Grant Achatz, Alinea
The idea of a tasting menu or a degustation, where a diner orders nothing and chooses to experience a progression of small courses that was designed by a chef with the intent to showcase his/her skill, is a fairly new concept. It began with the French in the early 20th century, but only in the recent post-foodie era has the tasting menu gone mainstream in most restaurants worth its salt.
A few restaurants, such as the French Laundry, Alinea, and Momofuku Ko, offer only tasting menus. At places like these, guests surrender themselves to experience the culinary viewpoint of the chef, and food allergies aside, try to minimize the extent to which dishes are modified (there’s often a tasting menu for vegetarians as well). Chef Grant Achatz of Alinea, always in pursuit of novel dining concepts, has tried to shake up how things are done in these haute cuisine establishments. He has been contributing some pretty interesting pieces on food and dining in the Atlantic (definitely worth checking out). In one article, Achatz presents the “adjective concept”, which is similar to the “Choose your adventure” concept in books:
“Each guest at a table gets a card with four rows of six words. The rows are defined by characteristics. In the example below,from left to right [check out the article for pictures of the card and an example of a dish]: Row one is flavor, two is texture, three is emotionally driven, and four is temperature. As a group, the diners have to select one word from each category or row. Once the group has made a decision, they turn in their choices to the waiter. The waiter hands the choices to the kitchen, where we create a dish based on the guests’ four choices. Soon after, the result of their choice–their exercise in limited free will–is served. Or will be.”
I think that this is a really intriguing concept, and it provides a new, interactive approach to the standard degustation, giving the diner options while still allowing the chef to demonstrate his/her abilities. My concern is whether or not taste, in my opinion the most important factor in the dining experience, will become an afterthought. 24 composed courses that each vary according to different temperatures, flavors, textures, and emotional profiles sounds like a daunting task for most chefs, but then again Grant Achatz is not your typical chef. Though I wonder what he would make that’s salty, soft, comforting, and < 0 degrees. What can be soft and salty but frozen….and also tastes good?!?
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very interesting; thank you for sharing.
Wow….this article is so well written! I was so happy to think that you’d gotten better at writing and then I realized that someone else wrote it! I’ve just about given up reading anything on your blog that isn’t filled with misspellings and bad grammar. Jessica and Lon….you have an interesting concept and I like to read about the things you cook and the restaurants you visit. But, please….if you’re writing a blog that is for the public then you need to consider yourselves writers. And, as writers, you should learn how to use the English language! Some of your posts are positively illiterate….like the recent post about how your “mom’s” (sic) both like fresh produce. This happens on your blog more often than not. If neither of you knows how to write, spell or punctuate then please get a friend to proofread your posts for you. There are readers out there who care. I’m not alone, I assure you.
Hi Suzanne, I appreciate your criticism and I would LOVE an editor.
I’m not trying to excuse it, but Lon is busy with a demanding job and I just stink at spelling and grammar. Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone wants to work for free and be available whenever we need them to edit two posts per day.
I’m glad you’re willing to read our blog despite the errors, and hopefully one day, we’ll have an editor.
Suzanne, as someone who owns a business whose primary service is proofreading and ghostwriting blogs, I can’t tell you the number of bloggers who just flat out don’t even have TIME to check the more mundane mechanics of language. (That’s why they hire me – if there were no misplaced apostrophes in the world of blogging, I’d be out of a job!) I don’t think I’d ever use the word “illiterate” to describe FoodMayhem, though – they convey way too well the sensory experiences of cooking and eating! Even a grammar nazi like me gets a lot of joy out of reading the posts every day.
And Jessica – I can’t work for free, but you’d be welcome to shoot me a line at [email protected] for a quote. I’m sure we could work something out.
This concept is way more intriguing to me than eating in the dark
What a miserable thing to say. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Grammar could be thought of as manners, right? I’d say, as manners go, a few honest punctuation mistakes bother me a lot less than your blatant, disgusting arrogance. And how cowardly… to dump on someone’s blog comments. Only a miserable person would go out of their way to talk like that.
Oh, and it looks like you skipped the word ON in that one sentence.