Awesome, awe-inspiring, humbling, shocking, fun and the list of superlatives could go on and on for what I experienced last night at Alinea in Chicago. Alinea is Grant Achatz's other restaurant in Chicago in addition to Next, though Alinea has been open since 2007. So here are the pictures.
So to start this meal that waiters bring out what they call center pieces to spice up the table and having read various blogs I knew that those pieces would end up as a plate at some point during the evening, little did I know that it would be the first course. This one is called Butternut, Muscovado, Finger lime, West indies. It's basically a butternut squash soup at the bottom with the muscovado sugar, lime and the flavors of the west indies on top. All the stuff is in a glass tube and you get to suck it out. Before you eat the dish the waiters tell you don't be afraid to make noise, which is tough given the restaurant that you are in. Thankfully we were one of the first seatings of the night so no one else was around when this dish came out.
The next four courses came out on a piece of wood that was covered with seaweed. All of these dishes were flavors of the ocean. The waiter explained the order that we were supposed ot eat the dish. The first one is on the very right is called an oyster mignonette. It's an oyster leaf that is topped with various other flavors served inside of an oyster shell. The oyster leaf is a nice play on taking the place of an actual oyster as they are supposed to taste the same. Honestly, I didn't think the leaf tasted much like an oyster, but I also don't eat that many oysters.
The second bite is the top left. Sea Urchin, White chocolate, sudachi and wasabi. The plate is the sea urchin shell with the primary sauce being a white chocolate foam and the whole thing is topped with a piece of sea urchin. I love love love love love sea urchin so this was one of my favorite bites of the night.
Third bite is in the middle on the top, this is Lobster, trinity, cherry and chervil. this is a piece of lobster served with, celery, bell pepper and carrots with a bit of sherry and chervil there's also a lobster cracker in there the plate here is a hollowed out lobster claw.
The final bite is in the very front, razor clam, shiso, soy and daikon. I had never had razor clam before so I wasn't sure what this would be like. Other than being a bit chewy the asian flavors that it was served with made it awesome.
Overall this was a fantastic progression.
Course #6, this was described as more ocean flavors by channeling the foam that washes up on shore with the waves. Probably the least successful dish of the night which is unfortunate because at the bottom of the bowl is otoro tuna which is the belly of the bluefin tuna and it can go for $25/slice at sushi restaurants so I was super excited. The otoro didn't disappoint but the other things in the dish just didn't work. The complimentary flavors are thai banana, sea salt and kafir lime. The kaffir lime was turned into the foam and I want to say the banana was in the milky looking pudding and the solid green thing on top is a cucumber.
The next dish is called corn, huitlacoches, cory cherry, silk. The bright yellow stuff is sweet corn pudding, the red stuff is a huitlachoche cherry ink, there's popcorn powder and huitlachoche powder and the most surprising thing on the plate, fried corn silk. Everything but the silk was delicious. Huitlachoche is a fungus that grows on the corn and is considered a delicacy in Mexico.
Up next was Brook Trout, sage, Bourbon, nasturtium. This is a brook trout filet which has been somewhat put back together with the tail, spine and head included on the plate after being deep fried. There's a sage cream, the brown ball is a burbon maple syrup and on the very right, brook trout roe. The wood the plate is on is from the barrels that the bourbon maple syrup was made in. This was a really fun dish and now I can tell my sister that eating fish skeleton isn't scary at all, as it will be on the menu again at Next in December.
Underneath the top board was a bit of charcoal that was on fire when they brought it to the table. Alinea loves to play with scents and that I think was the point to char the wood a little bit and give off the aroma as you were eating this dish.
This is probably the most famous dish to come out of the Alinea kitchen and I was SO HAPPY to see this one. It's called Hot Potato, Cold Potato, Chive, Butter. The bowl is made out of a parafin wax, in the bowl is a cold potato soup, on the pin is the butter chive and a hot boiled potato topped with a black truffle. You pull the pin the ingredients fall into the cold soup and you take it down like a shot. One word for this this, awesome. This one is in the Alinea cookbook, and I can't wait to make it at home.
Here we have matsutake, Pork, Huckleberry and pine. This is a block of pine topped with pine needles and then some hot rocks. The actual food here is matsutake mushrooms, which are some of the most expensive mushrooms on the planet, mixed in with some roasted pork and a huckleberry and pine nut (I think) crumble. This was a lot of fun.
Another ridiculously famous dish and another one that I was thrilled when it came out and I was not disappointed. Black Truffle, explosion, romaine, Parmesan. It's a thin ravioli filled with a black truffle sauce and then topped with romaine and parmesan. You take it all in one bite and bite down with your lips closed and it explodes in your mouth. Freaking outstanding. This one is also in the cookbook so I really want to do this one at home as well. Black Truffles are a fungus that grow at the base of oak trees in europe. They only grow wild and can't be cultivated, to find them people go out with specially trained pigs or dogs that can snif them out in the dirt. Again some of the most expensive things in the entire world.
The most interactive dish of the night. I had to stop my mom from diving into the plate in the middle because she thought that was the course but when the waiters hadn't explained anything to us I knew there was more to come. There are 64 little side dishes in the middle of the table all of them a known to go well with lamb.
Here's the lamb, there's roasted leg to the left, roasted belly in the middle and roasted loin on the right. This one was a ton of fun. They don't give you a guide to what the accompaniments are which is part of the fun, the waiters thought we did pretty good when I estimated that we were able to identify about half. I asked for a listing of them but it sounded like from the reaction I got that they don't like to give that out. Not sure why that would be, but whatever.
This is a variation of a dish I've already made at home. I made the version that had Pheasant, apple and shallots. This one is Wood Cock, lingonberry, shallots and oak leaves. It was better than what I made, and overall it was fun to see the differences from what I did and how they did this at the restaurant.
this was described as the palate cleanser it's called ginger five other flavors. Each pin has a little piece of ginger that has a different accompaning flavor. There was no way I could identify any of those other flavors, but again this was a fun one.
This is the kind of fun plating that Alinea is incredibly famous for. They bring this plate out that has a bowl at the bottom that is stuffed with citrus rinds, lavender and other herbs, which again is to play with your sense of smell. The waiter pours hot water into the bowl and places fresh squeezed honey onto the plate, from a honeycomb that they set on the table about 4 courses back. The top is carrot, coconut, white sesame and caramelized honey. Overall, not a great dish but interesting. The best part about this one was once you finished the food on top you get a metal straw and drink the highly flavored water out of the bottom. How that water picked up as much flavor as it did in like 5 minutes was amazing.
That's a side shot of the bottom with the water in it.
By far the most fun dish of the night. This is called balloon, helium, green apple. It's an apple taffy that is filled with real helium. They try to explain to you how to eat it but there's no real good way to do so. You get the taffy all over you , even the string is edible as it's made out of a thin strip of apple.
The last course of the night. This one was hinted at early on when the waiters mentioned that they would likely be making a bigger mess on the table trhoughout the night that we would as diners. After the taffy balloon they come out and roll this mat out over the table and at that point I knew what was coming. They brought out small bowls of the sauces and LIQUID NITROGEN then Grant Achatz comes out and explains the dish to you as he's painting the table. The first step was to pour the liquid nitrogen into a chocolate balloon, then the table is painted with a sherry vinegar reduction, orange reduction and quince there's also a malted chocolate in the middle. Note, all of the swirls were done with nothing but a spoon, no squeeze bottle anywhere. Then at the very end Chef Achatz ends the presentation by picking up the chocolate balloon hovers it over the table about 6 inches and drops it. He calls it a chocolate pinata.
everything in this dish was really good, though it's probably more style over substance.
A trip to Alinea isn't complete without a picture of the building number.
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