Anyone who's read Kissing in Manhattan has probably wondered, like me, how long it would take for someone to actually develop a menu without descriptions (in the restaurant central to the book, customers choose from three specials of the day, "chicken," "veal," and "eggplant," for instance). Someone has, in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood. It's called Alinea. There is no sign outside, the menus have no prices, no fancy descriptions of the dishes available. Instead we have "bison, beets, blueberries, burning cinnamon." Grant Achatz, formerly sous chef at French Laundry, and chef at Trio (which some call the best restaurant in the country), says it's a "new style of cooking, a new style of eating ...it doesn't have a label yet." You can choose meals of varying lengths and complexities: eight-course, 12-course, or "The Tour," 25-30 courses. He claims that he can suspend time for his customers - those who take The Tour, which can last seven hours, don't realize that it's gone on so long. Over at eGullet, you can follow Achatz through the beginnings of creating this minimalist "food lab," and experience the technology of the interactive forum expose what some are calling the most technologically-advanced restaurant in the world.
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