A Life Worth Eating

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1723 N Halsted St, Chicago, Official Website

My first meal at Alinea was in 2009. At that time there were two menus: a smaller, more focused 12-course tasting and a 24-course “grand tour” of the restaurant’s cuisine. I overall really enjoyed my first meal quite a bit, though I thought it lacked focus and the kitchen was heavy-handed with the sugar. Since that time the two menus have been combined into a single 18-course tasting which I think is intended to bring focus and tell more of a story.

While the dining room still felt icy, the service warmed up, a little. Our waiter seemed genuinely friendly, cracking jokes and making us smile throughout the meal. Once in a while, however, someone else from the kitchen brought our food and seemed a bit more distant and, well, self-satisfied. I think we got really lucky, our waiter was great.

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1723 N Halsted St, Chicago, Official Website

Molecular gastronomy, or avant-garde cuisine, challenges the way diners interact with food. The meal becomes as much about the experience as it does about the flavor. The challenge is to create a unique and exciting experience without sacrificing the taste. Alinea was my first domestic experience with molecular gastronomy where the dishes were not only fun and exciting, but they tasted great, too.

Our menu, titled the “grand tour,” consisted of 24-courses each overlaid with grey orbs of varying opacity to indicate intensity, portion size and sweetness. The color of the orb indicated the dish’s intensity: darker meant more intense. The position of the orb indicated the dish’s sweetness: to the left meant savory, to the right meant sweet. The size of the orb represented the size of the plate: bigger orb, more food. We were given not a menu for the evening’s food, but a guide to help us with pace.

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Ctra. Las Marinas, Km. 3, Denia, Spain, Official Website

I first visited Quique Dacosta in 2009. That write up is here. Since then, the food has only gotten better. The menu has been redesigned and simplified with more focus; it now tells a story. The dishes have less added sweetness and really take advantage of the restaurant’s location by the sea. Reflecting back on my recent meal, I was deeply moved by Chef Quique Dacosta’s ability to use local ingredients, combine them with local Valencian traditional cooking, and build from that base a truly inventive and modern cuisine. His cooking is inspirational and, to date, this is the best non-Japanese meal I have had.

Over the course of three meals, we were brought on a comprehensive and well-organized tour of Chef Dacosta’s cooking. My first visit meal started with a dinner. The following day my friend the ulterior epicure and I basically hung out all day at the restaurant. We had two more meals. I am writing about the second of those three meals, which was my favorite. You can see photos of the other two meals here.

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Ctra. Las Marinas, Km. 3, Denia, Spain, Official Website

Quique Dacosta, at first, seems out of place. It’s in the center of a tourist town and the tourists don’t eat there. During high season, a large portion of the town is foreign: most signs are in German. Regular ferries carry young club-goers eastward to the Balearic islands, while older couples stay behind to enjoy the serenity of the Mediterranean. Except the restaurant is in exactly the right place; it’s clear that the local seafood has had a profound influence on Dacosta’s cooking.

Though Quique Dacosta doesn’t receive nearly as much hype as his compatriot Ferran Adrià, I’d argue that his cooking is equally as exciting. And he’s just getting started. When I made it to Quique Dacosta in 2009 I was blown away by his creative use of local shellfish and vegetables. When I returned in 2011, I was even more impressed.

Our meal began with Universo Local, the more extensive of the two tasting menus.

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Cala Montjoi, Roses, Spain, Official Website

My recent meal at El Bulli was the most fun I have ever had at a restaurant. I said the same thing last year because it was also true. My two meals at El Bullí have kept the table laughing, analyzing, discussing, and chatting in a way I haven’t seen elsewhere. Our experience was both intellectually stimulating and novel. There were flavor combinations I had never tasted before. We were kept on our toes throughout the entire lunch.

It started as a lazy morning. Waves crashed and fizzled on the sun-drenched shore as we drank tea and coffee at our seaside hotel in Roses. Lunch at El Bullí was the only activity on the day’s agenda. Unlike last year where we (embarrassingly) overestimated the Costa Brava’s formality, this time, we left our suits and ties at home. At one o’clock we would casually drive no more than ten minutes to our lunch. We were ready, but in no hurry.