Somehow, in the middle of the night, a story went up on a Sun-Times blog site called Voices, which apparently had the three- and two-star winners and linked to the complete list. The link to the complete list never worked, and the story is gone now, but the report is exactly what you would expect if you assume that Michelin is going to be as stingy as possible, and so far it seems confirmed by Michelin.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
UPDATE 3: The Lobby at the Peninsula wins a star just as chef Lee Wolen leaves (most likely to take over Boka, which also kept theirs, but that’s still to be announced). So that’s a win for David Tamarkin, former Time Out food editor, who made Wolen’s chicken a must-try item with his extravagant praise. Here’s Wolen in Key Ingredient—working with durian.
“And the double-edged sword of getting the Michelin star, or this Beard nomination, one of the things that comes with that is, the guests show up, rightly so, with the heightened expectation of their experience. What you were doing last week is no longer good enough. They’re going to be more critical, their expectations are going to be higher. And you have to be able to deliver.”
As with last year, it’s nice that Michelin honored a few new folks doing fine, sincere work, and it’s nice to have made some gains (though 25 restaurants total and only one three-star is far behind the other U.S. guides), but the list still has obvious omissions that leave it far from reflecting our dining scene. Longman & Eagle is still there as the lone and apparently permanent representative of our hugely popular, more casual gastropub style, shutting out the likes of the Bristol, Nightwood, or Yusho, any of which would probably rank ahead of it in 2013 among Chicagoans dining out regularly, to name three. And the fact that Michelin seems completely incapable of comprehending Next continues to make them just seem, well, hidebound—if you can’t figure out how to evaluate a restaurant which has sold out every night for two years, you’re apparently the only one with that problem.
@MichelinGuideCH disappointed in you Michelin. @NextRestaurant so deserves *s. If you can make a dental appt u can make a reso at NEXT.
— charleshetzel (@charleshetzel) November 12, 2013
