By Natasha Bazika
Robb Report
Two years ago, Ellen Hunter was in a dining rut. In her adopted hometown of New York, the 37-year-old jewelry designer kept finding herself at the same restaurants over and over again. When she arrived in the city in 2008 from Tennessee, where she grew up, she didn’t really consider herself an adventurous diner. But as she acclimated herself to the rhythms of the Big Apple and expanded her dining horizons, she knew she needed a change. And that’s when she got the idea: She would eat at every Michelin-starred restaurant in the city chronicle progress along the way
“My blog, The Star Crawl, was born in June 2017 after a visit to Michelin two-starred Momofuku Ko, where I spoke with executive Sean Gray, a friend of mine. I told him about my idea, which he loved. The next day I bought the domain name,” Hunter said.
"Her weakness is for classic French Fine Dining, especially from Eric Ripert’s three-star Le Bernardin."
In the early stages of her quest, Hunter checked off several restaurants a week, committed to being the first diner to document a visit to all 74 starred spots in the city. It began with a flurry. Within 8 weeks she’d already visited 30 of the restaurants—from fried chicken and champagne at The Modern (her seventh stop) to indulging on upscale Spanish at Casa Mono (the 17th restaurant in her journey).