project in the months before the draft announcement and its impact on him and the field of genetics.

Jeff Bezos started his career working at McDonald’s

He now claims that his high school gig at the fast food restaurant taught him about efficiency, customer service, and other valuable lessons that he took with him when building Amazon.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

Read a deep dive on the 'all-purpose healing' peptide BPC-157.

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

See how fireworks are made and learn how metals like magnesium and copper are responsible for different colors.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

Watch how algorithms can be designed to train themselves and self-improve without human input, to the point where the optimized code is too complex for programmers to understand.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

See a ranking of the best (and worst) Federal Reserve Chairs since 1914 out of the 16 men and women who have held the office since.

The first steps to rebuilding your credit score include getting to know exactly what's on your credit report and figuring out how far you are from the '700 club,' or 'good score' range.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

During the French Revolution, a botanist's letter asking about "dear Rhus" (poison ivy) was intercepted, leading authorities to suspect he was conspiring with the Russians.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

One disco producer saw 'Star Wars' four times on its opening weekend and was so inspired that he recorded the album 'Star Wars and Other Intergalactic Funk,' which produced a chart-topping single.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

Neutron stars, the remains of some massive stars after they explode in a supernova, are the densest directly observable objects in the universe.