Next Restaurant is the second restaurant opened by
co-owners Grant Achatz (chef) and Nick Kokonas (investor). Their first
restaurant, Alinea, has been awarded three Michelin stars and is consistently
ranked one of the top restaurants in the world. I don’t remember the exact
story about how the concept for Next was created (you can read about it in
Grand Achatz’ book – Life on the Life, really good read!), but basically it all happened one night
after service at Alinea. Grant knew he wanted to open another restaurant, but
he thought it would be too boring to do the same type of cuisine over and over
again each night. Then he thought it could be possible to change themes every few
months with the goal of having the best version of that cuisine for those few months. And that’s
how Next was born!
To date they have beautifully executed about nine different
themes, which include: Paris 1906 (Escoffier), Childhood, Thailand, El Bulli,
Sicily, Kyoto, The Hunt, Vegan and Bocuse d’Or (coming next month). For each theme they release a "teaser" video and the Vegan one was a lot more tongue in cheek than they normally are. In the video you'll see a lot of other local chefs along with Dave Beran (executive chef), Grant Achatz, Nick Kokonas, as well as other staff, in the video.
Next (and now Alinea) don’t take reservations, you have
to buy tickets. Much like going to the theater, patrons are then responsible
for the reservation that they make, no more last minute cancellations or
no-shows. However tickets have been pretty ridiculously hard to get.
We’ve been really lucky and in the right place at the right time to get
tickets. We were especially lucky to have been able to be “season tickets
holders” the last two seasons, which includes tickets for the three themes of
the year. After basically stalking Next’s Facebook page my husband successfully
logged in at the perfect time and snapped them up – we read that tickets were
gone in seven seconds. So we’ve been lucky to have had the opportunity to dine
during most of these themes, and that brings us to our most recent dinner at
the Vegan theme in May.
My Mom and I both travelled to Chicago for the night (we left my Dad and my husband at home this time), and
met friends of mine that enjoy the art of fine food as well. We started our
evening at The Aviary, the “bar” next door to Next, also run by Achatz and
Kokonas. This is not a typical bar, cocktails are created by very talented
mixologists and chefs. We each ordered a drink and had The Luau (pineapple,
matcha, chartreuse, gin), Tropic Thunder (wild lime, hibiscus, pineapple,
tequila) and the Barrel Aged Negroni. The drinks are always beautiful to look
at and exceptionally tasty. The Tropic Thunder was probably the most interesting, it kept changing color and flavor. We were so intrigued that we brought it with us into Next and continued to sip on it as we had our dinner.
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| Tropic Thunder |
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| The Luau |
When it was time for our seating, we were ushered through
the back to our table at Next. It was beautifully set with what looked like a
tree and pond. Chef Achatz doesn’t like anything on the table that’s not relevant,
so we knew at some point we’d be seeing these items in our meal progression.
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| Pond |
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| Tree |
When we were seated, we were given a challenge from Chef Achatz:
What if meat did not exist? Or fish? What would be the focal point of a dish?
On many plates vegetables can be but an afterthought or quite literally a 'side dish' -- the supporting actor. For our team vegetable driven dishes have always forced us to be more creative. Maybe, we thought, it's time for vegetables to take the lead.
This menu is not about a movement or a political ideology. We do not believe "meat is murder" and are firmly omnivores in every sense. But we also understand that many cultures throughout history have, by choice or necessity, focused on plant-based diets. By stripping away many ingredients that we rely on we've come to a new understanding of so many common ones.
Challenge your perceptions of what Vegan cuisine can be. We have. And we are excited by the results.
Starter and Burnt Avocado
Pretty quickly our table was covered in amazing dishes of
bite-sized morsels and a huge rock. The rock was covered in
torched avocado and topped with little pieces of fried kale. To eat the avocado
we were directed to the “tree” which we then realized had large, thin crackers
in the branches. We had several other
bites on the table including: a frozen potato bite that tasted like a baked
potato with sour cream, seaweed sponge cake (that tasted just like sushi),
rambutan shells (a play on sea urchin) filled with custard, tempeh bite, and
roasted artichokes with an artichoke puree. All of these were beautiful and
flavor filled bites, a perfect way to start our meal!
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| Burned Avocado |
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| Baby Artichoke |
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| Sprouted Tempeh (on square plate), Nori Dumpling (green), Earl Grey Rambutan |
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| Earl Grey Rambutan (inside) |
Fermented Apples and Lichen
The next course was inspired by apples and was served with homemade cider vinegar as our beverage, aged in (and served out of) a log!
Lily Pond
celery, crab apple, meyer lemon
This course took advantage of the pond that was on our table! The bowls were placed in front of us, and then the server "harvested" herbs that had been marinating in the "pond" and placed them in our bowls, along with a little of the marinating liquid.
Rice Yogurt and White Asparagus
This course was one of our favorites! It was incredibly creamy, the asparagus was poached perfectly, and the topping was crisp!
Salsifies with Oyster and Dandelion
Obviously the oyster in this dish was from the mushroom family. It wasn't my favorite, texturally and the flavor combinations.
Swiss Chard and Douchi
The was incredibly good! The swiss chard was fried perfectly and the salad at the right was creamy.
It starts to get a little fuzzy after this, we'd had so much to eat (and drink)! So I'll stick with the title of the dish, and anything else I remember!
Kombu Atoll with tamarind, aloe, and pea
Mushroom Cart
huitlacoche, blueberry, bell pepper
This was great! Instead of a platter with steaks (like at a steak house), they brought around a Mushroom Cart showing all the varieties of mushrooms they'd used in the following dishes. And the dish that followed was another one of our favorites - meaty and hearty!
Red Onion | inspired by Stupak
mango, galangal, kaffir lime
Curry Roasted Cauliflower
Olive Oil Jam and Bitter Chocolate
This was a very interesting dish, and not my favorite, but I have to admit I'm not much of a chocolate fan. The other chocolate lovers at the table loved it!
Hibiscus and Pistachio
This was a wonderful dessert! There were so many different things going on, but they all worked perfectly together. And it was served on a stump, very interesting!
Steamed Crepes
These were a wonderful substitute for mignardises! Richard Blais worked with Grant Achatz when they were both at The French Laundry, so I'm not sure who got this technique from whom, but on Top Chef, Richard was obsessed with making sponge cake in the microwave. I'm guessing this was the same technique (we've also had something similar for another theme)!
I was actually incredibly full at the end of this dinner! We've been to quite a few really long dinners, but I wasn't really expecting to leave as stuffed as I was. I almost didn't make it through the last three courses! I was so pleased that we made it through most of the dinner without any of the soy products or fake meat. They truly used vegetables, which was wonderfully creative and satisfying.
We can't wait for the next theme - Bocuse d'Or - in October!
