I know this menu sounds a little on the very specific side, but there is a very good reason why. Each and every menu at Next comes with a playbill. The playbill for this menu tells a very personal story about Grant Achatz.
20 years ago, I was an unemployed cook who had lost his desire and passion for the profession. I read about The French Laundry in a magazine one day, thought it sounded wonderful, and mailed a letter to Chef Thomas Keller every day for several weeks asking for a job. Eventually he called and invited me out to Yountville, California.
My Father and I packed up a car with all of my belongings and drove to Napa Valley. I arrived there to find a tall cook sweeping the floor early in the morning, I asked him if Chef Keller was in yet. Of course, that was Chef Keller. The French Laundry was a very different place with an amazing leader and mentor.
That night something magical happened. Chef Keller hosted my father and me for dinner. An incredible act of hospitality, this was, of course, not a formal first day of employment! Everything about that meal and the generosity shown to us by Chef KEller and The French Laundry team changed the way I viewed being a chef... and pivoted the course of my life.
May of the dishes presented here are faithful reproductions from that meal. Others are seasonal favorites that I cooked with Chef Keller during my time at The French Laundry - from 1996 to 2001. All of these items reflect the core philosophy and attention to detail that has defined The French Landry.
In preparation for this menu, Chef Thomas Keller welcomed Next Executive Chef Jenner Tomaska into his kitchens to experience The French Laundry magic first hand. Together, we bring a little bit of Napa Valley to Chicago.
For me, food is almost always better when its personal. Now Grant Achatz isn't in the kitchen at Next most nights, but I'm sure his presence is felt deeply by the staff when cooking this meal and I think that is reflected well in the final product.
We started with canapes, three small little appetizers. The first one is a salmon cornet. This is a crunch pastry that is filled with red onion creme fraiche then topped with salmon tartare.
The second bite is a poached shrimp with avocado salsa.
The third and final canape is a white truffle egg custard that had a black truffle ragout in the bottom. The item sticking up is a chive chip. Two very thin slices of potato with a chive in the middle and then baked.
This is the dish I was most intimidated by all night, oysters and pearls Oysters are a tough sell for me, and I love caviar in small amounts, but as you can see, there is a gratuitous amount on this dish. Obviously, we have oysters in this dish. I don't remember the exact variety but they were from Massachusetts. The pearls make an appearance in two ways, the golden osetra caviar as well as the based of the dish, sabayon of pearl tapioca. The team did a fantastic job of cleaning the oysters, no grit at all, and I wouldn't have expected anything less. The caviar was smooth and balanced, not overly salted like you can get with some caviars.
The first four courses are all time TFL classics that are on the menu more often than they are off, if the every leave. The fifth dish started a forray into dishes I was less familiar with. This a hardened dish of heart of palm, topped with shaved heart of palm, served over the top of date vinaigrette and cilantro oil. The whole this is topped with a frisee salad.
The genius of Thomas Keller is demonstrated in this dish. No sauce, no garnishes, nothing to hide behind on this one. Keller is the man, so he can pull a dish like this off perfectly. This is a piece of pompano crusted with almonds and brown butter. When making brown butter, the product takes on this rich caramel nutty flavor that smells ridiculous.
This was a unique place to put the lobster course but it worked well with how this dish is constructed. Normally, lobster is served with lighter flavors so as to not mask the delicate flavor of the crustacean. The sauce on this one is a port wine reduction which is then topped with the lobster. Then, as though, all of that wasn't enough, the whole thing was topped with a slice of seared foie gra.
Now we are onto more game focused dishes. This one is known and Storey Farms Chicken. This is a braised chicken breast cooked with the ingredients for a rif on ratatouille.
This was the final savory course of the evening, pot eu feu. This is The French Laundry's version of post roast. This is a braised short rib with par broiled vegetables and then topped with crispy bone marrow. The other cool thing about this dish, is that the wine poured with this one is a wine in which Thomas Keller has nearly complete control of distribution, in that The French Laundry gets basically everything the vineyard can produce.
We then moved onto the cheese course; this is a chunk of goat cheese and served with plums. This is not something I say very often, after 15 meals at next I can probably count on one hand the number of dishes that I truly hated, but this is one of them. Of the top of my head I can only come up with one other one, but I have to think there are one or two more out there too.
This is the first true sweet dish of the night. Verjus sorbet with peach butter and mint oil and garnished with a peach chip.
Another all time Keller classic, coffee and doughnuts. Cinnamon sugar dusted brioche doughnuts served with a cappuccino semifreddo. I don't like coffee at all, I can't stand the smell of it, nothing. But this dish was really good.
To close out the evening, we had the mignardises, just little one bite deserts. On the tray there were concord grape jellies, salted caramel, pistachio nougat and one other bite and then in the bowl was peanut butter chocolate truffles.
This meal was quite the experience. The French Laundry has always been on my bucket list, and while I've not gotten out the Napa to eat at the real deal, I do feel like I got a very true representation of what the restaurant is like.
