Bored with the same restaurants, same food and same atmosphere? Ready for an artistic adventure that will stimulate your mind as well as your taste buds? Welcome to Alinea Restaurant located on Chicago’s Halsted Street where a 21-course meal is not only just dinner, but also a connoisseur gallery of sculptured foods.
Each course presents a different experience in taste and form using tantalizing foods that will surprise and delight you. Without giving away the menu, expect to find luscious foods such as seafood, venison, greens, potatoes, chocolate and only the finest wine. The decorative design and startling seasoning of spices and herbs will make you think of an exotic, newly discovered food but this is the entertaining part!
Grant Achatz is the head chef and creator of what some food critics report as just plain weird but if this term buys you a ticket to being the 6th best restaurant in the world, according to S. Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2011, so be it. Everything in Achatz’s prize-winning restaurant is worth noting, including the theatric presentation to the fabricated mixtures of plants, implements and food arranged in astounding beauty. It is evident the clientele also come because of the boardroom-like atmosphere, offering them no need to search anymore for their something.
“Molecular gastronomy” is Achatz’s phrase for describing the fantastically complex food creations of Alinea. Always involved in the art of culinary, Grant grew up working in his parents’ Michigan restaurants and naturally attended the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. After rising to Sous Chef at the acclaimed French Laundry in Yountville, California, he returned to the Midwest to become the Executive Chef at Trio in Evanston, Illinois, where his culinary reputation continued to rise and in 2005, he took the leap and opened Alinea in Chicago’s Lincoln Park.
The creative team at Alinea has grown over the past six years to include Nick Kokonas, partner, Martin Kastner, designer/sculptor, Steve Rugo, architect and Tom Stringer, interior designer. With the many others in the kitchen, Grant is also assisted by Sous Chefs Andrew Graves and Matt Chasseur, Chef de Cuisine Dave Beran, Wine Director Joe Catterson and Head Sommelier Craig Sindelar, where they operate as a team in performance and perfection, proud in winning awards, such as Best Restaurant in America, Gourmet Magazine, 2006, #1 in 40 Top Chicago Restaurants Ever, Chicago Magazine, 2010 and Mobil Five Star Award, Mobil Travel Guide, 2007-2010 as well as many other recognitions.
To discover more about this culinary gem in the Windy City, call 312.867.0110 as well as to view their complete menu and more of their artistic creations, see www.alinearestaurant.com.
Editor’s note: To view the print version, go to www.scribd.com/arttoartpalette/documents