Moto

When I was in Chicago last week, I finally got to try out Moto. This is another restaurant in the "molecular gastronomy" movement which I'm somewhat enamored with. Despite positive reviews from people, I'd been hesitant about going to Moto. It just seemed too gimmicky - and for me, as someone who's eaten food hanging off an antenna before, that's saying a lot. But then I saw the chef, Homaru Cantu, on Iron Chef America, and when all the judges oohed and ahhed over the flavor of his food, I was sold. So, when I had to spend three days in Chicago for work, I posted on eGullet to find some company for a dinner at Moto. Here's the write-up I just posted to eGullet:

Short version: I went in with the same fears as jesteinf, and was also pleasantly surprised. Everything tasted great, and the gimmicks were used to further that, not distract from it. The wine pairings were spectacular.

Long version:
Our (customized) menu was printed on a cracker that was flavored like foccacia - sundried tomatoes, parmesan, etc. That was on top of a lovely salad with fennel and kumquat. We ordered the 10 course menu, then got to eat our crackers - yum.

SALMON & sesame: raw salmon, dusted with the Japanese spice mixture of a name I can't remember or spell (something -rashi), and topped with a crispy yuba skin. Our server held a copper pot of bubbling liquid nitrogen and scooped from it some freeze dried sesame oil (which became a powder) to top off the salmon. Yum.
Wine: Ruinart Blanc de Blanc, Reims, Brut, NV

BEET with bacon: Okay, you'd really have to love beets to like this one, but luckily we all did. This looked like a piece of yellow cake, but was actually a frozen aerated beet concoction - it was surprisingly cold, and had a texture that reminded me of semi-freddo. It was topped with some little bacon bits, and surrounded by a beautifully plated goat cheese sauce and swirls of red and yellow beet sauce as well as bits of beets.
Wine: C. Schmitt-Wagner, Longuichen Maximiner Herrenberg Spatlese, Riesling, M-S-R, 2005

SKATE & popcorn: the popcorn was in the form of a lovely yellow sauce that did indeed taste kind of like popcorn if you thought about it. There was also a bright green shiso mint sauce, some absolutely fabulous passion fruit noodles and quite a bit of coconut powder. And a little piece of seared skate wing. Beautifully plated, and best when you mixed all the bits together - this was definitely a "sum of the parts" dish.
Wine: Stone Paddock, Sauvignon Blanc, Hawkes Bay, 2005 (the passion fruit in the nose was spot on with those passion fruit noodles - excellent pairing)

CUCUMBER with lemon & basil: A palate cleanser of some picked cucumber and a shot of cucumber/basil/lemon juice. Tasty, and certainly palate cleans-y.

SMOKED PORK with frozen fried rice: Wow. Just wow. Even jesteinf's fiance (who doesn't particularly like pork) liked this. This was a piece of pork shoulder dusted with Thai spices and smoked. It was perfectly cooked, with lovely unctuous melting fat. It was served with some kind of sauteed green and some frozen noodles that, yes, tasted like fried rice.
Wine: Barboursville, Reserve, Cabernet Franc, Virginia 2005 (Yes, that's the US state of Virginia. It was great, and another amazing pairing.)

PASTA & quail: Introduced to us as "chicken-fried quail," this was a very twisty twist on mac and cheese. The pasta had been freeze dried or something, so it was crunchy. Meanwhile, the quail managed to have exactly the texture one would expect from pasta. And it was all topped with an amazing white truffle cheese sauce. Someone at the table christened it "haute trash." But man, I'd totally eat that again.
Wine: Betts & Scholl, The Chronique, Grenache, Barossa, 2005

FRUIT & bubbles: Ah, at last I get to try the famous carbonated fruit! We had two pieces of carbonated watermelon, served on either side of what we heard as "white chocolate and exploratory cheese sauce." We were wondering what was exploratory about it, but then someone told us no, it was "explorateur cheese sauce". Whatever it was, it was amazing. Also on the plate were some granulated black walnuts, a rice puff cracker thing flavored like strawberry daiquiri, and some cinnamon apples. From the texture and flavor, I believe the apples had been cooked sous vide or something unusual. This was just so tasty - we were all oohing and ahhing over that cheese sauce, and now I'm pondering incorporating it into a white chocolate truffle sometime, it was such and intriguing combination.
Wine: Meinklang, Ice Wine, Pinot Blanc, Burgenland, 2003.

2 & 3 dimensional truffle: The three dimensional truffle was a white chocolate truffle filled with a completely liquid cotton candy flavored center. The 2 dimensional version was a piece of rice paper that was flavored like cotton candy and printed with a cartoon drawing of a cone of cotton candy. A very familiar flavor in a new and (for me anyway) preferable form.

GRAHAM CRACKER & blueberry: My note taking fell to pieces on this one, as there was just too much. The twist on this one was that the graham cracker component was as a smooth mousse, with blueberry "dots" and ginger "dots" adding some crunchy texture. There was some strawberry sorbet in there too. Tasty.

KIWI, mint & maize: This looked for all the world like a plate of nachos. There were sweetened corn chips. There was ground beef made out of chocolate (but looking exactly like ground beef). There was a green salsa of kiwis. Then shaved mango sorbet that looked exactly like cheese. And a little pile of lime cream in the corner as the sour cream. The illusion was impeccable. So impeccable in fact, that I had to close my eyes to taste it properly. If I had my eyes open I just couldn't make my tastebuds cooperate. Awesome.
Wine: Elio Perrone, Sourgal, Moscato d'Asti, Italy 2006 (this might have come out with the previous course, I can't remember)

STRAWBERRY shortcake: Edible packing peanuts flavored with strawberry and sandwiching some sort of cream.

After we'd finished up and were chatting about what a lovely meal it had been, a waiter walked by with the cart they used to prepare a course on the GTM at tableside. Seeing that he had a little bit of batter left in his syringe, I called out "Hey, do you have enough there to make us some?" "I'll see what I can do."

And sure enough, a few minutes later out he came, wheeling the cart again for:

FLAPJACKS prepared tableside: A metal sheet is frozen in liquid nitrogen. Pancakes are cooked, then turned back into a batter, and that batter is "cooked" into pancakes on the anti-griddle, and served in a spoon with some BLiS bourbon-barrel-aged maple syrup. Man, that was good.

And then we were really done. And it was a great meal, and a lot of fun. Josh and Marisa were great company. I would absolutely go back.

Some additional comments:
Service: Service was really quite good and friendly. They made a couple of mistakes, the biggest of which was ignoring our telling them that Marisa didn't like dark chocolate (they could easily have left it off her "nachos"). I had requested a short pour for the wine pairings, which they said they were happy to do, but then my pours were pretty much the same size as Josh and Marisa's. BUT, they only charged me for the half pour, so I'm not actually complaining. Lastly, they made a mistake handling the gratuity on our split bill (charging me 1/2 instead of 1/3 of the total 18% service charge) but we just dealt with it between ourselves rather than making them run it again.

Freezing: Cantu definitely likes his freezer! 6 out of what ended up being 12 courses had something frozen about them.

Plating: The Beet and Skate courses had some of the best plating I've had in a restaurant meal in recent memory. Just gorgeous to look at.

Different menu, different name: Looking at the three menus, you would assume that there was no overlap across them. But in fact, as we discovered by carefully observing and talking to the the GTM-eating couple beside us, it's just that they use a different description depending on the menu.

BEET with bacon = RED/YELLOW beet cake
CUCUMBER with lemon & basil = LEMON, basil & pickled cucumber
SMOKED PORK with frozen fried rice = BBQ PORK with the fixin's
PASTA & quail = CHICKEN FRIED mac-n-cheese
FRUIT & bubbles = C O-two fruit
2 & 3 dimensional truffle = 3 COTTON candy stages (they got one more than we did)
KIWI, mint & maize = CHILI-CHEESE nachos

Moto
945 W Fulton Market
Chicago, IL 60607
312-491-0058

15 hours

7:30 am - Leave my house for the airport

9:00 am - Get on the plane to Chicago

9:30 am - Eat most of a $2 airplane snack of Pringles for breakfast

9:30 am (ahh, the power of timezones) - Land in Chicago

10:45 am - Walk past the new Garret Popcorn location on Randolph. Breath deeply, vow to stop on the way back.

11:00 am - Lunch at the Park Grill Chicago. This restaurant is actually in Millennium Park, so you wouldn't necessarily expect it to be a great spot for a foodie lunch. But it was very convenient to our meeting, and came with recommendations from at least one foodie, so I figured it was worth a shot. When we arrived at 11 it was dead quiet, but by the time we left the place was filled with people - downtown workers, families with kids. The food was pretty good. I had a lamb sandwich with goat cheese and roasted red peppers and salsa verde. One of my coworkers had the Kobe beef burger (with Gorgonzola, caramelized onions and grainy mustard) which, our waiter tells us, was ranked the #3 best burger in the city of Chicago. Both the sandwiches came with fries, and they were perfect. Hot, crisp, really nicely done. The other coworker we were lunching with had the crab and avocado salad and couldn't stop raving about it. So if you're in the neighborhood and it's not too busy, give it a try - it will probably be a better meal than you'd expect.

12:15 pm - Head off to get ready for our meeting.

4 pm - Finish the meeting.

4:30 pm - Stop at Garrett's popcorn and buy a small bag of caramel crisp to bring home. Yes, I know it would be more traditional to get the Chicago mix, but I wasn't in the mood for cheese corn with my caramel corn. The popcorn tastes even better than it smells, and the whole experience reminds me of my youthful days working for Kernels Popcorn.

6 pm - Get through security at O'Hare and ask the airport cop if there's a Gold Coast Dogs accessible from the terminal we're in. There is, and it's just a short walk away. I get a char dog, although I once again give shortshrift to the purist Chicago experience, and only top my dog with mustard, tomatoes, pickles and celery salt (leaving out the onions, relish, and sport peppers).

7:00 - On the plane

9:30 (time zone shift bites back) - Land in Detroit

10:30 - Home! I munch on a little more popcorn, drink some water, and go to bed.

Blackbird

Blackbird has been on my Chicago to-eat list for quite a while now. But I get to Chicago so infrequently that there's always been something above it. So having a Monday night in Chicago was a blessing in disguise - most of the top tier restaurants are closed, and Blackbird was one of the few that was open. One look at the aintriguing menu and it quickly jumped to the top of my list.

I'm pleased to say the menu was as delicious as it was intriguing. And the location was certainly convenient - after 20 or 30 minute taxi rides to most of my Chicago dining destinations last time, this was just a few minutes ride from my Magnificent Mile hotel.

One of the reasons that I hadn't been to Blackbird before is that I usually seek out restaurants with tasting menus. That way I don't have to make those hard decisions, and I get to try a whole bunch of different things. Blackbird doesn't have a tasting menu, but that was another hidden blessing, as it was nice to walk out NOT stuffed to the gills. But it was hard to decide, since nearly every appetizer and entree looked tasty. We finally settled on two entrees and two appetizers, then each ate half and switched for maximum tasting opportunity.

The amuse was a split pea soup with a piece of perfectly seared salmon, some smoky bacon, and tiny cubes of tart apple. Very nice.

Appetizer #1: confit baby octopus and duck prosciutto with cocos beans, jerusalem artichoke and perserved lemon. The texture of the octopus confit was fascinating. Not rubbery at all, and somehow firm and soft all at the same time. The jersualem artichoke puree was delightful, and the duck prosciutto was swoonworthy. It all just came together beautifully.

Appetizer #2: crispy confit of swan creek farm suckling pig with cavollo nero, shaved winter radish, horseradish and banylus vinegar. On the menu, the words "suckling pig" were bolded, which was certainly eye catching. Some of the bits of confit were a little dry, but other bits were moister, and while I preferred the octopus, this was certainly no clunker.

Entree #1: seared loin of venison with parsnip, artichokes, smoked grapes and bacon caramel. This was wonderful, and a good example of what appealed to me so much about Blackbird's menu. I've been to lots of "food science" restaurants, and Blackbird strikes a good balance of using some excellent techniques from molecular gastronomy without making it the focus of hte meal. In this case, the bacon caramel and smoked grapes - wouldn't have been out of place at Alinea or WD-50, but they also worked with a fairly straightforward presentation. The venison was perfectly cooked. The smoked grapes were a wonder - still crisp, but surprisingly smoky. Excellent.

Entree #2: fried leg and slow-roasted loin of royer's farm rabbit with white corn panisse, fresh huckleberries, brussels sprouts and caraway. Lots of fun little bits to this one. The white corn panisse was really lovely, and the huckleberries worked really well. The coating on the fried leg came slipped off and was soft rather than crunchy, but all in all this was another winner.

The room is clean and modern, and unusually (but pleasantly) bright. The tables are quite close together - they're making the most of a tight space. The music is a little funky, but not so incongruous as at Schwa. Service was just right.

I wouldn't proclaim anything I ate as one of my "best dishes ever." But everything was very solid, very tasty, and very nicely presented. Quietly innovative. It was just an all around great meal, and I'd go back to Blackbird in a heartbeat.

Blackbird
619 W Randolph
Chicago, IL 60606
312-715-0708

Hot Chocolate

My last night in Chicago, I went out for dinner with 10 people from eGullet to Hot Chocolate. Hot Chocolate is the restaurant of well known Chicago pastry chef Mindy Segal (pictured at left, whipping us up some milkshakes). I first had her desserts at an otherwise disappointing meal at MK, and not wanting to go back to MK, I was thrilled to hear she'd opened her own restaurant.

Thanks to Ronnie's previous visits to the restaurant for dessert, he was able to talk directly to Mindy and let her know we'd be coming in. They set us up at the kitchen table - just outside of the kitchen, actually, but with a good view of the pass and the activity going on.

The menu is pretty relaxed - five or six starters, four salads, a few sandwiches, and a handful of entrees. With such a large group, we managed to try nearly everything on the starters and entrees lists. The starters were mostly pretty good - with my brandade ("a classic French dish of salt cod, potato and garlic puree") being a highlight. The entrees, on the other hand, were nearly all disappointing - some oversalted, some underseasoned, some cold, some overcooked. Which was too bad. I'm not sure if the kitchen just wasn't used to serving that number of people at once, or if this is a more general problem (I have heard the accusations of oversalting in other forums).

But then there were the desserts. When it came time for dessert, Ronnie asked Mindy to just take care of us. And that's how I managed to fulfill one of my lifelong dreams - tasting every dessert on the menu. I'll admit to being a dessert junky, and I find it so hard to pick just one! This was one night that I didn't have to. Mindy sent out 11 desserts - one per person - and we passed them around in a hilarious frenzy of chocolate and sugar. We were all laughing from the sheer extravagence of so much dessert excess. It was truly awesome.

The desserts (descriptions are from the menu):

Apples - warm heirloom apple turnovers, roasted apple ice cream and brown butter-cider "buerre blanc"

Raspberry Preserve - house-made brioche pudding with raspberry preserve, fresh whipped cream, and vanilla bean clementine orange sorbet

Pear - roasted bartlett pear "cobbler," ginger snap ice cream, port wine and tapioca broth

Pumpkin/Pecan - "Cinderella pumpkin" pie in a graham cracker crust with maple-pecan ice cream and toffee sauce

Banana (Volume VII) - "banana split": chocolate brownie, caramelized bananas, banana sherbet, cocoa nib chocolate chip ice cream, chocolate sorbet, chocolate sauce and butterscotch

Mocha Milk Chocolate 38% - Mocha mousse "dome" with a dulce de leche caramel espresso shortbread and tiramisu creme

Chocolate (64%) - A warm souffle tart, salted caramel ice cream and pretzels

Chocolate (72%) Cake and Shake - "all American chocolate cake." Layers of chocolate buttermilk cake, bittersweet chocolate mousse, chocolate ganache butter cream and served with a vanilla bean milk shake

Creme Brulee - A classic custard infused with vanilla bean and a caramelized crust served with fresh figs

Warm Brioche Donuts - Warm and delicious, served with hot fudge (thanks to Ronnie for the picture - I managed to miss this one)

Cookies and Vanilla Bean Milkshakes - An assortment of cookies, and a little shotglass sized milkshake for each of us.

Living in a town with a sad lack of restaurants doing interesting *plated* desserts, this was like heaven for me. Everything was great, and in the flurry of eating it was hard to take notes or remember details. Some of my favorites were the seasonal desserts - the pumpkin/pecan, apples, and pear. Of the "signatures" the mocha milk dome and the chocolate (64%) were slightly more awesome than the rest. All of the ice creams and sorbets were great, and if I go back, I'll certainly be tempted to just go for a flight of those.

If I lived in Chicago, I'd probably go for dessert here once a week. (Although maybe on a weekday - we were there on a Friday night, and the music was louder and the atmosphere more "clubby" than we would have liked.) Given our dissappointing entrees, however, I'd probably get dinner elsewhere. Or better yet - just grab a salad or starter (all of which were good) and maybe a cheese course (the cheese list looks great) before heading into dessert, which is where the star of Hot Chocolate shines most brightly.

Hot Chocolate
1747 Damen Ave
Chicago, IL 60647
773-489-1747

Schwa

I'm not alone in thinking that the food at Schwa is as good as any restaurant in the city. (Even Alinea.) Chef Michael Carlson was named one of Food and Wine Magazine's Best New Chefs for 2006, and Chicago Magazine named him Best New Chef as well. And the restaurant received three stars from Phil Vettel at the Chicago Tribune.

What makes all this a little unusual is the setting. Schwa is a tiny restaurant - just 26 seats. It's located on the edge of Wicker Park, on a stretch of Ashland that's not exactly what one would call "gentrified." (If you're having trouble finding the restaurant, just look for the neon palm trees from the tire rim place across the street.) It doesn't have a liquor license, or even any glassware other than tumblers for BYOB. The staff is minimal - Chef Carlson and Sous-Chef Nathan Klingbail, one server, and a dishwasher.

But what it's lacking in amenties, it makes up for in fabulous food and a funky atmosphere. The music is a little loud, the decor is minimalist, and the chefs are making your food and delivering it right to your table. It ends up being a very intimate restaurant.

Okay, enough with the background, on to the food. I apologize in advance for the photos - the lighting in the restaurant is very indirect and pretty dim, and these required quite a bit of post-processing to be useable. The real thing looks much better!

Amuse: Candy Apple
A little unusual to have something sweet as an amuse, but it was certainly a seasonal way to get things moving!

Panzanella: tomato, brioche, basil
This deconstructed riff on the classic bread salad was quite complex. Elements included (peeled) heirloom cherry tomatoes, a brioche bread pudding topped with a tomato sorbet, basil puree, caramelized fennel puree, and some shaved fennel. And some parmesan and basalmic too. The picture doesn't at all adequately express what a beautiful plate this was. And interesting - there were bits that didn't work really well for me (like the bread pudding), but the concepts were all really neat.

Prosciutto Consomme: melon, arugula
Another riff on a classic dish, this time cantaloupe wrapped with prosciutto. With prosciutto is actually the only way I can really tolerate melon, but even given that limitation I liked this dish. There was regular prosciutto, and some delightfully crispy prosciutto, and melon in various form. And the consomme, of course. Yum.

Quail Egg Ravioli: ricotta, brown butter, parmagiano reggianno
Schwa's signature dish, and in a dead heat for my favorite dish of the night. The raviolis are filled with ricotta cheese and a quail egg yolk. For best results, put the hole ravioli in your mouth and bite down, so you don't lose any of that luscious yolk. The brown butter sauce, parmesan and crispy sage leaf just push it over the top. This is the dish that makes me (and everyone else) regret that Schwa doesn't serve bread - you want something to collect the rest of that buttery goodness. BYOB = bring your own bread?

Illinois Sturgeon Caviar: avocado, cauliflower
My other contender for dish of the night. There's an avocado puree in the bottom of the dish, topped by a cauliflower puree, some finely chopped cooked cauliflower and a scoop of caviar on top. Simple, but soooo good. The flavors just combine beautifully.

Lobster: potatoes, gooseberries, lavender
Butter poached lobster, potato puree, roasted fingerling potatoes, and swiss chard, all topped off with a lavender emulsion (ie. foam). Pretty good. The roasted fingerling potatoes had the nicest texture.

Sweetbreads: rhubarb, humboldt fog
I'd never had sweetbreads before, and this was a great way to try them for the first time. Crispy veal sweetbreads and piece of red wine braised rhubarb, with some sort of sauce and a streak of creamy Humbolt Fog goat cheese.

Bonus Course: eggplant confit
This was an extra, not on our menu. Just a single bite. Pretty tasty, and I don't even like eggplant!

Beef: raw, pickled, braised
Bad picture, so I'll map it out for you. In the lower right on top of the cube, there's beef tartare topped with a raw quail egg. Yum. Below it on the plate is a smear of yuzu honey - out of this world, and a good combo with the tartare. In the center is a pickled beef tongue, with a garnish I can't recall. In the upper left is a lovely braised beef short rib, with a sweet potato puree beneath it. Great dish.

Cheese
An unusual take on the cheese course, this was a single spoonful of Morbier risotto. The green is summer savory (oil, I think), and there are dehydrated peach chips on top. Tasty, and interesting combination. The risotto texture was perfect. We liked this a lot, because as good as risotto is, typical portions on restaurant menus are often too large when served in conjunction with a lot of other food. (The lobster risotto at Tru is a notable example.)


Dessert
We had two different desserts, but the picture of the other one is REALLY bad, so you only get to see the strawberry-olive shortcake. Strawberry-WHAT? Yep. It was a little odd, but also tastier than you might think (and I say this as someone who's not so fond of olives). Nicoise olive shortcake, strawberry sauce, strawberry and olive oil ice cream, basil sauce, and some candied olives.

Our other dessert was better - a two chocolate brownies, one topped with a pie pumpkin sorbet, and the other with a pumpkin puree, with chocolate sauce, and pumpkin seeds and some creme fraiche. Very nice, seasonal dessert.

Wine: Since Schwa is BYOB, we couldn't do a different wine for each course, or we would have been staggering out of there! We brought a half bottle each of a red and a white wine. The white, which we drank from the amuse through to the lobster, was A & F Boudin, "Domaine de Chantmerle,' Chablis, 2000. This started off decidedly odd, with this weird kind of appley thing on the palate that had us wondering if the bottle was corked or something. Fortunately, that mostly blew off. Any failings in the Chablis were made up for in the red, however - a 1991 Ridge Monte Bello that was major big yum. As I said previously, Schwa provides only tumblers for wine, so if you're a wine geek, you'll probably want to bring your own glasses. (Tip for travelers - borrow some from your hotel!)


Because there are so few staff, the arrivals for the evening are staggered, so you might presume from the empty tables that the restaurant is underappreciated. But in fact, it's one of the hottest reservations in Chicago right now, with weekends filling up months in advance, and weeknights not much slower. The general feeling among Chicago foodies is that it's only a matter of time before Chefs Carlson and Klingbail get wooed away to something bigger and better-funded, so if you want to appreciate the intimate and exceptional simplicity that is Schwa, don't delay!

Schwa
1466 N. Ashland
Chicago, IL 60622
773-252-1466

Hot Doug's

Hot Doug's (the Encased Meats Emporium and Sausage Superstore) is a Chicago institution of sorts. Not as traditional as other Chicago hot dog joints like Superdawg et al, it nonetheless has a cult-like following among foodies and those in the know. There's almost always a line stretching to (or out) the door. The standard menu has a wide variety of dogs and sausages, all with celebrity names (like "The Madonna" described as "Andouille Sausage - mighty, mighty, mighty hot!"), but the specials menu is always worth checking out. Every week there's a different "Game of the Week" - This week that was a kangaroo sausage with gin-juniper mustard and rosemary marinated goat cheese (pictured above). And a "Celebrity Sausage" - the Frank Lucchesi (he's been running through names of former Cub's managers lately), a corned beef sausage with horseradish mustard and chicken liver mousse, is pictured below.

The owner and proprietor, Doug Sohn, is nearing celebrity status on his own. Maybe it's the Buddy Holly glasses. Maybe it's the way he spends a couple minutes chatting with every customer as they order. Maybe it's the way he's openly defying the recent foie gras ban in Chicago (there was no foie gras sausage on the menu the day we were there, but we did get to see his citation letter, proudly displayed at the counter).

Hot Doug's is a bit off the beaten track for visitors to Chicago - our taxi from downtown to the restaurant cost more than lunch, but I expect there's some relatively easy public transit way to get there. And it's definitely worth the effort, especially on Friday or Saturday, when they serve french fries cooked in duck fat! (Although as you can see from the picture below, the regular fries are might fine too.)

Hot Doug's
3324 North California
Chicago, IL 60618
(773) 279-9550

Alinea

Alinea. I've been dreaming of eating at Alinea ever since it opened. I was fortunate enough to eat at Trio twice while Chef Grant Achatz was the chef there, and I followed all the details posted on eGullet about the much-anticipated opening of his own restaurant. Achatz is one of the leaders of the molecular gastronomy movement in the US and his cuisine combines unsual ingredients with wacky serving utensils and a sense of whimsy and fun. But he never puts style above substance - all of the food tastes good, which is why Alinea was recently named Best Restaurant in the US by Gourmet magazine. And all of this is delivered in a refined environment with excellent service.

You have just two choices - the 12 course Tasting, or the Tour at around 24 courses, although the exact number varies. We opted for the Tour and split the "upgraded" wine pairing. A friend of mine is fond of saying that meals like this are more ride than meal, and at 24 courses and 13 wines, Alinea certainly fit the bill. But what a ride it is.

Our upgraded wine pairing paid off right from the start, with a lovely rose champagne (Nicolas Feuillate Brut Rose "Palmes d'Or" Epernay 1997) for the first two courses.

Hot Potato, cold potato, black truffle, butter
A wax bowl is filled with a cold potato soup. A pin pierces the bowl, a piece of parmesan reggianno, a cube of butter, and a chunk of hot potato. You pull the pin to drop the ingredients into the soup, then slurp it all back. This allows for an excellent contrast of flavors and temperatures. I loved the way the black truffle lingers on the palate long after that single bite (and slurp) is gone.

King Crab, vinegar, aromatics
This was beautiful to look at - the crab encased in a crystal clear gelee of rice wine vinegar. The sushi rice was perfectly seasoned, and there were a bunch of little garnishes - ginger, black pepper, microlemongrass, saffron, etc. The rice vinegar gelee managed to be vinegary without being overly sour. Very nice.

Trout Roe, cucumber, coconut, bonito
Wine: Naiades Verdejo, Rueda, Spain 2004
This was a great combination - beautful trout roe from Michigan, creamy coconut pudding and avocado puree, a sheet of lime rock, a drizzle of cilantro juice, and a sprinkle of bonita powder, all topped off by a cucumber foam. Light, refreshing, perfectly in harmony. And the wine pairing was a hint of great things to come - it was a perfect match, with hints of cucumber and lime to echo the food.

(A note on the wines - all of them were excellent, but I didn't take notes so I won't have much to say about them. A wine pairing is really the only way to go with a meal like this, with such a huge range of flavors.)

Akayagara, radish, coriander, poppyseed
No picture for this one - it was served in a round bottom bowl, so we ran short of hands. A fork topped with the akayagara (a type of fish) fit into a slot atop the specially made bowl, and the poppyseed milk was in the bottom. You eat the fish on the fork, then follow it with the milk. Tasty.

Matsutake, mango, peanut, yuzu glass
Wine: Pra Soave Classico, "Monte Grande," Veneto 2003
Matsutake mushrooms from Oregon were served three ways here - pureed, diced and sauteed, and dehydrated. As with many of the items on the menu, there were a ton of other ingredients - mung bean edamame, mint juice, mango peanut crumbs, soy nage, yuzu "glass" - but it managed to come together somehow. As the pictures show, this is served in what appears to be a tall glass but is actually a tube, which the server removes at the table. This wasn't one of my favorites, but my tablemate liked it a lot.

Rabbit, cider, roasted garlic, smell of burning leaves
We liked to call this one the "pot" dish. Who knew that burning oak leaves smell just like pot? A glass containing smoke was carefully placed over the food, and then lifted up at the table. Grant Achatz is well known for these dishes that use various aromas to put you in a particular frame of mind. In this case, we found that we could also taste the smoke in the dish. With cider gelee and garlic puree, black pepper and thyme, this was a perfect seasonal dish, and it was served with a cup of lovely rabbit consomme instead of a wine pairing.

Peach, smoked paprika, carrot
Peach juice is captured inside a hollow shell of cocoa butter, carrot juice and smoked paprika. once in your mouth, the fragile shell breaks and the liquid rushes out, so our server made a point of warning us to be sure our mouths were closed lest we soak the person on the other side of the table... Interesting, although I wasn't tremendously fond of the way the cold cocoa butter felt in my mouth.

Kobe Short Rib, beets, cranberry, campari
Wine: Cabanon Bonarda "Boisee," Oitrepo Pavse, Italy 2003
Even though it's not mentioned in the description, this was as much about fennel as beets. There was shaved fennel, fennel puree, and fennel fronds. The beet side included the beet-campari sheet covering the short ribs, a single golden beet, and an interesting dehydrated beet ribbon. I was already starting to get full, so I took a short course on this one, trying a bit of everything, but not finishing it. Good, and a very dramatic plate.

Black Truffle, explosion, romaine, parmesan
The Black Truffle Explosion is the closest thing to a signature dish as Grant Achatz has. It was on the menu at Trio nearly his entire tenure there, but was mostly retired once he moved to Alinea. Grant is a constant innovator, and once a dish goes off the menu, it's usually gone forever. However, with the recent uptick in business due to the Gourmet accolades, he's started adding some classics back on to the menu to free up some time for experimentation for the future. (There's an interesting interview with Achatz about this at Hungry Magazine.)

I'd had the black truffle explosion (BTE) once at Trio, and was excited to see it on our menu at Alinea. Inside the ravioli is the liquid essence of truffle, and it really does explode in your mouth. A little bit of parmesan and some wilted romaine lettuce gilded the rose. (To my tastes, the wilted romaine was a much better accompaniment than the broccoli puree I'd had a Trio, as it added a little bit of texture as well as good flavor.)

We liked it so much, my friend joked "I'll have another one of those, please" to our server. And about 5 minutes later...

Black Truffle, explosion, romaine, parmesan #2
The second BTE was even better than the first, presumably because it was an extra course, and thus it was hotter when it arrived.

Squab, huckleberry, sorrel, long peppercorn
Wine: Hermitage "Cuvee Emilie" Domaine des Remizieres, Rhone 2002
A plethora of squab presentation - leg, breast, crispy skin, some confit - with a huckleberry sauce and three fresh huckleberries, a long peppercorn custard (yum) and some micro sorel. Beautiful plate, this one. We noticed them bringing our plates in, then whisking them off again - a huckleberry had moved out of place and had to be adjusted before they could serve it. The wine for this course was fabulous - easily my favorite of the night.

Concord Grape, frozen and chewy
By now I was ready for a change of pace, and a few cold bites were just the thing. No picture again, as we found that the dishes served without a plate were really hard to get pictures of. (But there's one on the Alinea website, here.)In contrast to earlier and later courses that contain a laundry list of ingredients and garnishes, this was simply a lozenge of concord grape puree, frozen on the anti-griddle. It was intensely grapey, and the texture was really interesting.

Chestnut, blis maple syrup
Another little frozen bite, and this one I liked quite a bit. A sweetened frozen disk of chestnut puree, with a little divot to hold a pool of maple syrup that has been matured in bourbon casks, and a sprinkling of coarse sea salt to bring it all together.

Crabapple, cheddar, eucalyptus, olive oil
Wine: Pfeffingen Ungsteiner Herrenberg Scheurebe Spatlese, Pfalz 2003
Clearly the kitchen had had enough with simplicity, judging from this next course. Let's see if I can decipher the notes well enough to list all of the accompaniments to this tangy frozen crabapple mousse - tellicherry pepper tuille, crispy sage leaves, extra virgin olive oil jam (yes, jam), ecalyptus sauce, cheddar custard, sweet onion marmalade, and a cherry blossom. Phew! It was fun to taste all the garnishes alone, with the crabapple, and in varying combinations. The wine pairing for this one worked really well. The grape variety is a hybrid, and it had some of that foxiness that you get from hybrids, which meant it actually could stand up to a dish with eucalyptus in it! Not something you can say for a lot of wine.

(A note on the progression of courses: You'll have noticed that the last few dishes seemed rather dessert like, even though we're only in the middle of the meal. When Grant first started doing these extended tasting menus at Trio, he served them with all the desserts at the end. But he found that the meals were more enjoyable for people when they didn't have six or seven desserts in a row at the end, and that having some sweeter and lighter courses in the middle helped rejuvenate people for the last half of the menu. So the menu flows from roughly from savory to sweet twice over the course of the meal, with a similiar flow of wines white to red to dessert twice as well.)

Quince, prosciutto, orange, juniper
Grant has had a number of customized serving "dishes" created for the restaurant. One is a sort of antenna, where the food to be eaten is pierced on the end and eaten by the diner hands free. (See a picture of it here.) Kind of goofy, but fun. This dish was our antenna dish. Pierced on the end of the antenna was a roulade of pureed and dried quince and prosciutto. Other flavors included braised mustard seeds, bitter lemon, micro cilantro, juniper, and a honey glaze.

Shellfish, gooseberries, horseradish, celery ice
Wine: Raventos i blanc "Perfum de Vi Blanc" Penedes, Spain, 2004
I'm a celery fan, so this one worked really well for me. Celery leaves, and celery ice topped a shellfish sponge, and diced celery sat underneath it along with a pool of gooseberry coulis. A single meat each of crab and mussels garnished it all. Very nice.

Hamachi, buttermilk, blackberry, green peanuts
Wine: F.X. Pichler "Loibner Berg" Riesling Smaragd, Wachau, Austria 2003
The hamachi was topped with a roasted peanut topping of some sort, and green peanuts were sprinkled underneath. It was garnished with blackberry sauce, some sort of buttermilk concoction, and tarragon leaves. This smelled great, and I wanted to like it more than I did - it was a fine dish, but the hamachi is a very fishy tasting fish, and that didn't work so well for my tastes.

Bacon, butterscotch, apple, thyme
Another of the odd serving methods. Hanging from a wire was a perfectly crispy strip of applewood smoked bacon, wrapped with chewy butterscotch and apple leather. You pull down on the bacon to pull it off the trapeze, and pop it into your mouth as a single tasty bite of salty sweet goodness. (No picture for the same reasons mentioned elsewhere, but you can see it here.)

Lamb, date, mastic, rosemary aroma
Wine: Chateau de Beaucastel Chateauneuf-du-Pape, S. Rhone, 2000
Three pieces of lamb sat sizzling atop a 450 degree rock. The sprigs of rosemary that had been decorating our table were fitted into a hole in the stone to give just a hint of rosemary to the proceedings. (This brought my back to my first meal at Trio, where we had a dish with rosemary vapor, created by pouring boiling water over rosemary leaves.) The lamb was perfectly done, but then the rock gave it a really nice sear on the bottom - you had to be careful how you ate it, lest you burn your tonge. The three toppings where a mastic cream, a pickled date puree, and a red wine braised cabbage. Especially nice wine pairing for this one as well.

Bison, gruyere, pumpernickel, ramps
Wine: Bodega Mustiguillo "Quincha Corral," El Terrerazo, Spain, 2003
The presentation on this one is fascinating. Cubes of cold smoked North Dakota bison sit atop a ragu of plumped raisins with Worcestire sauce, and the whole thing is buried beneath a pile of dried gruyere and shreds of toasted pumpernickle bread, and garnished with pickled ramps. Surprisingly good.

Raspberry, goat milk, red pepper taffy, pistachio
Wine: Malvira Birbet (Brachetto), Langhe, Italy NV
Rasberries and red peppers... fascinating. Combined, we were told, because they were both red. Okay... But all in all I have to say it worked pretty well. Lots going on here - raspberries were filled and wrapped with a chewy red pepper taffy, and set upon lavender pudding and goat milk tapioca. Pistachio came in three forms - a puree, a tuile, and a brittle. And the whole thing was adorned with a blanket of raspberry sauce. It looks like it should be some sort of solid, the edges are so perfect. We asked and they let us in on the secret - the raspberry sauce is frozen on a sheet of acetate. The frozen strip is laid over the dessert, then the acetate is peeled away and the sauce allowed to melt. What a clever way to get a really dramatic presentation! The wine was a nice light and lightly sparkling red or rose, with a great nose of raspberries and roses.

Licorice Cake, spiced with hoja santa leaves
Wine: Tamellini Recioto di Soave "Vigna Marogne," Veneto 2000
Neither of us being licorice fans, we were a little worried about this one, but it was actually a very nice spice cake. Once you got to it, anyway, which involved peeling away parchment paper, then the hoja santa leaves that wrapped the cake. Accompaniments included a sweet potato cream, roasted something with licorice leather (we're 22 courses and 12 wines into the meal at this point, so you'll have to forgive the quality of my notes!), muscovado gelee, and oranges stewed in some sort of Mexican liqueur from the Yucatan.

Chocolate, bergamot, cassia, figs
Wine: De Bartoli "Bukkuram" Moscato Passito di Pantelleria, 2001
This was a little ridiculous, as course 23 out of 24. At least an ounce of dark chocolate, heated right to the dividing line between liquid and solid, set atop a sheet of dehydrated chocolate mousse, and served with a scoop of cassia bud ice cream and some stewed figs. A bergamot flavored black tea is poured into the bowl right at the table. We couldn't possible eat it all - I think I took one bite, just to say I had. I know that over-the-top death by chocolate desserts are popular, but this was totally overkill. I would have been much happier with a single spoonful of chocolate at this point in the meal.

Caramel, meyer lemon, cinnamon perfume
The final course was another that brought back fine memories of Trio meals. Then, it was crab and meyer lemon on a vanilla bean, this time it was chewy caramel, meyer lemon, and a cinnamon stick. Both crispy and satisfying bites, though.


I know some people have left Alinea hungry, but this was not one of those nights. After 4 1/2 hours of eating and drinking we were both stuffed to the gills, but happy and satisfied. We stopped in the kitchen to chat with Chef Achatz on our way out, and he was gracious and friendly. (I was pleased and surprised that he remembered me from my kitchen table meal there. But we were having so much fun we were a little rowdy, so I guess that made an impression...)

I was impressed with the evolution of his food from Trio to Alinea, and told him that - there's a level of maturity and polish that seems new. While there were certainly dishes I liked more than others, there weren't any clunkers anywhere on the menu, something I wasn't able to say after my trips to Trio, where I felt there were things that just didn't work. All in all, it just seemed very refined. Which, in some ways, made the experience a little less fun - the service was a little more formal, the atmosphere quieter and more reverent, somehow.

Anyway, it was a fabulous meal, and a fabulous evening. Service was fabulous too - doubly so when we realized the next day that I'd left my umbrella with the coat check at the restaurant, and someone from the staff took the time to deliver it to our hotel, since we weren't going to have an opportunity to be back that way.

Alinea
1723 N. Halsted
Chicago, IL 60614
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