{"id":226763,"date":"2026-05-11T02:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T02:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/226763\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T02:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T02:00:10","slug":"a-list-of-100-best-restaurants-for-these-marathon-eaters-its-a-dare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/226763\/","title":{"rendered":"A List of 100 Best Restaurants? For These Marathon Eaters, It\u2019s a Dare."},"content":{"rendered":"

Ellen Hunter remembers exactly where she was when she found her mission. She was at a table in Minetta Tavern<\/a> in 2017, having \u201ca Black Label burger and too many mimosas,\u201d when she looked up at a red plaque on the wall certifying that Minetta had been awarded a Michelin star.<\/p>\n

This made her think about the starred restaurants in New York City where she\u2019d eaten, which made her think about the others where she hadn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt hit me like lightning,\u201d she said. She would go to every one of them, 72 in all.<\/p>\n

It took two years, but she did it. A jewelry designer<\/a> in Manhattan, Ms. Hunter has also kept current<\/a> each year, eating at least once in every New York restaurant added to the Michelin Guide since then.<\/p>\n

Ms. Hunter belongs to an elite corps of dining completists, highly dedicated eaters who take published rankings of great restaurants as a personal challenge. Some follow her path, bagging every Michelin-starred establishment in their region. Others attempt to vanquish restaurant listicles, which in recent years have become the lingua franca of food media.<\/p>\n

Although the lists seem to proliferate with no end in sight, the completists are not a large group. Few people, after all, have the time to visit dozens of restaurants, or the budget, or the determination, or the digestive stamina.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to get tactical,\u201d said Joe Audal, a lawyer in San Mateo, Calif., who has eaten at all 46 restaurants in Northern California that have Michelin stars, along with every place in the country with three stars and 36 of the 40 that have two. \u201cI don\u2019t touch the bread.\u201d<\/p>\n

For three years running, Paul Wolpe, who works in real-estate finance, has eaten his way through the 100 restaurants on The Times\u2019s New York list, drawing up \u201ca very detailed spreadsheet\u201d each time. In the first year he did it, 2023, he estimates he spent about $1,000 a month on the effort, not including the cost of two reservations that were so hard to get that he resorted to paying for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a little ashamed of it, but I bought a secondhand reservation to get into Tatiana<\/a>,\u201d Mr. Wolpe said, referring to the No. 1 pick that year. \u201cI felt like a criminal when I walked in.\u201d (The other table he obtained through nonstandard methods was at Torrisi<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Ordinary restaurant fans can make the leap to completism for a variety of reasons. Herculean quests tend to make compelling social media content. At least a few good meals are almost guaranteed. And for some diners, the mere existence of a starred or numbered ranking is a call to action. If you list it, they will come.<\/p>\n

Some completists are born out of something like a dare. When The Times issued its first list of 100 New York restaurants, a friend asked Mr. Wolpe how many he\u2019d been to. The answer was 20, which struck the friend as a meager showing.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe proceeded to emasculate me more than I\u2019ve ever been emasculated in my life,\u201d Mr. Wolpe recalled. \u201cHe said, \u2018I thought you were a serious food guy, Paul.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Steven Margolin, who says he has also eaten at all 100 New York restaurants on each of the past three Times lists, did not need to be shamed into it. He seems to be a completist by nature.<\/p>\n

\u201cEver since childhood I\u2019ve always liked chasing various kinds of lists,\u201d Mr. Margolin said.<\/p>\n

He has been to all but one of the 26 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the United States, all but one of the 277 National Historic Landmarks in New York State, and 388 of the 433 National Park Service units<\/a>, a diverse group of locations that includes battlefields, memorials, national seashores and parks. In New York City, he has eaten at every restaurant that currently has a Michelin star, as well as all the existing restaurants that once had stars but don\u2019t now.<\/p>\n

For true long-distance eaters, there are always more worlds to conquer. When the first Michelin Guide to Washington, D.C., came out in 2017, Joel Haas visited all 12 starred restaurants within a month. Then he kept going. Since 2019, Mr. Haas has maintained an unbroken streak of eating restaurant food \u2014 in a dining room or at home \u2014 at every meal. At last count<\/a>, 1,077 of those meals were taken in restaurants with Michelin stars.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get obsessive, and go all in like it\u2019s an Ironman,\u201d Mr. Haas once told an interviewer.<\/p>\n

Any self-respecting completist can reel off a similar list of stats. Here are some figures tracked by Jhonatan Cano, an owner of the Washington-based restaurant group Hive Hospitality<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Restaurants around the globe with three stars from Michelin: 157.<\/p>\n

How many Mr. Cano needs to visit to reach his ambition of eating in all of them: 51.<\/p>\n

Restaurants he has been to that have either one or two stars from Michelin: unknown, because he stopped counting after 1,000.<\/p>\n

Number of the World\u2019s 50 Best Restaurants in which he has not yet dined: seven.<\/p>\n

If Mr. Haas and Mr. Cano are triathletes, then Joshua Fyksen is a sprinter. Mr. Fyksen, a sommelier in Las Vegas, holds the Guinness World Record for eating at the most Michelin-starred restaurants in a 24-hour period: 28. He started at Oxomoco<\/a> in Brooklyn and finished up, one day and $1,453.34 later, at Gramercy Tavern<\/a> in Manhattan, where he ate a single oyster. Along the way, he cruised into Le Coucou<\/a>, Jungsik<\/a> and Eleven Madison Park<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Some of these pursuits can run into real money, whether the meals are eaten alone or with others. To manage expenses on what she calls her \u201cstar crawl,\u201d Ms. Hunter takes advantage of lower-priced \u201cstar hacks\u201d like lunches and restaurant-week menus. After starting at full tilt in 2017, she began to space out her Michelin meals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to slow my roll a bit and get more strategic,\u201d she said. \u201cOtherwise I was going to go broke.\u201d Her most expensive year was her first. Now she limits herself to checking out any newly starred restaurants in the city, along with a few old favorites such as Jean-Georges<\/a> (three stars), where she tries to eat once a month.<\/p>\n

Although traveling to far-flung corners of New York poses logistical challenges, the city\u2019s best restaurants are much less spread out than those in some other metropolitan areas. It is a drive of 67 miles from the Malaysian street food at Phat Eater<\/a> in Katy, Texas, the farthest west of the Houston Chronicle\u2019s 100 best restaurants<\/a> for several years, to the list\u2019s easternmost point, Gilhooley\u2019s Restaurant and Oyster Bar,<\/a> just off Galveston Bay.<\/p>\n

Alison Cook, who wrote the guide for 12 years before she retired in 2024, said that after each new edition came out, she would hear from readers determined to make it to all 100 restaurants. \u201cOddly (or perhaps not so oddly, given the square mileage involved), I never heard from one who claimed to have finished,\u201d she wrote in an email.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, when Alisha Meharali announced on social media that she would eat her way through the Chronicle\u2019s 100<\/a>, she discovered just how daunting the project was.<\/p>\n

She got off to a strong start, posting detailed videos on TikTok and Instagram<\/a>. Within a few months, she had gained enough traction that the Chronicle invited her to the unveiling of the 2025 edition of its list. But Ms. Meharali, a water and wastewater engineer, had just moved back to Houston after many years, and almost all 100 restaurants were new to her. After making it to about 30 places, she lost steam.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t really understand what I was getting into until I started doing it,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it was a cool way to start the journey as a food influencer for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The territory covered in the Los Angeles Times\u2019s annual \u201c101 Best Restaurants\u201d<\/a> may be even larger. Bill Addison, the paper\u2019s restaurant critic, doesn\u2019t know of any reader who has polished off an entire list.<\/p>\n

But there can be rewards in running a half-marathon. The first year The New York Times published \u201cThe 100 Best Restaurants in New York City,\u201d the novelist Gary Shteyngart told his Substack readers that he would be visiting all of them. \u201cLet the insanity begin,\u201d<\/a> he wrote.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t long before sanity returned. He scaled his target back to a simple majority.<\/p>\n

Although he calls making it to 51 or more restaurants \u201ca really doable thing,\u201d it requires some planning. The day the list comes out, he starts mapping a route, building in long walks between meals to stay in fighting shape.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really feel like a food athlete,\u201d Mr. Shteyngart said.<\/p>\n

He is ready to do it again this year. Not Mr. Wolpe, though. After conquering the Times list three years in a row, he decided his days as a completist are over.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019ve gone to the top of the mountain,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram<\/a>, Facebook<\/a>, YouTube<\/a>, TikTok<\/a> and Pinterest<\/a>. Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice<\/a>.<\/p>\n