When Envy is on the Menu

Grant Achatz Jun 30 2009, 6:45 AM ET

Alinea's food by nature is tedious, experimental and exploratory, and I mean that from the side of the guest and the staff that prepares and serves it. Because of the innovative approach, a new idea has to be worked out and refined before we can produce it for the masses.

Baby steps, as they say: We often start slow, serving a new course to one or two tables a night. This allows us to get to know the nuances of the course from the operational standpoint. It is one thing to have a neat idea and make it once to prove it can be done. It is entirely another to produce the dish under strict time parameters and in the environment of busy restaurant while serving it to an audience that is unpredictable.

For instance, the introduction of the Hot Potato--Cold Potato back in October 2006 was comical. Inside a palm-sized paraffin wax bowl is a cold truffle-potato soup, suspended on a pin elevated above the bowl include: a hot potato sphere, Parmesan, butter, chive , and black truffle. The guest must pick the tiny bowl up and remove the pin, which releases the garnishes into the soup combining the contrasting tempertures just before eating. The bowls proved to be so difficult for the front of the house team to transport that we could only manage to get a handful to the table per service.

Once they did arrive, how in the world do we explain such a course to diners that had no background knowledge of the concept? The wax bowls were spilled, people crushed them in their hands, and even tried to eat them before we acclimated ourselves to the required systems making the dish a success. And ultimately have the ability to serve it to every person...every night. I won't even mention the pains the first cook that was responsible for making 100 tiny wax bowls a night went through.

[Curator's note: The author asked me to attest to the workability of the soup, which I've had. Like most everything at Alinea, it's an initially disorienting surprise, like a flash-card roller coaster: You brace yourself, it happens with a wild whoosh, and then--it was so good you want to do it all over again, right now. But, trained at the French Laundry, Grant is too clever; it's on to the next.]

At one point shortly after the dish first was served we had a guests write the restaurant in fury stating that we ruined their anniversary because they did not have the chance to eat the Hot Potato-Cold Potato they saw served to the table next to them.

What is the responsibility of the restaurant?

In the case of the mat plate there are certain material and operational obstacles we have not yet been able to overcome that limit the number we do execute in a given night. So far we have only been able to find the silicone in widths of 40 inches; while this will cover most of our tables, many are table are 48 inches square and a few are 60 inches round, making it impossible to offer this concept to people seated on them.

Since we introduced the idea, more than three weeks ago, we have pregressively been able to produce more each night. We think we have a source for larger sheets of silicone that will make it possible to accomplish it on all of our table sizes.

But an even more interesting problem has arisen from this concept...one that cannot be fixed by silicone dimensions or the acclimation of operations. Going beyond the idea of envy from lack of receiving an object is that of absence of access. Not a matter of if a guest gets the mat plate, but WHO plates it?

Is a course plated on the mat plate by me worth more than the exact same dish presented by the chef de cuisine or a sous chef?

What is the responsibility of the chef?

To be continued...

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Grant Achatz is chef and owner of Chicago's Alinea. He grew up in the restaurant industry, literally, with restaurateurs as parents and grandparents. More

Born in Michigan in 1974, Grant Achatz grew up in the restaurant industry, literally, with his parents and grandparents being restaurateurs. Naturally curious and always driven, he could be found in the kitchen by his twelfth birthday and over the coming years spent most of his free time there, learning and developing the very skills that would allow him to become one of the foremost innovators in the field. Early on he realized he wanted to become a chef, and upon graduating from high school, he immediately enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America. Excelling at the CIA, Achatz graduated and ascended the culinary ladder at several prestigious restaurants, including the acclaimed French Laundry in Napa Valley. Achatz worked closely with owner Thomas Keller, and thrived in his highly creative, dedicated environment. After two years, he became Keller's Sous Chef. In a decisive move to broaden his knowledge and experience, Achatz accepted a position as Assistant Winemaker at La Jota Vineyards after four years at The French Laundry. Then in 2001, he returned to the Midwest when he accepted the Executive Chef position at the four-star Trio in Evanston, Illinois. Achatz flourished at Trio, garnering accolades including being named the James Beard Foundation's 2003 Rising Star Chef in America and one of ten "Best New Chefs in America" by Food & Wine in 2002. Under Achatz's lead, Trio received four stars from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago magazine and was honored with five stars from the celebrated Mobil Travel Guide in 2004. Known worldwide in culinary circles as one of the leaders in progressive cuisine, Achatz realized a lifelong dream by opening Alinea in Chicago in May 2005. From day one, Achatz and Alinea received extraordinary attention and unprecedented accolades. The Chicago Tribune and Chicago magazine both awarded the restaurant four stars within months of opening, and the James Beard Foundation nominated Alinea as the Best New Restaurant in America within a year. In September 2005, The New York Times identified Achatz as the "next great American chef." In October a year later, Alinea received the coveted Five Diamond Award from AAA, and Ruth Reichl of Gourmet magazine declared Alinea the "Best Restaurant in America," an honor bestowed only once every five years. Under Achatz's leadership, Alinea continues to receive worldwide attention for its hypermodern, emotional approach to dining. In both 2007 and 2008, Alinea was named one of "The S. Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants" published by Restaurant magazine, and Achatz himself received the James Beard Foundation Outstanding Chef in America award, the culinary equivalent of an Oscar, in 2008. Achatz has appeared on the Today show, CBS Sunday Morning, the Food Network, the Discovery Channel, and PBS, and has been featured in dozens of periodicals across the US and the globe including countries as far away as Sweden, Finland, Great Britain, Spain, Italy, the Philippines, and France.