Alinea

Twenty four hours later, I’m still assimilating impressions from dinner at Alinea. They remain less than coherent; in fact, it has been a dizzying experience. I’m going to start with incoherent notes and snippets; I’ll write about some of what seemed to me to be key ideas and key dishes once I’ve had a little more time to reflect. (Three days later: still dizzy — MB)

• This was the best meal I’ve ever had. (25th anniversary dinner; it ought to be the best.) All-time food list, barring things I've forgotten at the moment:
  • Alinea
  • the Thai fish lunch
  • Les Bouquinistes III
  • No. 9 Park
  • Beach dinner, Rio Negro, near Manaus
  • Topolobampo I
  • Da Ilia, Milano
  • Dorchester Grill New Year’s, London
  • back room of some place, Firenze
  • crawfish after the opera, Goteborg
  • The Holiday Inn Fried Chicken Feast, somewhere in Alabama, c. 1962
  • L'Espadon Bleu
  • DOC bar
  • Roman fish lunch (aka “my limoncello tree”)
  • street souvlakia, somewhere in the Peloponnesus, 1964
  • Geronimo, Santa Fe
• Amazing staff. Everyone busy, everyone working, nobody rushing, and nobody seeming to worry about their next task. This applies to both sides of the house (the magnificent, carpeted kitchen being partly visible from my chair) and despite adverse circumstances: I don’t know why a team of firemen with emergency gear appeared during dinner, or where they went, or what they did, but whatever went wrong, it was handled with calm and ease.
• Though I’d read a good deal about some of the signature dishes, each came as a delightful surprise. The truffle explosion was magnificent; for the first time, I think I understand the fuss about truffles. The frozen poached grape on the antenna sculpture — it works. The powdered essence of A-1 — it works. Many things that sound precious or silly when you read about them, actually work.
• The bread changes several times through the meal, often to play off a course. Two courses featured crab, duck confit, and peas; the bread was a cookie flavored with Old Bay. There was a wonderful little tea-infused bagel. There was a wonderful “plain dinner roll”, which just happened to be fresh from the oven – not, I think, reheated – at midnight.This is very well thought through, and now I wonder why more places don’t do more with bread. The ingredients aren’t costly, the work is mostly prep, little needs to be done at service, and if something goes wrong you know about it and can substitute.
• 25 courses is a lot. It was precisely the maximum amount of food I could enjoy. (A course per year is poetic, too.) Someone worked this out, with both hands. Everything has been worked out, with both hands, and without compromises.
• Magnificent wine, brilliant pairings. Takasago Ginga Shizuku Divine Droplets with the incredibly complex white asparagus and sorrel. The best pinot gris I’ve ever imagined, much less tasted, with crab and duck confit #1. (I can imagine good, but this is pinot gris, and this was good) The best spätlese I’ve ever had, with foie gras — an old spätlese, it was explained to us, so the sweetness folded in on itself. Face it: a wine pariting for “pork belly, iceberg, cucumber, and Thai distillation” is going to be a challenge. I didn’t follow every line of the proof, but I appreciate the moves.
• Late in the tour, pigeonneau a la Saint-Clair, right out of Escoffier, with a Chateaux Lascombes Margaux 2004. This course has been controversial. I think I understand part of its argument, and I’ll write about that later.
• Serving sweet potato pie on a cinnamon stick is clever. Serving it on a smoldering cinnamon stick is genius. Seriously. It sounds absurd, but it’s unforgettable. (And even more complex than it seemed)
• The informative, and helpful service avoids almost any talk about the wonderful ingredients or complex preparations. Just what a dish is, and (often) how best to approach it. More information on the wine, which makes sense, but even then, all that was said about the claret was “I’m not going to say much about this one.” Again, this is nicely thought through: if you know wine, you’re going to know about seconds crus bordeaux, and if you don’t, taste it: you don’t need the spiel.