I have always wanted to visit Alinea, which is known for its impressive dishes and dining experience. Katherine Fiorillo I dined at Alinea, a 3-star Michelin restaurant in Chicago and was impressed. It was a fascinating, once-in-a-lifetime experience with wild and funny twists.
The 10-course meal with wine pairings costs about $820 per person. I’ve eaten at a three-Michelin star restaurant before, but Alinea has been on my bucket list for years. Alinea doesn’t look like much from the outside.
Interim Archives/Getty ImagesEvery year, The Michelin Guide formally identifies the best restaurants in the world, rating each with one, two, or three Michelin stars — one of the highest honors a restaurant can receive. Restaurants must continually earn this accolade and, in the United States, there are only 13 restaurants that received three Michelin stars in 2022, one of which is Alinea in Chicago. Alinea’s head chef and coowner Grant Achatz is famous for his unique and innovative uses of molecular gastronomy, the chemical manipulation of food.
Alinea has been open since 2005 and has had three Michelin stars for 12 consecutive years. Reservations are tricky to get and you have to pay upfront. I recommend joining the wait-list if you want to get a table.
AlineaReservations are released on the 15th of each month and typically sell out within minutes. If you’re looking to get a reservation, it’s worth it to join the wait-list. At Alinea, you can dine in the first-floor gallery or one of the second-floor salons.
Reservations for the gallery range from $405 to $465 per person and the salons are $295 to $365 per person, depending on the date. Wine pairings for each course are an additional charge (ours were $145 each) and the service charge is included in your bill, which you pay when you book your reservation. With reservations few and far between, we were thrilled when a spot for four opened in the gallery.
We sat at a huge table that later got covered in food for the final course. Katherine FiorilloThe one thing I didn’t love about the gallery is we dined as a room. There were five tables in the dimly lit section and courses were sometimes explained to the whole room at once.
This was interesting, but it also meant we were paced as a room rather than as individuals or as a table. Fine-dining experiences are wonderfully fancy and fun, but Michelin-star restaurants take service to a whole new level. My napkin was even folded for me when I got up to use the restroom.
Katherine FiorilloI loved learning the nuances of fine dining before our visit and seeing some of the high levels of service in action. For example, the staff never lets your table get dirty. If there are any small spills or crumbs, they clean them quickly, subtly, and thoroughly.
If you get up to use the restroom, they fold your napkin and place it on the back of your chair for when you return. The first dish perfectly set the tone for the evening. The first course at Alinea had caviar.
Katherine FiorilloThe first dish was grated caviar on a crepe with a Meyer-lemon sauce. Though it was a larger first dish than I expected, the transformation of caviar into a shaved topping made for a rich, salty, and outstanding dish. One member of our party has a seafood allergy (Alinea inquired about it via email three days before our reservation) so this was the first of many seafood-centered dishes where he received substitute ingredients.
Here, his caviar was replaced with shaved carrot. Throughout the meal, he would find seafood replaced with a variety of substitutes including sweet potato, radish, and tofu. The second course was unique.
The star of the course was arctic char. Katherine FiorilloOur second course began with a charred piece of arctic char that had been marinated in bourbon maple syrup for two days and glazed with maple syrup before getting a hard sear that created a delicate candy-like snap. It was strange and delightful to think of candy while eating fish, but I enjoyed every moment and tried to make more than two bites out of the dish.
This was also the first of many food “jokes” and puns we’d encounter throughout the meal — charred char, an urchin served in a glass urchin, crab plated on a glass crab. During this course, we also experienced our first fun surprise. The bottom of the dish was also filled with food.
Katherine FiorilloNext, we flipped over the dish the char had been served on and found it filled with smoked arctic char roe (fish eggs) sealed in a smoke-flavored gelatinous bourbon barrel tea. It was joyfully mind-bending to turn over your plate to find your next dish but this was exactly the kind of fun food experience I’d been hoping for. The third course was our first with many layers.
I didn’t love this course, but it was cool to experience. Katherine FiorilloIn the third course, a small dish was brought to us wrapped in parchment paper. We unraveled it to find a scallop that’d been cooked en papillote — literally meaning “in paper.
” The other dish in this course had a thin film covering the top of the bowl. A staff member dropped a warm egg yolk on top of it, which pulled the starch and opened the dish to reveal a fish stew made with rouille, turbot, and bouillabaisse. This course was undeniably fascinating but wasn’t my favorite of the night.
For the next course, we left our tables and entered the Alinea kitchen. I felt like a tourist in the Alinea kitchen. Katherine FiorilloAlinea’s kitchen is known for a few things: unparalleled precision, the mutual respect of calling everyone “chef” (including the dishwashers), and absolute silence.
Restaurants with Michelin stars are high-pressure environments so entering this extremely professional space was dazzling but also made me feel like a tourist. We were served an amazing cocktail in the middle of the kitchen. It was cool to be served inside the kitchen.
Katherine FiorilloThe next course was served as we stood at the long station in the middle of the kitchen. We got a creamy and finely chopped shrimp cocktail served in a glass shrimp head and bright-red shrimp served on a similarly colored shrimp-like dish. Corpse Reviver No.
2, a cocktail with gin, Lillet Blanc, orange liqueur, and lemon juice was mixed and poured in front of us. It was satisfying to be welcomed into the kitchen like this rather than sneaking peeks from our table. During the Thailand course, part of the dish was pulled from the ceiling.
The fire was waiting for us when we returned from the kitchen. Katherine FiorilloWhen we returned from the kitchen, the lights were down in the dining room and a flaming centerpiece had been placed at each table. Since our arrival, the ceiling was decorated with dark, slightly misshapen balls that hung at different lengths.
Apparently, one of them was a celery root that we’d be eating. As our dishes of king crab and curried custard were served, one of the staff members grabbed a celery root from the ceiling. A giant hand-crank machine was brought out, too.
We couldn’t believe what was happening. Katherine FiorilloA staff member then shaved the celery root on a hand-cranked deli slicer in the middle of our meal. The moment felt like a twist in a movie — it took me a moment to wrap my head around what had just happened but I was overjoyed to have been duped in such a way.
This course reminded me that I don’t have to love every item I’m served. Even at a fancy or expensive restaurant, it’s OK to not love every dish. Katherine FiorilloThe Thailand course included king crab, squid with tapioca-based noodles in a coconut sauce, and Hor Mok Talay, a Thai dish.
These flavors weren’t my favorite and I had to remind myself that it was OK. There can be a lot of pressure to love every dish served at a fancy restaurant or every moment spent on a luxurious vacation, especially when you’re looking at a steep price point. But one of the most interesting parts of trying new cuisines is discovering what you like and how those around you may experience the same dish differently.
The Japan course featured my favorite bite of the night. The Japan course had the most impressive dish, in my opinion. Katherine FiorilloThe sixth course of the evening took us to Japan with thinly sliced portobello mushrooms, razor clams, and tsukemono (vegetables preserved in a similar style as pickling).
The star of this course was a sea-urchin faux “mac and cheese” that tasted like Kraft boxed macaroni and cheese yet contained no macaroni or cheese. It was served in a glass sea-urchin dish with chopsticksOur party agreed this was the most impressive dish of the evening, and I savored every bite. We thought the semi-sweet, second-to-last savory course was preparing us for dessert.
We still had more savory bites to go. Katherine FiorilloNext came a dish reminiscent of Mesoamerican cuisine. Beneath a sweet and intentionally broken gold-dusted cookie lay a rich mole, morels, and white asparagus.
It was served with a creamy combination of corn, cojita cheese, and lime plated to look like a slice of corn on the cob. The course finished with sweet, palate-cleansing bites served in a glass skull. Tasting menus like this one usually have an arc of flavor profiles that transition from light and fresh to rich and savory before topping off with a sweet dessert.
Because this dish had several sweet elements, I thought it was meant to prepare our palates for dessert, but I was surprised to find we still had one savory dish to go. The final savory course featured our only red-meat bite of the evening. The dish was inspired by a Midwestern staple.
Katherine FiorilloThe final savory course was a highly elevated play on chipped beef, a Midwestern dish of thinly sliced dried beef and white gravy served over toast. It consisted of a small piece of wagyu covered in slices of truffle and topped with bresaola, an air-cured salted meat. As all the other guests in my party grew up in the Midwest, this dish resonated with them and inspired a conversation of meaningful breakfast memories.
We knew Alinea’s famous dessert display was coming — but first, we were surprised with a sweet treat. The pistachio milkshake tasted authentic. Katherine FiorilloOur first dessert was a pistachio milkshake with a cherry-filled Chantilly cream puff on top.
I loved that this tasted like real, nutty pistachios and not artificially flavored pistachio ice cream. Although we all loved this dish, we were anticipating the excitement of the final, famous course. The strangest and most iconic part of the meal was the grand-finale dessert.
It was so fun to watch but ultimately strange as well. Katherine FiorilloAlinea is known for having chefs “paint” dessert on the table. In previous years, it was done directly on the stainless-steel tabletop.
This time, they brought out an artful piece of plexiglass onto which a chef decorated, painted, splattered, and, at one point, smashed dessert. During this final course, the lights dimmed and began changing colors. It felt really touristy, but I enjoyed it.
Katherine FiorilloThe room filled with stage smoke and Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” began to loudly play throughout the dining room. The staff instructed us to move to one side of the table and ready our phones for filming, which did make it feel more like a tourist attraction than an expensive meal, but I know most guests appreciated this notice so they could document the memory. It was bizarre to be experiencing something so funky in one of the best restaurants in the world.
Michelin-star restaurants may not be for everyone, but I’m thrilled I got to rediscover the fun side of fine dining. The meal at Alinea was the fun, fascinating, and once-in-a-lifetime experience I’d hoped it would be. Katherine FiorilloAlinea uses extremely high-quality ingredients, fascinating forms of molecular gastronomy, and some of the best wines in the world to impress guests almost every night.
Still, spending hundreds of dollars on one dining experience like that at Alinea may not be for everyone. I expected the elevated experience but was pleasantly surprised that it was also fun. My one slight con was that, since we dined as a room, I felt like I wasn’t able to savor all of my dishes.
I definitely felt pressured to give up my dish to the staff when I was one of the last people still eating in the room. I’m sure I could’ve kept my dishes longer if I asked, but I felt too awkward to do so. Overall, fine dining can be intimidating — but Alinea brought joy to our evening with surprises, puns, and interactions between the guests and the staff.
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From: insider
URL: https://www.insider.com/what-its-like-eating-at-3-star-michelin-restaurant-alinea-chicago-2022
