You can take the boys out of the country, but can you take the country out of the boys? Or, Alinea meets Rockbridge.

I’ve been meaning to write up my meal at Alinea in Chicago for several weeks, and since I’ve decided to post once every day this week, I’m going to knock out this posting.

About four weeks ago I met five of my close friends from high school in Chicago for a weekend reunion. One of my friends has a membership in a destination vacation club and he graciously reserved a spacious condo for our use in the North Loop. Located on the 46th floor, the condo overlooked Grant and Millennium Parks and the Art Institute of Chicago and gave us a sweeping view of the Sears Tower, many other skyscrapers and Lake Michigan. Despite some low cloud cover that settled in for two of the days we were there, it was a spectacular place to stay.



Even more than the view, I enjoyed the opportunity to reconnect with my old friends. I’ve known some of these guys for more than thirty years, and we’ve managed to sustain our friendships through high school, college, into our 20s and 30s, despite the divergent directions our lives have taken. Two of us now live in California and the other four live in or near our hometown in Virginia. Without wives, boyfriends or children, each of us relished the chance to reconnect and enjoy each other. It was a special reunion.


We had planned very little for the weekend, waiting to see what would unfold and hoping to explore the city spontaneously once we all arrived. I wanted to make plans for dinner, however, and when we all first agreed to meet in Chicago I suggested we plan a meal at Charlie Trotter’s. I knew of Charlie Trotter’s, but had never eaten there before. I called and made a reservation with no problem at all. I was actually somewhat surprised by the ease with which I was able to reserve a table, especially after having tried so many times to book a table at The French Laundry. I expected more difficulty in making a reservation. I scoured the postings about Charlie Trotter’s on Chowhound and investigated the Chicago restaurant scene further and concluded that Charlie Trotter’s was a little tired. Instead, I decided that I wanted to try Alinea, Grant Achatz’s restaurant known for his version of molecular gastronomy that has received many rave reviews in the food press. I called and was able to book a table for six.

Some of my friends grumbled a little about the restaurant (mostly concerning the cost), but after hashing it on email before we arrived in Chicago everyone agreed to give it a try. It turned out to be a marvelous meal, both in terms of the food and in terms of our camaraderie. One of the nice things about the meal was that with a group of six we were able both to carry on conversations as a table, engaging all six of us, and to break off into side conversations of among just two or three of us. We alternated back and forth between having smaller, more intimate conversations and conversations involving all of us. We talked, of course, about the food and about what we were all experiencing thanks to Achatz and his staff, but we also talked about our current lives and the future and we reveled in our common memories of times past. I deeply respect and like all of those guys, and it meant a great deal to me to be able to spend the time with them.

Now, about the food.

Achatz offers two menus, the tasting, which is a fourteen course tasting menu, and the tour, which is a twenty two course tasting menu. We opted for the tasting and chose the wine parings to go along with dinner. At the start of the meal, the servers placed several sprigs of rosemary in the middle of the table. Immediately, the rosemary scent enveloped the table and set the stage for an unfolding feast of tastes and smells.

The first course (don’t worry, I’m going to describe every course) was a lovely little croquette featuring smoked steelhead roe. It was bite-sized, served on a small pedestal and it tasted a little like a smoked fish hush puppy.



A few courses later, we were served one of the most unusual dishes. It was the “apple.” The dish was actually a frozen or iced horseradish ball, bite-sized, topped with a small shaving of celery, resting in a small shot of apple puree, which looked, smelled and tasted like apple juice. The idea was to shoot the dish, and the dish enlivened the nose and palate. Lifting the glass, I smelled the celery, then swallowing the horseradish ball, my tongue came alive with the flaming sensation of horseradish, only to be immediately cooled and soothed by the apple juice chaser. It was a brilliant combination.



Three of the meat courses are worth describing. The first, and the best dish of the night, was the monkfish. Prepared and served three ways—as crisps, as roast and as mousse—the fish was served along with small onions and banana and lime purees. It was unbelievably good, and I liked the combination of the crispiness of the fish and the soft and tenderness of the roasted fish and the soft, saltiness of the mousse, along with the sweetness of onion and banana and the acidity of lime.



The next dish was, by far, the most dramatic. The servers place pillows of juniper air before each of us (cloth pillows were lined with plastic bags and filled with juniper infused air). Then, the servers placed the plates holding the duck preparation on the pillows, causing the pillows to slowly release juniper air to enhance the flavor of the duck. I’d say the juniper was a subtle addition, but the duck itself was a perfectly prepared, and many of my friends thought it was the best dish of the night. For me, it was second only to the monkfish.





The final meat worth mentioning was the lamb. The servers brought out three bite-sized preparations of lamb resting on 325 degree bricks. They then placed the rosemary sprigs that adorned the center of the table at the end of each of our bricks, allowing the rosemary to add to the smell of the lamb.



None of the desserts in particular stood out, though the final dessert, which was not printed on the menu, was a "caramel." It was really a meyer lemon beignet attached to a cinnamon stick—it was actually more or less a sweet, lemon and cinnamon hush puppy. It served as a complimentary bookend to the savory fish hush puppy that opened the meal. Those of us who finished the meal with coffee used the cinnamon sticks to stir our coffee. Delicious!



A few of the wines are also worth mentioning. The sommelier was a doppelganger for my friend Greg’s brother. He paid special attention to us and delivered some wonderful wine pairings. The best wine was the Vincent Dancer Chassagne-Montracht ler Cru "Tete du Clos", 2004, served with the monkfish. The other two dessert wines were also quite good, one from Hungry, Oremus Tokaji Aszu "5 Puttonyos" 1999 and one from Austria, Hans Tschida Chardonnay "Schilfwein", Neusiediersee, 2000. We also ordered a bottle of a Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, a Ken Wright Cellars Pinot 2004 (I think). We drank it in between courses.



A few final thoughts:

The space at Alinea is beautiful. The ultra-modern dining rooms are sleek and calm, with low lighting and gray, black and cream color tones. The walls were sparsely decorated and with several minimalist flower arrangements placed around each of the dining rooms.

I was somewhat surprised by the static nature of the menu. We were served the exact menu that I had read on the Alinea website a week before we showed up at the restaurant, and the menu is still the same today. Coming from California, where most restaurants change their menus almost daily, depending upon what’s most fresh, I expected more or less the same at Alinea. Achatz, who trained at The French Laundry, seems to take the view that he’d rather perfect his dishes and serve them consistently for a season than change the menu daily. I was a little disappointed that the menu did not seem to vary more often and that we weren’t trying some new creations. I was also disappointed in by the response from one of our servers about where they source the food. I asked whether all the food was organic, locally and sustainably farmed, and the server’s reply was, to say the least, vague. He said was that Alinea uses some of the same producers that supply The French Laundry. I was surprised that the menu did not include a statement about food sourcing. No matter, I was still blown away by Achatz’s attention to detail, his careful, beautiful and tasty preparations and by the experience as a whole.

If you find yourself in Chicago any time soon, I highly recommend trying out Alinea.

And thanks to my Lexington friends for a wonderful weekend.