Art and Alinea in Chicago

I love living in my small town, but I also love visiting big cities and getting caught up in the hustle and bustle for a few days. Brad and I just spent 4 nights in Chicago on a Wellesley College Davis Museum Friends of Art tour, which gave us access to unbelievable private art collections and stunning real estate, as well as time together with other art lovers.

We had lovely weather during most of our visit except for a drizzly Saturday. This is the view from our 26th floor hotel room. It's a city!

We also were fortunate enough to have a friend help us secure a reservation at Alinea, the temple of molecular gastronomy which was just ranked the number 7 restaurant in the world.

This post mostly consists of course by course documentation of the dining experience, so if you're not a foodie you may want to skip this one — although it's fun to watch Brad on video after experiencing his green apple helium balloon dessert.

We were among the first people seated, which turned out to be really nice because we were the first to receive each amazing new course and could have the complete element of visual surprise. We sat side by side on the banquette so that the experience felt even more like a performance. It was actually nice to be just the two of us so that we could focus on the food and not be distracted at all by conversation.

At Alinea they do a wonderful thing and give you a copy of your menu without the guests even asking.

To begin: an ice sculpture is placed on the bare table -

First food: Steelhead roe with carrot, coconut, and curry flavors

Served with Cocktail of Gimonnet Brut with St. Germain and Esterhazy Beerenauslese

Then what we called the Swamp Thing Collection: oyster leaf mignonette, king crab with passionfruit, heart of palm, allspice; mussel with saffron and oregano; razor clam with shiso, soy, daikon, served in a bed of kelp and seaweed from the Pacific.

Shells after eating, along with mystery iceberg

The server then brings a Bunsen burner machine with vegetables that the water boils up around while you're eating your next course -

A single bite for each of us -

Then a scallop "acting like agedashi tofu" with absurdly precise vegetables arrayed about –

Broth from the Bunsen burner is poured over to make soup -

Then you are presented with a rubbery ring (not from the space shuttle) -

Upon which is placed toro tuna with thai banana, sea salt, and kaffir lime foam –

Then it's time to approach the iceberg with a glass straw –

Which contains a liquid of beet, hibiscus, and licorice – a bracing palate cleanser and a signal that the flavors move from the ocean to the earth -

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Burn Morel mushrooms with ramps, fiddlehead fern, miner's lettuce and a quail egg served on hot stones and a burned plank that is still warm. This was amazing, full of spring flavors -

Another earthy course: Hot potato, cold potato, black truffle, butter, served in a wax dish with the ingredients separated on a pin that you pull to let them drop into the soup and then drink in one swallow. Incredible flavors –

The empty wax cup

And after all this theater, this was the most visually intriguing part: an array of accompaniments, including candied pecan, mint jelly, cinnamon, various and sundry herbs, and a blue gel of anise

To be eaten in whatever combination the diner pleases in combination with turbot prepared 3 ways -

And the messy tray after we'd had our way with it -

Another single bite: the black truffle explosion, with broth and romaine and parmesan inside. Unbelievable –

And another performance art course. The server brings a metal vessel containing a lavender infused bath of hot water which sends the aromatic essence around. Then individual bites are placed in a display inspired by a Miro painting with silverware in the title -

As you eat each bite you place the utensil in the lavender bath so that at the end all the silverware is gathered neatly together -

The next course is served in an intriguing metal pronged device. This was Anjou pear fried with onion and brie, served on a flaming cinnamon stick. While this was visually interesting, and smelled wonderful, it was my least favorite in terms of texture and flavor -

But it's fun and dangerous to have fire at the table –

The pre-dessert palate cleanser was tiny but incredibly intense flavored assortment of gingers. My favorite was Indian influenced with turmeric and yogurt –

The metal pins after the tidbits are eaten -

The presentation of a metal straw for the first dessert course -

Blueberry with buttermilk, sorrel, and macadamia flavors –

You remove the glass stopper in the middle and liquid is poured in to make smoke and create a cold broth to complement the sweetness of the dessert flavors.

After eating -

The next dessert course is mostly for the visual mastery of a green apple balloon filled with helium -

The server told Brad to remove his glasses to prevent the sticky balloon from getting all over. I didn't love getting sticky stuff on my face, but Brad enjoyed his helium. His commentary:

The final dessert: white chocolate vessel with strawberry, English pea, and lemon powders in a signature Alinea moment -

After pouring liquid into the white chocolate vessel, the server spreads Chantilly cream, English pea, strawberry, and lemon powders as well as flower petals and tiny meringues and assorted other spring accessories to create a Monet on the table -

The server gives the white chocolate vessel a sharp thwack and shatters it and then leaves you to figure out where to begin -

And that's all, and surely, that's enough. Amazing.

I'm including a link to Brad's iPhone photos, documenting his wine pairings and giving a different perspective -

The kitchen -

And I'll take a day or two to rest and then post about our other lovely dinner at Sepia

I'm sorry we're leaving just as the Roy Lichtenstein retrospective opens at the Art Institute of Chicago. Maybe we'll make a return trip to see that and eat some more!

Final Fine Dining – Taillevent

We've eaten so much incredible French food that we almost decided not to have a final celebratory Parisian dinner with Jason, but then we got a last minute reservation at Taillevent and just had to go.

Jason, not looking a day over 40, and me sporting my La Vie du Grande Norde scarf as I zoom toward my 45th birthday in September:

And the beautiful French food -

Soup for Jason:

Risotto with mushrooms and white almonds, without the optional frog's legs:

Lamb for Jason:

Langoustine with apricot and parsley for Brad and me – the Before photo:

And After:

We had a lovely cheese course which wasn't photographed, but was surely enjoyed.

We were really quite full of food after a month of fine dining, so we kept dessert small.

One scoop of sorbet for Brad:

Two scoops of sorbet for Jason:

And a perfect strawberry tart for me, with flecks of gold foil as accents:

At some point we'll need to return for the full degustation experience when we haven't already been eating ourselves silly for an entire month.

Posting some random photos that weren't included in previous food posts:

The wines at Le Cinq:

Lobster at Le Cinq for both Brad and me:

Before our Le Cinq dinner in our fun French apartment:

And still my favorite Paris photo, courtesy of Brad:

Enough Fine Dining – L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon

Here in Paris the good eating continues.

Monday night we went to dinner at the original Joel Robuchon restaurant in the 7th arrondissement, literally across from where we rented an apartment on the rue du Bac in April 2005.

We went with visiting friend Ed Roberto and Parisian Marc Goldberg from Bryan Garnier.

We've been there at least once before in some year with some friends, but all these amazing restaurants are starting to blur a bit in my memory, perhaps because my brain is packed in butter after all of these July meals.

Joanne Wilson blogged here about their recent visit.

These photos are courtesy of Brad Feld and his magically working iPhone:

The open kitchen:

Our very friendly waiters displaying the wine, a Côte-Rôtie chosen by Marc:

Close up of the front of the wine bottle:

Close up of the back of the wine bottle (in case you couldn't guess):

My beautiful tomato appetizer – I love tomatoes, and the little violet flowers are such a nice contrasting color:

Brad's seafood appetizer:

Ed's appetizer of lobster ravioli with black truffles and green cabbage:

Brad's second appetizer of lobster ravioli with black truffles and green cabbage:

My second appetizer of an egg cooked slowly in a light morel mushroom sauce with a sprinkle of cumin on top:

And a series of terrifying photos, beginning with sweetbread appetizer for Marc:

Appetizer portion of Iberian ham for Ed:

Main course of an entire fish for Brad – look at those fishy eyes. Bleah:

And after eating all the good parts, look at the fishy eyes. Bleah:

A bunch of beef, with and without knife piercing:

And then a porringer of ambrosia – also known as mashed potatoes, but truly a butter transport mechanism. Yum!

The cheese course – the chevre on the left was melting and just perfect, and the Reblochon on the right was just right:

The cheese was served with toasted bread that contained hazelnuts and raisins, which was a wonderful complement:

Baba au rhum for Ed and Marc:

An outstanding coffee sabayon custard dessert for me, with a surprising layer of Greek yogurt with lemon zest, which made a crisp contrast to the richness of the coffee. Extra yum.

A truly beautiful chocolate dessert for Brad – named Le Chocolat Tendance and described on the menu as "onctueuse," which is translated as smooth, unctuous, suave, oily; which makes me laugh, since unctuous actually means excessively smooth in English – which isn't possible for chocolate. It also has Oreo crumbs on top and cocoa ice cream. And photographs beautifully:

Walking home after dinner:

That's a rear view of Ed and me, strolling along between the Louvre and the Tuileries Garden:

And perhaps my favorite Paris photo so far -

And the Best Dining of All – Restaurant Guy Savoy

One celebratory birthday dinner is not enough to celebrate Jason Mendelson, so after our Le Cinq feast on Monday, we headed to Restaurant Guy Savoy on Tuesday.

We're still the happy group:

And photographs are still generously shared by Carl Rosendahl (seated far right):

I'll offer brief descriptions of the foods photographed –

After an amuse bouche of tart vegetable lollipops for the pescaterians and foie gras nibbles for the others, we started with soup served in an intriguing double container:

And beneath the second half of the dish, a surprise.

Fresh spring peas with an egg on top. The server / guide recommended dipping the toasted bread drizzled with herb oil directly into the egg, "as though we were at home."

An oyster, full of the taste of the ocean. I don't love oysters, but this one was just about perfect.

This course deserves some explanation – first the jewel-like lobster is brought to you in this perforated dish, which looks entirely interesting and satisfying on its own. They then pour a liquid over and it begins to steam like a cauldron in Macbeth. I actually said "double double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble."

The smoke completely covers the lobster and chills it further, and the liquid continues to bubble and boil as you eat the dish. Most innovative use of dry ice I've seen so far in my entire life:

A deliciously crispy sea bass, with pepper on the side so that you can adjust the taste to your own preference -

Caviar – I actually didn't love this dish – too oily somehow – but I loved the presentation and Brad loved getting my portion.

Foie gras

A Guy Savoy classic – artichoke soup with black truffle and parmesan, with a truffle filled buttered brioche on the side. By this time I was so full that Brad again received much of my portion:

The lovely red wine:

The lamb:

And a simple carrot, incredibly flavorful and tasty:

Cheese course:

And some strawberry based treats:

A beautifully presented alternating series of matcha tea and jasmine tea based sorbet cones, granita, chilled liquid soup drink thing, and savory tuiles. I don't like jasmine flavors (or rose flavors either) so Jud benefited from my surplus this course -

And the chocolate dessert, which starts as a beautiful shiny orb:

And they then pour a warm fruit liquid over it, the top melts to reveal the contents of tiny minced fruit bits, and the fruit and chocolate flavors blend together in a magical way:

The 700th dessert chosen from the abundant dessert cart. Here, a selection of ice creams, arranged by Carl in a subtle smiley-face design:

I've been fortunate enough to dine at Guy Savoy twice in the past. Here is my blog post comparing my previous experiences at both Le Cinq and Guy Savoy.

Brad and I went once with Ilana and Warren Katz, longtime friends from Boston. Here is a photo pre-dinner from May 2006 outside of our apartment on Rue du Cherche-Midi where Warren is showing me which way is up.

The lovely Ilana:

Don't I look like I was having fun?!?

I love food and fine dining and feel incredibly lucky and grateful to have had the chance to share some unbelievably fine meals with unbelievably fine friends.

I'm delighted to have had another opportunity to celebrate a Happy Birthday to Jason!

More Fine Dining – Le Cinq

For a celebration worthy of the 40th birthday of Jason Mendelson, we went to Le Cinq at the Four Seasons Hotel George V Paris.

Here's the happy party:

Left to right:

Jud Valeski, CEO of Gnip
David Cohen, CEO of Techstars
moi
Brad Feld
the birthday boy
and photographer extraordinaire, Carl Rosendahl, who kindly photographed the evening and is allowing me to use his images -

And since Carl's photographs are so beautiful, I will let them speak thousands of words for the food and the celebration -

And how do you finish such an extravagant evening?

At Le Cinq, they take a photo of the group, print it out, insert into a beautiful George V envelope and distribute copies to the happy guests -

Fine Dining and Tacos

While we're here in the City of Light we're enjoying both excellent meals and excellent companionship at those meals. I'm proposing new nicknames for Paris, with my top contenders so far being City of Food and City of Calories.

As promised in my last post, I'm catching you up on our incredible meal at L'Arpege with Jeff Clavier on Monday 7/11. Brad and I had been there before in 2005, but didn't have the full degustation experience that we had this time – and this was wonderful. I'm reconstructing the list of courses from memory, so I may be missing one or two, but I'm providing links to an excellent photo-rich review that can give you an idea of what the food looks like. We didn't have the opportunity to photograph the courses during our experience since Brad's phone wasn't working at the time. You'll have to visit for yourself for the tastes!

L'Arpege Listing of Courses:

Amuse bouche of tiny pastry cups with beet cream or radish and tomato
Tomato soup with scoop of creme fraiche (my 2nd favorite course)
Single egg in shell – a L'Arpege signature, with creme fraiche, maple syrup, and chives (3rd favorite course)
Assorted grilled vegetables
Lobster in thin white potatoes (my favorite course)
Red onion gratin with black currants (my least favorite course)
Three vegetable ravioli in consomme
Fish with lemon and pepper for me, fish with white wine for Brad and Jeff
Another fish with green tea powder / lamb for Jeff
Cheese course – incredible Comté
First dessert – rhubarb in mille feuille (rhubarb somewhat overwhelmed by the pastry. I would have preferred more rhubarb flavor.)
2nd dessert – basil ice cream with stewed yellow plums and black currants
Tray of sweets in multiples of 3 with some fascinating vegetable flavor macarons
And surely that is enough!?!!
Oh, the wines – chosen by Jeff. I don't remember the white, but the red was a pinot noir from the Mazis-Chambertin region of Burgundy

A lengthy, thoughtful, and astute review of L'Arpege on the Food Snob blog, with gorgeous photos, is worth a long read, and includes some history on Alain Passard's personal evolution as a chef.

And here is a link to a series of photo tags for L'Arpege on Paris by Mouth. Beautiful.

We had a couple of days to recover, lying about like pythons after devouring several goats, then our friend, Jud Valeski, from Boulder, Colorado, arrived – which necessitated venturing forth in search of more food.

We ate at Saturne, which is reviewed here:

review on the New York Times

review on Paris by Mouth

review on Paris Notebook

review on John Talbot's Paris

Since Jud has a phone that actually works in Europe, he took these beautiful photos of our beautiful meal. We missed photographing the starter, which was chunks of tuna tartare with small slivers of sardine, white onions, parsley, and drizzle of viniagrette.

We're also missing a photo of one of my favorite parts of the meal, which was a hearty country bread served in a linen basket filled with fresh hay that smelled wonderful.

But here is our first entree – fish for Brad and me, and chicken for Jud:

And our second entree – line caught sea bass with peas and summer squash

And dessert of a fromage blanc ice cream with tiny meringue balls and raspberry granita coulis -

A nice way to start our nice week with Jud with modern French food.

But sometimes you just want Mexican -

After yet ANOTHER day of pouring rain and gray skies, Brad was officially ready for some not-French food. From my extensive (borderline obsessive) reading of food blogs, I knew there are now a few actual Mexican food options in Paris.

We took a taxi to Candelaria, which we didn't know had been reviewed in the Sunday Times T Magazine on May 6th and further reviewed in the New York Times on May 31, 2011.

We're not usually so au courant (see my French?!) but the handmade tacos and actual salsa were worth squeezing in to the tiny, very crowded place. We sat at the single communal table and ate real Mexican, which helped drive away some of the damp and chill of the Parisian summer.

And then it was the weekend, and time to rest from our dining labors.

Longtime Gone / Postcard from Paris

I don't usually quote lyrics by the Dixie Chicks, but my last post was September 1, 2010 and it has indeed been a long time since I've posted to my blog. I think this is primarily due to laziness and the ease of use of Twitter, which I use multiple times each week.

But now I'm in Paris for a month and have more to share than fits in the 140 characters of a tweet, so I'm actually going to post a post. Whee! How exciting -

I have been tweeting away while here, with lots of links to my Google photo albums, which I hope you're enjoying. I'm mostly using my aging Nikon D100 digital SLR camera as a point and shoot and not taking advantage of its magic powers, but I think I'm at least sharing some of the visual flavors of Paris.

And we've started taking advantage of the literal flavors of Paris in the past ten days or so and making some new friends. We had lunch at Les Gourmets de Ternes with Toby Ruckert and Margit Brusda from Stuttgart, Germany, New Zealand, and India, as well as Nabil Hanga from Lagos, Nigeria. It's mostly a meat place, serving slabs of the cold blue beef the French seem to admire, but 4 of the 5 of us had fish instead. Brad really enjoyed the baba au rhum dessert, but I didn't love the celebrity-obsessed owner and don't need to go there again, especially since there is a world of dining splendor surrounding us.

The next day we had lunch with Cliff Shaw and Christy Clark from Boulder, Colorado at Restaurant Dominique Bouchet which I felt was our first "real" French meal. I had salmon carpaccio with pink peppercorns and Granny Smith apple bites, tuna and avocado stack for Brad, giant pasta tubes with lobster for both of us, and dessert of chocolate tart for me. The experience was similar to the meal I enjoyed and blogged about at Les Bouquinistes in April 2005. The space was clean and modern, with contemporary art on the walls and a simple decor. I would have happily gone again during our time in Paris except that, in the Parisian way, the restaurant is closed from July 14th through August 29. So French.

After our now normal afternoon siesta, we had an excellent high-end meal that evening with Rodrigo Sepulveda Schulz and his lovely lawyer wife, Anne, at Laurent in the outdoor garden in the Parisian twilight overlooking the Champs-Elysees garden. Although I'm allergic to wine, which is extra unfortunate and difficult in France, I could smell the incredible Domaine Francoise Raveneau 2000 Chablis Grand Cru Blanchot even though I couldn't drink it. My beautiful lobster helped comfort me. And dessert was a comfort, too.

The very next night we were delighted to have dinner with longtime New York friends Fred and Joanne Wilson at Les Fines Gueles which Joanne blogged about here, complete with fun photos. If you squint you can see my fun French scarf in the background of a shot or two. Les Fines Gueles is one of a crop of wine bars I keep reading about on the Parisian food blogs I've recently subscribed to. One of my favorite reviewers, David Lebovitz, reviews it here. I would eat here every week.

The next day we walked down to Sunday lunch to meet Jerome Camblain and Nathalie Besancon at Cafe Marly, trying to burn off at least some of the accumulating calories. The best thing about Cafe Marly is that it overlooks the glass pyramid entrance to the Louvre. As is usual for places with superb views, the food and service are inversely proportional to that view – but what a view!

And the next day, because we hadn't been eating enough food, we had a legendary Top Ten List meal with Jeff Clavier at L'Arpege, which is probably worthy of its very own separate blog post. Truly amazing meal. Here's a photo of L'Arpege lobster from another one of my new favorite Parisian food blogs, Paris by Mouth.

Brad is very relaxed and happy from lots of sleep and an exploration of French wine. Here's his list of his first week in Paris.

I'll do another post soon (famous last words?!?) about eating at Saturne and the upcoming repeat vists to Top Ten List restaurants Le Cinq and Guy Savoy.

Bon appetit!

Contemporary Dallas

We’re in Dallas for a Wellesley art trip with our in-laws and yesterday had access to two extraordinary homes designed by contemporary architects and filled with amazing art. We first went to the collection of Howard and Cindy Rachofsky, whose home was designed by Richard Meier as basically a one bedroom museum. The current selections from their collection are all created between the years of 2004-2007 by emerging artists. It was great to see major collectors supporting the work of living artists. The second home we visited was designed by Steven Holl for Jessie and Charles Price, whose collection includes works by Joan Mitchell, Ed Ruscha, old master drawings, Brice Marden, and my favorite, a Robert Irwin light installation.

In the afternoon we skipped the curated tour of the Turner exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art, dashed through the Nasher sculpture museum with its terrific design by Renzo Piano, and went back to the hotel for a nice long nap.

We had dinner at Stephan Pyles Restaurant, where the food was lovely (a selection of 4 iced gazpacho was wonderful), but the waiter was very agressive and intrusive.

Today we’re off to Ft. Worth to see the Tadao Ando designed museum as well as the Art of the American Snapshot exhibit at the Amon Carter.

Aix in Denver

After seeing a fantastic exhibit at the Denver Art Museum called Color as Field, Brad and I had dinner at a restaurant that was new to us, Aix. We zoomed through the museum at our normal pace, and were so early for our 5:30 reservation that the restaurant hadn’t opened. We strolled around the neighborhood a bit, and went into a divey bar to have a drink while waiting. I immediately noticed that there were no women in the bar, but didn’t go ahead and make the connection that this was a gay bar. After being ignored completely for about 10 minutes, Brad figured it out, and we went back and waited in the car for Aix to open.

It was worth waiting for. The food was fresh and French-ish and wonderful. I had mushroom truffle soup to start, and Brad had roasted beet salad with toasted goat cheese, and we shared a cheese plate which had apricots soaked in lavender honey. Yum. I had salmon with haricots verts and roasted fingerling potatoes and roasted tomatoes as my entree. Brad had small portion of disgustingly rich gnocchi with tomatoes and parmesan. Double yum. Butter is amazing stuff. We skipped dessert and came home. It’s funny to eat so early, and get home at 7:00 on a Saturday night. Going to bed plenty early for Brad to run his 10 miles to town tomorrow.

Brunch at the Oak Room

Our last, and perhaps most memorable meal in Louisville was Sunday Brunch at our hotel, the Seelbach Hilton. I love a huge Sunday brunch with omelet stations and desserts before noon. Brad and I were heading downstairs from our room and he said he thought he had something in his shoe, maybe a piece of paper or a bug. We were running late to meet our friends, so I told him there wasn’t anything in his shoe, meaning there’s nothing in your shoe, you idiot. We got to the elegant brunch room and joined our already seated friends. Brad was still feeling this phantom piece of paper in his shoe, so he slipped it off and dumped out an enormous cockroach onto the floor. Neither of us screamed, which was good. I said big bug, big bug, big bug and put my napkin over it. Brad excused himself either to go take a shower in bleach or put on socks made of depleted uranium. He did return, and we all did enjoy a beautiful brunch, especially after the nice waiter scooped up the dead (?) bug and made it go far away. At the end of our meal we signaled for the check, and the nice waiter said that our meal was complimentary because of the big bug, big bug, big bug. (Maybe I’m paraphrasing slightly here.) We happily took our free meal, even though the bug was imported from our hotel room upstairs and not a resident of the actual brunch room. And our friends agreed that the next time we dine together we should bring a big plastic bug and see what happens.