Alinea

Alinea is world famous with Chef Grant Achatz at the helm moving gastronomy forward with very creative and forward thinking experiences. His story is amazing and Chef's Table did a great episode with him.

MsFlamingo and I were in Chicago to celebrate a friend's business school graduation over the weekend, but arrived early and were able to get "tickets" to the Salon. We were very excited despite having only been able to try the baby tasting menu.

We arrived barely on time thanks to traffic and were welcomed and escorted upstairs to the salon. What would turn out to be a foreshadow of the meal, nothing looked at all like the Chef's Table episode. The remodeled restaurant looked oddly very plain, to the point where there was no personality.

The place settings.

Kicking off with glasses of Bollinger La Grande Annee Rose was the perfect champagne to kick off a meal we were very excited about.

Starting off with a citrus custard and trout roe served over an ice bowl. This worked and was both tasty and fun.

A glass of chardonnay for the next course, was fine, but nothing memorable.

Next was a really interesting broth course with a shrimp paper that you folded into the broth to give it both a rich umami and shrimp flavor. Was very cool, but more novel than truly tasty.

In the middle of the table were "logs" of foie gras wrapped in seaweed. Definitely tasty (and sorry for the blurry pic).

The next course had multiple components, with a center dish that had dry ice and melon in the middle. On the rim were two bites of thin melon with some trout. Each personal dish had powdered citrus and a cream poured in, when mixed together it was absolutely fantastic and flavorful.

Next up was a Thai curry which seemed totally out of left field and to us did not flow with the meal. It was a very good one, but just seemed odd in terms of flow.

Next up was a saffron and pork belly, very flavorful and more Indian tastes, but again it didn't fit in to us.

A game bird with a deep cassis like sauce, very tasty.

For the heaviest course, a nice wagyu short rib was very classic and perfectly executed, but it didn't flow between jumping around with ultra-modern, Asian and classic dishes. I like all of those styles, but for tasting menus, they should be cohesive stories.

Then a trick of vanilla bean that was actually beef jerky, tasty and playful.

Then a palate cleanser ice cream cookie.

The dessert and probably the strongest dish of the evening was a matcha, strawberry and tea combo. When had together, it was fantastic.

Then to cap things off, a medley of berries prepared in a modern way.

The final dish was their famous candy balloon, but MsFlamingo said I couldn't post the picture of her with it.

Overall Alinea was interesting, but nothing at all like the Chef's Table episode and the Salon was disappointing. Everything they did has been done before in other high end restaurants, and I hope the full experience downstairs will be the true show we have heard about from the chef.

The summary is I wouldn't advise anyone to dine at Alinea at the Salon, do the main dining room and extended tasting menu or go to one of the many other fantastic restaurants in Chicago.