Next Sicily

So last night I got a chance to go back to Next for the second menu of the year, Sicily.  I'm glad I went and the meal was great, but it left me wishing my first meal there wasn't El Bulli back in April.  That's because afterwards I couldn't stop comparing the two meals, which is completely unfair to the Sicily menu.  These meals are not even the same animal, and weren't designed to be.  I really wish I would have known about Next to be able to go to either the Thai or Childhood menu last year to compare meals where Chefs Achatz and Beran have had complete creative license.  Anyway, on to the photos.

This was the plate that greeted me at my seat.  Custom made and hand painted for this meal, as were all the serving plates throughout the evening.

The theme of the night was rustic Sicilian food that you would be able to get in a home in Sicily, so there is a welcome not for you at the table.

The four antipasti plates.  The first one is Arancine, a rice ball stuffed with lamb tongue and then deep fried.  Dish #2 is panelle, a crispy chickpea fritter.  Dish #3 is caponata which is the quintessential Sicilian savory dish.  Roasted vegetable salad that always includes eggplant.  This was the easily the best of the four dishes.  Finally Carciofi Alle Brace, fire roasted artichokes.  They have whole artichokes and then cook them directly on the coals of a charcoal grill out back.  The bite of the heart that came out of the middle was outstanding, but many of the outer leaves were so burnt that you couldn't even get a little nubbin of the end.  This whole course was served with a cocktail of Chamomile tea, honey, saffron and Prosecco, which is an Italian sparkling wine.

The first wine pairing for the two pasta courses.  This is a 2010 bottle of Tasca d'Almerita Regaleali.  Apparently, a member of the family who owns this estate on Sicily works in the kitchen at Next.

The first pasta course, Bucatini con Bottarga and there's a little cream sauce on the bottom.  This one left me wanting a little more.  I thought the pasta was chewy and undercooked, but having read similar complaints in other reviews, I'm wondering if it isn't intentional.  The bottarga was very surprising to me.  Bottarga is dried and cured mullet roe, I expected something very fishy and chip like, what I got was something that had absorbed a lot of the flavor of the sauce and was soft.

Pasta course #2.  This was described as the national dish of Sicily, Gemelli con le Sarde.  Gemelli pasta which was topped with a sardine, fennel, pine nuts and raisins.  All the ingredients in this dish are indigenous to the island.

The wine for the fish course, 2010 bottle of Tenuta Rapitala Piano Maltese.

This course and the next course were served family style, much like they would be in Sicily.  The top picture is the swordfish, which was pan seared and then served over mint pesto and topped with a roasted head of garlic and sauteed mint.  The salad that accompanied it is a chickpea salad that includes mashed chickpeas as well as fried chickpeas and there's some romanesco broccoli on top. This was probably the best swordfish I've ever had, but the fish was huge, we had four people at the table and couldn't finish the whole filet.

The wine for the pork.  2010 bottle of Planeta Cerasuolo di Vittoria. This was the best wine of the night, and I'm not a huge fan of red wine.

Best dish of the night, by a million miles.  This is a dish that pays homage to the tradition on Sicily that what little four legged meat they do have is cooked low and slow all day in a tomato sauce.  The meat would be served on Sunday and the tomato sauce would be served with pasta during the rest of the week.  The top picture is the braised pork shoulder that was served with the tomato sauce that it cooked in.  This this was nearly spoon tender, it melted in your mouth.  The salad is actually a tribute to a dish that the executive chef's grandfather would make.  A roasted vegetable salad that included zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers and then was topped with a couple of pieces of fried zucchini.  This dish was so rich, that again, even all four people at the table couldn't finish it, which is too bad because of how delicious it was.

The palate cleanser came at the perfect time.  This is blood orange granita.  Sour and cold, it was perfect after the incredibly rich pork.

The desert wine for the evening, a bottle of 2008 Planet Passito di Noto.  Basically a Sicilian version of Sauterines, a super sweet wine, that tastes like you're drinking raisins.

The first desert, cassata.  One of the Sous chefs actually comes out of the kitchen with the whole cassata and explains the dish and shows what it looks like when it's whole.  Then the waiters come out with individual portions.  This is a sponge cake that has a cream sauce on the inside and is topped with marzipan, which is a sturdy combination of sugar and almond.  It was good, but nothing really special.

The final three courses, dolci or sweets.  We've got Cubbaita di Giugiulena which is a sesame seed brittle and probably the least successful dish of the night, tasted a bit like caramel corn that wasn't sweet at all.  In the back, kind of hidden by the strawberries is Raviloi Fritti, a thin pastry stuffed with raspberry jam, and then what's a Sicilian meal without a cannoli.  This was my first cannoli ever and the one thing that left me wanting more was what I perceived to be a lack of sweetness out of the ricotta filling.

As is tradition they bring a copy of the menu out to you at the end of the meal.

Overall, it was a good meal, a lot more misses than they had on the El Bulli menu, but that's too be expected when comparing dishes from El Bulli that were worked on and perfected for years before they were ever served at the restaurant to these dishes that could only be worked on for 6-9 months before service.

I don't have picture evidence of this but the coolest thing of the night was on the way in sitting on the street just down from The Aviary we saw this guy that looked a lot like Grant Achatz, the owner of Next.  At that point I was the only one who thought so.  After dinner, two hours later he was still sitting there, and my brother and I were both 100% convinced.  Grant Achatz, one of the best chefs in the entire freaking world was sitting along the street a block from his restaurant just chatting with someone who looked like one of his staff members.  The strangest part, no one was bothering him.