review: alinea : the intersection between food + architecture

alinea / 1723 north halsted / chicago il / 312-867-0110 / dinner wed-sun / reservations required / chef's tour $195 or 12-course tasting menu $135

So now that the hottest day I have ever experienced in my life is over (104 degrees, felt like 110, though thankfully not as humid as other days have been), I can think again. It has been two days since Nora and I had dinner at Alinea, and I am relieved and somewhat amazed that I can still eat “normal”/”regular” food. Dinner - or our experience, cliche as that may sound - was nothing short of stunning, from the food, to the service, to the perfectly plumped pillows on the banquette across from our table, to the guy speaking to a couple at the table next over from ours who handed off an empty water carafe behind his back to the guy on the way to the kitchen, without even looking, to the guy who passed our table when Nora was in the bathroom, frowned at the napkin folded in quarters (ok, he didn’t actually frown, but his entire movement towards the table was a frown), and refolded it into a rectangle. I am not a novice to fine dining, but never have I experienced such good service. It was a bit pretentious sometimes, which was particularly apparent to me as the one who really hates any kind of bullshit (yes, even when Leo made me cry in studio), but that was just the speaking bit, rather than the actual action-oriented part of the service. Of all of our servers, the one who wasn't in a suit was the one I liked best. I am just amazed, though, that the restaurant is able to coordinate service for so many tasting menus.

My general impression of the food is that it reminds me of the way I like my architecture (Celina, if you are reading this, stop laughing, I do not have architecture on the brain - I swear). You can’t innovate without knowing what already exists - in the way that Picasso’s early work is technically very good, but his later work is a complete departure - you cannot innovate without knowing what you’re innovating from. A genius doesn’t suddenly come up with an idea out of nowhere; rather, past experience is the basis for genius. Picasso wouldn’t have been Picasso if he hadn’t learned good technique first. Anyway, I digress. The food at Alinea is like Picasso, if you will - you can tell that technically it is quite flawless, but they have gone much further than just technical perfection. It’s really fun for the adventurous, not in the sense that you will be eating eel guts (gross), but in the sense that you will be experiencing all kinds of different ways to eat food, whether it is the combination of flavors, the juxtaposition of savory and sweet, or the combination of the actual food and its surrounding environment (aha! architecture again!). To say that Alinea’s food is like architecture is a surprise to me, because I hadn’t imagined food being able to create that kind of experience. Food for me has always been a social thing, influenced by the fact that I lived at LMF, and never ate a dinner not with my family during my eighteen years at home, and thus I was somewhat (pleasantly) surprised to find that it could be such an intellectual thing.

A word about the entrance: a bit theatrical, but of course I loved it. Architecturally it’s a bit ambiguous (one might say that the entryway's intentions were a bit ambiguous): I loved the entry hallway very much, with that moment of apprehension when you’re not sure why the inner door is shut and there’s no sign on it, until it opens, but once you do enter that door, there’s the staircase in front of you and the maitre d’ off to the right, and thus it’s a somewhat awkward way to circulate. Presumably the maitre d’ is off to the right to prevent people from walking into what looked to be a test kitchen at the end of the short hallway, but there are many other things that could also prevent circulation but still provide a glimpse of what’s there.

I will not go into every single course that we had, since I’m at work and supposedly I’m working, but here are some thoughts about some of my favorites. I thought that the mango overpowered the zucchini in the amuse bouche, but it’s probably the first time I’ve ever liked saffron. I loved the hearts of palm - or rather, the different fillings, since I now know that I’m kind of indifferent to hearts of palm in general. I liked the vanilla pudding and fava bean versions the best.

My other favorites: the frozen sour cream with the microplaned salmon, the striped bass, the eggplant semifreddo with soy froth, the squab, and the oyster cream.

A brief explanation why these were my favorites: I liked the sour cream/salmon because it was so fun to eat, and it worked so well even though it was totally unconventional. Who would have thought that microplaned salmon could be so good? I really loved the striped bass, which, in addition to having the world’s best water chestnuts in it, was surrounded by this wonderful floral aroma from the hot water poured over rose petals.

The eggplant semifreddo was mostly soy in flavor, but the soy was fantastic (and the maitre d’ was even kind enough to print out what soy sauce it was on the restaurant’s letterhead, though I admit that I preferred the sous chef’s handwritten version). The thing that made the squab so good was the grated licorice over it - in general I don’t like licorice, but at that point I was convinced that in any given course I would like things I don’t usually like, and in fact, the licorice gave the squab the perfect balancing note between the richness of the squab and the smooth coolness of the licorice. And lastly, the oyster cream just tasted so much of the ocean. Everything else, even if it wasn’t my cup of tea because of my food tastes, was still fabulous, and fun to eat - the breadth of new ways in which one can eat food was great. I rather had the sense that I was a visitor in the culinary version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (without the disasters, the Ooompa-Loompas, and the scary children).

Dessert, of course, gets its own paragraph(s). My sister got her second wind at the moment that dessert was served, and I was amazed to see the rapidity with which her plate emptied. I suspect that the pastry chef here, who came from Clio in Boston, finds himself able to do much more experimental things here than he did at Clio, and every single dessert was a perfect ten (there’s an earlier post somewhere about perfect-ten desserts, I think in my review of Aujourd’hui). In fact, some of those were probably somewhere in the stratosphere.

The first thing we had was a cheese course, “maytag blue,” which was blue cheese somehow formed into a ball filled with walnut milk, on top of celery and red wine jelly. Our server noted that the addition of celery was unusual (I have no idea if that’s true or not), and that it was actually quite good. Of course, we were beyond thinking that anything unusual wouldn’t be good, but it defied our expectations. I don’t know how the blue cheese got the light, airy, smooth consistency it had - it was how you would expect a marshmallow to taste, texture-wise, if you had never actually eaten one and just had the image of a marshmallow in your mind. The walnut milk was amazing - as I write more, I keep wishing that my friend Jessica had been with us, because she is the one other person I know besides my sister who would fully appreciate the food at Alinea.

The second dessert we had was a beignet filled with lemon verbena-infused buttermilk, which, while not as creative as the other desserts, perhaps, was still outstanding. It reminded me of the time I made ginger doughnuts last summer, except that the beignet was worlds better than my doughnuts were (note to anyone trying to make doughnuts: don’t make them when it’s really humid).
The third was a corn custard filled with honey, with vanilla ice, cornbread crumbs, and tonka bean crème anglaise. I don’t think I really have words to describe this combination, beyond “I absolutely loved it.” I especially liked the cornbread crumbs, which were almost unbelievably crispy.

The next dessert was a red pepper sorbet and foam with raspberries that were filled with rosewater gelee, on top of milk curd. This was the most unusual of the desserts, I think, and our server told us that there is a huge difference between red bell pepper with skin, and without. I am now in dire need of a red bell pepper so that I can taste this difference in a normal bell pepper. The dessert itself was amazing. (I think I’ve used that word too much already.) The kicker for me was that I was wondering what these little crunchy things were - they had a really familiar taste, but I couldn’t place what exactly they were. I looked at them, and I realized that they were bell pepper seeds - maybe fried? I was absolutely delighted.

The fifth dessert was the molten chocolate cake that is now quite famous - the one that consists of ganache sprayed with a thin layer of chocolate. That thing is incredible. The best thing about it, beyond the fact that the chocolate they used was wonderful, was the inclusion of fresh tarragon, and the candied dandelion root. The last thing I used tarragon for was roasting a chicken… When you ate the candied dandelion root, it was more of a texture initially, and as you chewed it longer, you got this wonderful grassy, wild flavor in your mouth.

The last dessert was the vanilla pod-sponge cake spoon, with the vanilla sauce/pudding and foam. It was really difficult not to eat the sponge cake before finishing the pudding.

The thing that makes Alinea so special for me is that it’s different for a reason, not different for the sake of being different. I have always hated anyone or anything that was different just to be different. Being different just to be different is a hallmark of bad architecture. Good architecture always has intentions and it should be clear from the architecture what those intentions are. That said, I think that the intentions of some of the food is a little unclear, although the vast majority of it was particularly wonderful. For example, there was that course with the zucchini cake speared on a wire, which you’re supposed to lean forward and eat. I like the idea of the specific way of eating (no-hands), but I wasn’t sure that the zucchini cake needed to be eaten in that way.

My only regret is whether or not I tipped correctly. Rather, I tipped correctly in the technical sense, but theoretically your tip is supposed to reflect how much you liked the restaurant. Then again, if I were to tip according to how much I liked the restaurant, I would probably be very broke right now. Ah, internal struggles. In the end I went with 20%, but if I had been a little more flush I probably would have gone at least a little higher than that. At any rate, I'm sure they get enough high rollers to make up for some of the slack that we poor people impose on them. ;)

Last comment in what is probably my longest post ever - the restaurant really made me feel at home. I don’t mean this in the service-was-friendly way (although it was), but rather, the creativity at Alinea is the same kind that I was surrounded by at home - that kind of zany, no-holds-barred type of environment I left behind when I came to Chicago for the summer. The intensity of everyone who works at the restaurant reminds of me of the intensity of my architecture studio last spring, which I miss desperately (I gave planning one last chance and I’ve determined that yes, it really isn’t for me). When I leave in August to go back to school, I will most certainly miss having the opportunity to go there. If you are in Chicago, and you can afford it, you must go here - it's just a joy to eat there. (Also, the chairs are actually comfortable to sit in - it really feels like you're sitting in somebody's very nice, minimalist living room.)