Did The Sun-Times Accidentally Release The Michelin Stars Early?
By Anthony Todd in Food on Nov 12, 2013 3:00PM
According to multiple sources, the 2014 Michelin star awards were not supposed to be officially released until Wednesday, with calls to the individual chefs coming over the course of the day Tuesday. We prepared ourselves for a long day of watching Twitter and gathering bits and pieces of information.
Looks like the Sun-Times jumped the gun!
The Bright One posted an article on its website at 3:30 a.m. revealing many of the star ratings for this year. Alinea retains its three stars. Grace got two. Sixteen rose from one star to two. Graham Elliot (Whoops!) and L20 kept their two. The article doesn't mention the single star ratings.
Here's the problem: the link at the bottom of the article (which has since been removed) to Michelin's site is dead and no other media outlet have any information about these ratings or are under an embargo.
Michelin stars for Chicago embargoed until 3:30 pm, but Sun-Times runs some intel at 3:30am http://t.co/PC4Nf91g96
— raphael brion (@raphael_brion) November 12, 2013
If this is true, that makes twice that the stars have been leaked early. Alinea partner Nick Kokonas reminded his followers the Internet never forgets.
@Suntimes whoops. embargo error. web dept. forgot that ppl set up google alerts. happens to someone every year.
— nick kokonas (@nickkokonas) November 12, 2013
Google doesn't forget, either. Here's a Google cache of the post.