windy city wining & dining

I can't tell you how many times I've flown through Chicago's airport, rushing through the concourses to catch a connecting flight, never curious about the city beyond or pausing for long enough to think whether I'd even want to stay a little longer. Over the last couple of years, however, it seems like every friend of mine I've talked to has loved the place, so okay - I got a little curious, and finally dropped in for a weekend.

In addition to doing the essential touristy things - walking the Magnificent Mile, grabbing some great (really yummy) pizza, hitting the beaches on Lake Michigan, Millennium / Grant / Lincoln Parks, an architecture boat tour, etc. - the highlight of the weekend was dinner at Alinea. I've been fantasizing about eating here since I saw this slideshow from a dinner hosted by Grant Achatz and Thomas Keller, Achatz's old boss at French Laundry, so could hardly wait for our Saturday night dinner reservation. There's no use in pretending I'm a food blogger, but at a place like this, the wine is at best a complementary element to an amazing meal.

Alinea's food emphasizes the intense and varied flavors contributed by each element of a dish, and Achatz has established himself as a leader in molecular gastronomy (alongside Ferran Adria of El Bulli, of course). Prior to dining at Alinea, my only real encounters as an experimental gourmand were at New York's WD-50 and Bazaar, LA's trendy restaurant-of-the-moment. I enjoyed the meals I've had at both, enough to have dined at Bazaar on multiple occasions, but Alinea put both to shame in all categories - inventiveness, presentation, ambience, pure deliciousness...

Dining at Alinea was a lot of fun. We had snagged a reservation on the earlier side, with the upshot being that each dish was a surprise, unspoilt by having seen it previously presented to any of our fellow diners. The highlights were a decorative vase spewing smoky fumes of peppery steak on a grill, dessert served on self-deflating pillows wafting lavender air, and a fascinating tobacco ice cream.


Though we opted for two half-bottles, it seems a wine pairing would be the way to go with better planning (we had numerous additional stops to make after dinner that would have been more difficult to navigate after so many glasses of wine). The sommelier was helpful in picking half-bottles of white and red that would pair appropriately with the mixed bag of dishes we were to experience, leading us to an Austrian Riesling and a Rhone.


The three of us at dinner are all big red drinkers, though R has more experience with whites and, despite being hesitant (ok, actively against) Riesling, we were convinced to give it a try. As promised, the Riesling (note to self: be better about recording names of wines tasted) was nice and dry, more like a Sauvignon blanc than the overly frilly Rieslings with which most of us are acquainted. The Rhone was a 2004 Domaine de la Solitude Chateauneuf-du-Pape, which drank well with the Wagyu steak and rich flavors dominating the later half of our dinner courses.

The wine really took a backstage to the food here - which is what good wine should do, when paired with excellent cuisine (though we did come away newly open to Austrian Rieslings). Ideally, wine should enhance what is on the plate, bringing out subtle or missed flavors and enhancing the full expression of more dominant ones. For us at this meal, however, it was all about the fun of being in Achatz's hands.

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Alinea
1723 N. Halsted
Chicago
312-867-0110


Achatz's writings for The Atlantic
photos: thanks, Jessisah