Alinea

Summary

This is one of those once in a lifetime opportunities that we wanted to take advantage of. This would be our first (and maybe last) trip to Chicago, and I wanted to go all out. The night before, we had gone to The Smyth, which was amazing. Tonight we will be going to Alinea, which is Grant Achatz’s restaurant, for The Gallery multicourse meal. We found out about Grant from Netflix shows and his cameo appearances on Master Chef.

Keep in mind that you have to be on point when making reservations for this restaurant. The reservations open on the 15th of each month for 2 months in advance at 11 AM CST. For example if you wanted to make a reservation in December, you need to wait till October 15th for the list to open for the entire month of December. You also had to pay up front for the meal with gratuity included. I actually kind of liked this. You can eat without thinking of the bill (not including any drinks you order there).

When we walked in, there was a big communal table. The table had all the other guests that joined us, and it was very artsy. It had a lot of clouds made from puffy fabric and was decorated in white all over.

What you see here is the dish prior to being told what it was and prepared. We had no idea what to expect next.

All of a sudden, we saw the wait staff come in one by one and poured broth into the bowl. They also gave us bread too. The soup, according to the menu, is called leaves, and it came with roasted onion, cabbage, and fromager d’affinois. I would describe it as simply french onion soup with bugs. There were these little fried larvae looking things that were a little crunchy. The cheese itself tasted similar to a big chunk of white American cheese.

The bread was described as whip, which was pumpkin butter, brioche, and allspice. The bread was good.

The nugget was described as crunch, which had pumpkin, mace, and peanut. The crunch nugget was alright.

The branch here has our last element of this course. You can see this little brown thing. We were directed to stand up after we’re done with our soup, take the brown thing off the branch, and then eat it. It had birch, thyme, and parsnip. It tasted like something super melty cheesy like texture and was lukewarm.

Next, we were asked to go into the kitchen. We were served a pocket which was tinga, chili, and avocado along with a *spicy margarita**, which had tequila, sweet potato, and bell pepper. The little pocket was a fun bite. It’s like eating a little mexican style hors d’oeurvre at a wedding. The spicy margarita wasn’t really spicy at all. It had good flavors, but I’ve definitely had better.

We were then asked to go back to the room we were, and it changed entirely. It was no longer a communal table, but broken into separate tables per party. The vibe and ambiance had changed entirely!

This was cloud, which had osetra caviar, blood orange foam, and heart of palm. The blood orange flavor was tart but was very refreshing. It was a good blend with the salty caviar.

This was flake, which was halibut, fennel, and apple. The fish was cooked nicely, and everything was a good blend.

Next was a myriad of 3 items. The first was the king, which was basically king crab with coconut, culantro, and mango. The crab was very sweet and good. The second was ink, which was basically octopus on a skewer with Korean BBQ sauce. The octopus was cooked nicely and tender. The sauce was rather salty though and tasted similar to the zhajianmian sauce (soybean paste). The third, shell, was my favorite. It was essentially prawn with chili curry served in a cool vessel. This had sour, salty, and spicy flavors. You would basically drink the broth as if you were pouring it as a sauce into your mouth. The broth reminded me a lot of the lobster chili I had at Marc Forgione in NYC.

They dimmed the lights, and brought out this coal stove and lit it with something on it.

While the coal stove was cooking something, they brought out another display piece. There was a piece of hot coal in the center. The center piece sitting on it was the bone which basically resembled rabbit leg and had mushroom, honey, and barbecue. It was good, and it was a fun presentation. The bottom right was the cracker, which was celery root, sumac, and chervil. It tastd like eating chips with vegetables on it. The bottom left was the truffle, which was basically rabbit liver, pine nut, and wojapi. It was very rich and good.

When they served the presentation above, they also gave us the heirloom. This had rabbit, beans, and sassafras. The fun in this is “guessing” which is rabbit and which isn’t. It was relatively easy though, as the beans were garbonzo beans. The rabbit “bean” was super spongy and soft. The soup was very rich in flavors.

The light brightened, and we were served the taco next. This had smoke and myoga. It was definitely smokey, and that’s all I have written down.

They also gave us a big branches presentation (smelled like douglas fir). There were these 2 brown balls sitting on the branch. This was dumpling which was duck, black garlic, and brown spice. This tasted like a super rich braised beef stew ball with emphasis on soy sauce.

And now remember the something that was cooking on that fire stove earlier? It was actually a mushroom. This is the trumpet, which was a mushroom served with blueberry sauce on the side and a foie gras layer on top. We were asked to eat this dish last because we had to let the foie gras layer slowly melt on top of the mushroom. The mushroom was juicy and did not have a lot of that mushroom flavor that I loathe. Texture was spongy but not bouncy.

Next was the main meat course where they brought out one of the chefs where they made the steak sauce and cut the steak in front of you. This was the diane, which was 14 day dry aged ribeye. The pastry at the right basically had cream of spinach in it, a few chunks of mushroom, pickled radish, and I think a small onion. The sauce was probably the best part about this dish. They gave extra sauce in case if you wanted. Vaguely, the sauce tasted like it had red wine and was salty, close to normal demi-glazed red wine steak sauces.

Not listed on the menu was this sweet potato tempura bite that came out on a lit cinnamon stick. This was puffy and delicious.

The desserts are coming up. This is the crystallized, which was pandan, squash, and basil. It also had some lemon grass in it. The taste of this is basically fruity pebbles cereal. I love how some of these dishes completely mess with your mind.

On the ceiling, they took down these ornaments and used them as our plating for the next course. Totally fooled us here. This is the paint, which had strawberry, banana, and toasted jasmine. The liquids tasted like strawberry, mango, and mint for the respective colors. At the top where there is a strawberry colored square is actually a chocolate shell with the same strawberry liquid in it. It was pretty good. The white liquid nitrogen crumble is like a banana with a white chocolate shell. At the bottom is a brownie.

What was really fun about this are the sauces and variety of textures on it. You can kind of choose your own journey on what you want to eat with what and sample.

And coincidentally at the end, it comes out to be an unintentional modern interpretation of art. The direction of the strokes on how we picked up the crumbles and what we sampled were very interesting.

Lastly, we were served the fun filled balloon, which was basically helium with green apple taffy. The whole thing is edible.

Throughout the courses of the night, I saw Chef Grant Achatz in the kitchen working intently and always looking down in thought. One can only wonder what he was thinking, but he also let us take a picture with him after the dinner.

The staff overall was very friendly and playful. The atmosphere was definitely a little more formal. I thought of it as going to an artsy gala with a very fun artistic dinner.

The food in general was pretty good but sometimes forgettable. The emphasis was definitely on the experience though. From the decor of the restaurant inside as well as the presentation of each of the dishes, you can tell there was a lot of thought that went into each dish for story telling.

Final Verdict

Alinea definitely was a once in a lifetime experience. I can’t stress enough that this is not a restaurant with unforgettable tasty food. The lure of this is the whole experience with an open mind. Throughout the night, each of the dishes had some pretty cool presentation aspects ranging from deflections in the environment to the actual dishes themselves. The food itself was fun in nature and decent in taste.

To set the bar straight about this Michelin 3 star restaurant, we loved the whimsical nature of our dinner tonight and highly recommend this for a Chicago experience outing. I think if you were to go here for the food specifically, you will be disappointed.

Yelp Jabs

Some of the food was… not good… but I tried to eat every bite of this experience.

This reviewer is overdramatic. I can’t tell if the reviewer is serious or not. They were complaining that as a solo diner they were too close to the staff and made them uncomfortable. One would have to wonder what types of unrealistic expectations they had for this.

But at the end of the night, my husband and I both agreed that we would never want to dine here again.

I think a restaurant like this is never worth coming back when there are so many others to try. The price point is way too high to be a return restaurant, even for a special outing. I am sure there are plenty of good Chicago restaurants that have better food sans the whimsy show.