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| Alinea |
You walk into a pretty non-descript building and a dark hallway. The door to your left suddenly opens, and you enter one of the top 10 restaurants in the country (or the world, depending who you read). The reservations are limited enough the hostess remembers the last names. The kitchen is to the right and wide open. The hostess noticed my gaping eyes and informed us we could go up to the glass wall and watch, which we did without hesitation. Completely quiet and structured, there are at least 12 chefs working at any given time. If given the opportunity, I would have pulled up a chair and sat in the corner and watched all night, sampling the food and wine while I did it of course.
We sat upstairs at a corner table, with a large wait staff working that are completely informed and clearly enjoy the food made there. They were the perfect mix of polite, helpful, and informal. They held seats for you and were very attentive, while also being relaxed enough to tell you about the "best hair" and "best beard" competitions that occur among the staff. You will find as I go through the dishes, at a place like this you have to have fun working. Fun is part of the whole experience.
We opted not to do the wine pairing or order drinks immediately. With 16 courses to eat, it is not the best idea to imbibe too heavily. We started with water, I ordered a Riesling at some point, and Rob was sans alcohol all meal.
The first course was a traditional started done a la Alinea. Cavier with brioche bubbles, egg yolk puree, and lemon. Mixed together the flavors completely compliment each other from the briney cavier to the sweet lemon and buttery brioche. The egg adds a creaminess to it that melds the flavors together very well.
The arrangement of branches and sticks you see in the below picture was our second course. Hidden within the bouquet is salsify, a root vegetable than resembles a carrot. At Alinea the salsify is dried in a similar method as beef jerky. The texture was that of candied dried fruit but with the taste similar to teryaki (that's the best analogy I can make).
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| Salsify branch camouflage |
Another jem was the gurnard with white pepper puree, peanut puree, coriander, and broccoli as well as fish sauce jelly. The fish, a lovely whitefish from the northern part of New Zealand, was sushi grade and the right mixture of flaky and creamy. Mixed with the purees, it was a surprisingly please combo. As a general rule, I do not like fish sauce, but stand corrected when it came to the jelly. The broccoli rounded the dish out and gave me a good excuse to finish the white pepper and peanut purees when all the fish was gone. Oh, and the best part is that all this was served on a plank from Kentucky that originally housed bourbon, was broken up, and shipped to Chicago for the simple use as a plate for this dish. I mean... seriously???!!! You can't make this stuff up.
A while later we had the sqaub-which is basically a fancy pigeon. More of a red meat, the meat was sweet without a beefy flavor (obviously). It was accompanied by a Mexican tuffle filled with squab liver mouse, beet, grilled orange, and carrot. The Mexican truffle with the liver mouse tasted like fruity pebbles on its own. The sweetness of the dish could have felt like too much, but work with the earthiness of the beet and the meat. Great stand alone pieces that worked so synergistically together.
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| Squab |
The below photo was a palate cleanser as we headed toward the latter portion of the meal. It is served on a large ice cube in a bowl of finely crushed ice. Fruit sherbet you wonder? Not even close. It's frozen essence of dark chocolate. Your eyes deceive you but your taste buds don't- pure dark chocolate. This was made in a rotary vaccuum. A rotary vaccuum (you can google the image of the machine which costs the same price of a new car) uses temperature extremes to extract the natural flavors from most any object that retains water: dirt, leather, vegetables, fruit, etc. For instance, if you extract the flavors of hot chili peppers, you will taste the peppers minus the heat of the chili enzymes. Make sense?
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| Chocolate-frozen distillation |
By far the most fun "dish" we had was in the form of a balloon. Yes, a balloon, helium and all. Made with 3 different kinds of sugar, at a particular humidity they can have a higher surface tension that allow them to be inflated with helium added. The result is a green apple balloon that you simple place your lips on and suck out the helium. Yes, if done properly you sound like a chipmunk for a bit. Then you get to eat the balloon. The balloon is like having the best jolly rancher ever. The "string" is a combo of the sugars of the balloon mixed with dehydrated apple to give it some body and that natural flavors of the apple. All-in-all the result is something you'll never forget.
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| Yes, I ate that. |
Last but certainly not least is the "table dessert". It is exactly what it sounds like and our absolute favorite part. A mat is placed on the table and the dessert is constructed in front of you. Ours consisted of rum, vanilla, mango, all spice, freeze dried coconut, and chocolate with pieces of passion fruit, dried pineapple, sour cherries, key lime in edible wrapping, condensed and carmelized banana, dragon fruit, and watermelon. Yes... it did taste as good as it looks. Go ahead, be jealous.
Alinea is not a place to go for dinner, lunch or breakfast. It is above and beyond an experience in pushing the limit of how food is prepared and presented- condensed, hydrated, inflated, extracted, it's all here. All of this happens without any pretension and with a happiness that others get to experience the magic they see every day. Even the wait staff doesn't treat this like a contemporary meal. The staff salutes you not by stating '"enjoy your meal" but by saying "have fun."
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