Background:
Alinea needs no introduction. You’ve probably seen Chef Grant Achatz’s Chef Table episode, or seen it perennially on the top 50 restaurants in the world list (as high as number 6 in 2011), or maybe you’ve read about its three stars in the Michelin Guide, or 2016 Outstanding Restaurant Award from the James Beard Foundation. Wherever you know it from, Alinea is famous among gastromologists (did I just make that word? Yes, because I hate the term “foodie”).
The restaurant has been around since 2005, which is an eternity for a restaurant, especially one of this caliber. It’s hard for a chef to maintain his edge and sharpness, especially after rising to the top of the food world. So, as we prepared for our dinner at Alinea, we wondered if we had missed its prime, like we felt after dining at The French Laundry. Achatz and his partner Nick Kokonas have thought a lot about this — how can you make Alinea relevant and fresh while still paying homage to your restaurant’s history? In 2016, they shut down and completely remodeled the restaurant, taking it from a whimsical, modern look to a more classical, timeless look. The experience also changed. Instead of a three to five hour dining experience, the new Alinea is much more fast paced, taking anywhere between 2 and 3 hours depending upon what part of the restaurant you are dining in.
"Do any of us want to have a five-hour meal anymore?" chef Achatz asked the Chicago Tribune recently. No, we don’t, and Alinea in particular taught us the magic of a two-hour “theatre” experience. We got in, waited for the proverbial curtain to open, and then spent the next two hours participating in a show that left us perfectly full and wanting slightly more at the end, which is exactly the feeling you want leaving a great restaurant. A lot of high end restaurants don’t spend enough time thinking about how to get the diner perfectly full at the end of the meal. This in itself is an art, and the only other restaurant that we’ve been to that’s gotten it right other than Alinea is Noma in Copenhagen.
Alinea has been able to do what few restaurants have done and changed with the times and kept itself relevant 14 years after opening. Was Alinea better in 2011? I don’t know, but it was damn good in 2019, and I would not hesitate to go back in a heartbeat.
Eat This:
Alinea now has three options when dining: The Salon ($210-$285/person) is a 10-14 course tasting menu on the second level of the restaurant. The Gallery ($305-$365/person) is a 16-18 course tasting menu on the main level. Finally, there is the Kitchen Table, which is $395/person and only allows for six people at a time, all booked under one party. We tried and tried for a Gallery reservation, but since there are only 16 seats and two seatings a night, it sells out within a few seconds upon opening. So we settled for the Salon, which wasn’t settling as we’d find out later. Any reservation for two is almost impossible to get, so I would suggest finding another couple to go with for a table of four, which is a much easier reservation to score. Also flexibility of dates is great, as there are normally some mid-week options available.
At the end of the night, we asked our waitress what the biggest differences were between The Gallery and The Salon. She said the courses were the same, but you are taken as a whole room into the kitchen for one course in The Gallery. Maybe she said it to be nice, but she made it seem like we didn’t miss anything on the 2nd floor. Phil Vettel of the Chicago Tribute seems to feel the same way, and plus, the Salon is more affordable and approachable for new gastromolists.
Focus
Trout roe, concord grape, parsnip tofu
It took us four years, but we finally decided to bring a notebook and take notes during the meal, so we could remember all the small details. I also just got the new iPhone 11 Pro, which is such a huge upgrade from the X, especially in low light. I can’t recommend that puppy enough.
The first bite was only three ingredients but packed a real punch. The grape infusion was a burst of fresh grape flavor, while the disparate textures of the tofu and roe made a great balance for the dish as a whole.
Smut
Huitlacoche, corn, pink pepper
What Alinea did was serve multiple courses at a time, almost like an act of a play. This allowed the experience to go quicker and for each progression of dishes to be more dramatic. Act one was corn, which consisted of two dishes. This one was the Smut cracker. Smut is another term for huitlacoche, which is a special fungus that grows on corn. The cracker was made of this fungus and then it was topped with corn and pink pepper.
Of course, we all know of Yvonne’s corn fear (see: Central in Peru), but she has persevered past that in our old age and now we both enjoy a nice corn dish. The cracker was excellent and provided a nice compliment to the corn soup, almost a play on an oyster cracker that you would put in corn chowder.
Maize
Husk, smoked ham
We were in town because I was running the Chicago Marathon, and I didn’t want to eat at Alinea before the marathon, so we booked it for the night of the Marathon as a celebration dinner. This was a good and bad idea. Good, in that I was really hungry, bad in that I could barely walk and was a little delirious. As we got this course I hiccuped extremely loudly, which as Yvonne noted in our notebook, “embarrassed the family.” I’m sorry about that.
But alas, onto the dish. Freeze dried corn was put on top of corn soup, which contained corn, smoked ham, goldenberries, and corn kernels. The textures were what made this dish special, as all the different variations of corn provided slightly different flavors to the dish.
Shell
Prawn & chili
The next act was a play on Southeast Asian street food. We were presented 4 small dishes and then what we thought was a table decorations was infused with dry ice to create an aroma of lemongrass, lime, and coconut.
Alinea’s plateware is incredible, especially on this dish. We drank out of a glass conch and ate crab out of a glass crab. One of my favorite bites was this prawn and coconut curry, which was one of the most flavorful, spicy, sweet, delicious curries I have had in my life.
The prawn puff was served with a vanilla bean as a utensil, which we were told multiple times not to eat, but I still wanted to. We immediately started looking up flights to Vietnam/Thailand after this bite.
Ink
Octopus, Korean barbecue
The second dish in this act was grilled octopus smothered and covered in a Korean barbecue sauce. I think this was a play on midwestern, Kansas City BBQ, except instead of the traditional beef/pork it was made with octopus. Delicious, tangy, and left you wanting more
King
King crab, coconut, culantro, mango
Look at the glass crab - this crab was made specifically for this dish, and probably won’t be used after. Shinnnnnny for you Moana fans out there.
The actually crab had a really nice, bright coconut taste. It accentuated the crab’s natural sweetness and brought the whole Southeastern act to a close in a dramatic flourish.
HeirLoom
Rabbit, beans, sassafras
The next act was focused on rabbit, and felt very 10,000BC/cave man/Fred Flinstone-ish. First, a large fire is lit on the table. Then we are presented with a rabbit pasta and a log with a roasting rabbit.
The pasta harkened back to a simpler time, when families sat around fires and ate good rabbit pasta, as all of our ancestors did in the past (right?). This one was a miss for me. The presentation was cool, but it had a lack of flavor and depth.
Bone
Mushroom, honey, barbecue
The rabbit was served on the bone with mushrooms and a honey BBQ sauce, all while roasting on an actual coal (don’t touch that coal!). Surrounding the bone was a cracker of celery root, sumac, chervil, and a truffle of rabbit liver, pine nut, and wojapi.
To me, the winner of this act and maybe the best bite of the night, was the truffle. The silky liver mixed perfectly with the sweet wojapi (Native American Berry) and the crunchy pine nuts. It was umami, sweet, salty, crunchy, tart – everything in one.
Trumpet
Cured, blueberry
The next act was fall, autumn, or, in Charlotte, the three days in between summer and winter. A large plate of oak leaves are presented with this dish, fall colors abound, to give us the sensory experiences - sight and smell - to along with the taste.
The trumpet mushroom was grilling all throughout the previous course. The waitress came over and took the mushroom off the grill, put it on our plate, and then put this thin layer of foie gras on top. It was served with a blueberry sauce.
To me the earthy, meaty mushroom mixed well with the soft layer of foie gras, and the blueberry added just the right amount of sweetness to the dish.
Dumpling
Duck, black garlic, brown spice
On top of the leaves were served a duck dumpling (You have to kind of hunt for it in the leaves – I wonder if this was intentional to feel like you were hunting for duck amongst the fall trees?) Fancy bao buns have been a feature popping up more and more in fine dining recently, and I wholeheartedly approve. Bring on more buns, hun.
Taco
Smoke, myoga
Sorry for the bad picture guys. I was doing so well up until this point! While the foie gras was melting onto the trumpet mushroom, we were instructed to have this fall taco, which consisted of mushrooms and Japanese ginger (myoga). It was a refreshing, yet ultimately forgettable bite.
Black truffle Explosion
This is an Alinea and chef Grant Achatz classic. It’s a tortellini of sorts that’s cooked with a truffle that’s solid in the middle and liquifies when cooked, so the entire center is truffle liquid gold. We were instructed to put the whole thing in our mouths before biting in, or else the truffle juice would go everywhere, and if you waste truffle juice you are sent to the basement dungeon at Alinea. An incredible bite, and one which no other table around us received. We felt VERY special about that.
Shout out to Alineaphile, who attempts to cook famous Alinea dishes at home. He does an awesome write up on this one.
Rossini
Ribeye, frites, fois gras, mushroom, truffle
We were first presented sheet music of the William Tell Overture, which was written by Gioachino Rossini, a famed Italian composer. Apparently, he was a big eater, and the French named a dish after him, which contained steak, truffles, and foie gras. This was Alinea’s play on the dish, which included the addition of a French fry emulsion (I audibly gasped when the waitress told us this), and mushrooms.
Look at the opulence of this plate! We felt like we were having a rich, decadent dish which we were. I feel that many Michelin Starred restaurants don’t do steak because it’s seen as passé, and that’s a shame, because it’s good – and when prepared like this, downright amazing. This was a perfect way to end the savory dishes on a high note, if you will.
Paint
Strawberry, banana, toasted jasmine
It’s dessert time. Alinea’s desserts are the most inventive in the world. I don’t think that’s really a hot take. I haven’t seen someone paint on my tablecloth or present me with an edible green apple balloon anyplace else in the world.
But what I was worried about was – would they taste good? The answer is an emphatic yes. The paint, with its combination of fruits and chocolate, really made for a fun, enjoyable, and delicious experience. My favorite bite was the gooey chocolate cake bites. It was moist and offered the perfect amount of chocolate to counter the fruity reductions.
Balloon
Helium, Green Apple
The most famous Alinea dish, the balloon. It’s a green apple taffy filled with helium. The string is made with an apple fruit leather.
Was it fun breathing in the helium and talking? Of course it was. Did it taste good? Yes it did, and even better than expected, I might add. The green apple added a nice, refreshing end of the meal smell and taste.
Drink:
Alinea offers a wine pairing, but no way in hell I could have done that post-marathon. Yvonne did a few wine by the glasses, and I had an excellent apple cider. The winner of the night to me though was the iced tea. This to me just exemplified the three Michelin Star experience. This wasn’t just a run of the mill black tea, it was a lychee imported tea from China that was the best iced tea I’ve ever had. It just shows that no detail, however small, goes unnoticed at Alinea. The sommelier was top notch, as expected. When Yvonne asked for a natural orange wine, the sommelier immediately brought her this German wine from Domaine Marcel Deiss, which she loved.
The best tea ever
German wine? Why not.
Atmosphere:
When we first walked in I thought, oh no, here we go again with a windowless, stuffy, museum-like experience. The walls are different shades of gray/blue, the art is modern, and it felt like we were back at Osteria Francescana, which we did not enjoy; however, the experience couldn’t have been more opposite. The restaurant was lively - people were having a good time. It felt like we could enjoy ourselves. We could laugh with the waiters/waitresses. I could make jokes. It was not stuffy at all. In fact, the setting made for a timeless moment that heightened the experience. Everything in the restaurant was set up to facilitate a memorable, once-in-a-lifetime moment, which is what we’re looking for when we go to Alinea or any other fine dining restaurant. We also didn’t feel like, as Yvonne puts it, we were fattened up like Geese to be turned into foie gras. We left the perfect amount of full and the perfect amount of happy.
Yvonne’s Hygge Room Face (PS: is that a Reformation dress?)
Chicago Hospitality:
The waiters/waitresses are what made Alinea special to us. From the moment we walked in they made us feel comfortable and at home. They knew when to talk, and when not to talk. They were personable and fun, while yet still maintaining a professional vibe. It was the perfect service, and reminded me a lot of the way Eleven Madison Park runs their hospitality. At the end of the day, when you go to a restaurant of this quality, you want to feel special walking in and out of the building, and Alinea pulls this off with the best of them.
Frankie’s Notes:
It’s a little silly to wear your Chicago Marathon Medal into Alinea; It’s okay to wear it walking back to your hotel, but after that let’s put it away because no one cares that you ran the marathon (this is coming from someone who ran the marathon); The only exception: if you win the marathon. Then you can wear it all you want; It’s fun to name the animals that are on your ribeye plates — I named my giraffe Joelle; Drinking tea out of a metal straw is the way tea was meant to be drunk; Gastromologist is going to catch on, and you heard it first here on scallionpancake.com.
Rating:
Alinea is up there with the best of the best, and is one of the few restaurants we’ve been to that has exceeded our expectations. I would go back in a heartbeat.
5 OUT OF 5 WITH 3 MICHIGAN PUGS
