The Alinea Experience

I first learned of Alinea and Grant Achatz from a Food Network Canada program called At the Table With. I was intrigued by the uniqueness of his restaurant, as well as the fact that he had overcome cancer in his mouth with his palate intact.

Consistently listed as one of the top restaurants in the world, I decided that our trip to Chicago had to include a meal at Alinea at all costs.

The entire evening was a surreal experience, which started the moment we arrived at 1723 North Halsted. There is no sign on the building indicating the name of the restaurant. The only marking was a sandwich board providing details about valet parking. As you enter the front door, you walk down a hallway that gets progressively narrower and smaller -- straight out of Willy Wonka -- and then a set of double doors automatically open to your left, revealing the foyer and hostess welcoming you.

We were taken upstairs to our table. A black table, two chairs, and only 10 other patrons were in our particular area. We chose the 10-course tasting menu and the accompanying wine pairings.

At the left, you can see our menu, which consists of circles that actually provide half of the information about each dish. The larger the circle, the larger the portion -- for example, one of the smaller circles might indicate a small, one-bite dish. As the the circles move to the left, the more savoury they were. The darker the circle, the more intense the dish was.

Course One - Hot Potato: Straight out of the cookbook, presented in a small bowl potato soup with a suspended skewer containing a hot potato, piece of Parmesan, chive and a piece of Perigord black truffle.

Accompanying the first course was a lime and cilantro roll, served with goat butter and raw cow butter with black salt.

Course Two - Pork Belly: Served almost like a napoleon, the pork belly was served between two pieces of iceberg lettuce that had been freeze-dried, set in a basil sauce with basil seeds, along with avocado and cucumber. Accompanying the dish was a shot glass containing a Thai Distillation -- the predominant flavours were chili and lemongrass in this drink.

Course Three - Lilac: The bowl contained lilac custard pillows, perfectly cut celery squares and leaves, horseradish cream and the foliage from fennel, garnished with honeydew foam.

Course Four - Sunchoke: Served in what can be described as a stemless Brandy glass was the best mouthful of flavour I have ever had. In the glass, it simply looked like small spoonfuls of different coloured custards had been layered upon one another and we were instructed to make sure that our spoon went all the way down to get every flavour in the bite. This cold dish consisted of pickled sunchoke, ginger ice, carrot, lychee and duck.

Course Five - Wagyu Beek: Imagine a rectangular plate. Moving left to right, a perfect square of "mashed potatos" coated in golden panko, a single piece of perfectly cooked Wagyu, a mound of salt and a mound of pepper. In the top left corner of the plate was a packet of dehydrated A-1 sauce. In order to introduce the smoke flavour of a grill, the black cylinder that had been placed on our table two courses ago was "lit" to emote smokey dry ice.

Course Six - Black Truffle: Meant to be eaten in one bite, the spoon contained a single ravioli filled with black truffle tea, garnished with a piece of carmelized Parmesan and wilted romaine.

Accompanying the sixth course were rolls of bacon brioche.

Course Seven - Tomato: Prior to the arrival of the food, a tomato plant was set in a warm dish in order to emit its aroma. The plate consisted of heirloom and green tomato slices, figs, olive oil, tomato ice, tomato "sauce" and a piece of pine nut "cheese".

Course Eight - Bacon: Click on this link so that you can see the presentation for this dish. A single piece of bacon surrounded by butterscotch and apple ribbons, garnished with a piece of thyme.

Additionally, we were served a tube of "bubblegum" that we sucked in one go -- liquid pearls with the flavours of long pepper, hibiscus and creme fraiche. As well as watermelon -- a sphere of watermelon broth was placed in a pool of nasturtium broth.

Course Nine - Rhubarb: Another of Chef Achatz' signature techniques is serving plates on scented pillows. In this case, our plate of rhubarb and cheesecake was served on a lavender pillow. The rhubarb portion had the texture of custard, accompanied by a crunchy bar. The goat's milk "cheesecake" was accompanied by a small pile of cotton candy and a singular piece of carmelized onion.

Course Ten - Chocolate: This plate had many components and the plate itself had two distinct holding areas. In one area was milk chocolate mousse in maple consomme, accompanied by two blueberries, a blueberry sphere and tuile. In the other area was a piece of tobacco meringue.

Course Eleven - Mustard: The mustard ice cream was formed into a disk and was garnished with allspice and a drop of passionfruit sauce. The idea was to pick up the disk with a small pin and eat it in one bite.

Course Twelve - Sweet Potato: Another dish that can be found in the Alinea cookbook is a piece of sweet potato gel,a piece of bourbon gel and a piece of brown sugar candy skewered on a cinnamon stick, tempura fried. Served upright so that the top of the cinnamon stick can be lit and smoking when it arrives at the table - like a toasted marshmallow made by a comic-book scientist.

I am not sure if I can adequately describe each dish, but at least you can get a sense of the flavour pairings. If you would like to get a better idea about how the food is presented, you can view a gallery of photos. Additionally, Gizmodo brought some cameras into the Alinea kitchen during service and you can view the video here. (Minute 1 is course three, minute 2 is course seven, at minute 3.5 you can see course nine.)

Although this is not the type of cooking that I practice, I am glad that I had a chance to experience it and I would definitely go back.