alinea

So the Chicago restaurant, Alinea, was named the best restaurant in the country by Gourmet Magazine.

Here's how it works: you have two menu choices, one is $125, the other is $175. I don't think that includes wine.

Clearly the surroundings and the presentation are stunning, but one has to wonder: How do you get some of this stuff into your mouth?

('Cause me? I like to eat my food. But that's just me.)

Here's what Wired said about Alinea back in May:

[Chef Grant] Achatz is a California cuisine alum:
He spent four years in Napa Valley working for freshness
fanatic Thomas Keller at the French Laundry, possibly the
best restaurant in the US. [Ed. Not anymore.]

For Achatz, though, the new frontier is preparation. He has
turned to lab equipment and industrial food additives,
pursuing quirky juxtapositions of flavor and texture.

(...)
Some of these no-dishes make you laugh out loud; others
seem needlessly weird. But they're all beautiful.

From the May 2006 issue of Wired

The funky implements that Alinea uses in their presentation -- works of art in themselves -- were designed in collaboration with Martin Kastner and are available through Kastner's design company Crucial Detail.

Hot scoop via Andrew at Gaper's Block -- that nice young man who said such sweet things about my Kamin pix.

Update: The General Manager of Typepad hung out with one of Alinea's principals over the summer -- he gave them a nice little shout out on his blog, this is sippey.