May 28th, 2025

Sean’s Take:

For the sake of reviewing this Michelin 3-star restaurant, I feel it’s important to note some things about myself –

1 – My favorite restaurant is In-N-Out Burger,

2 – A few nights ago, I had a nightmare about spending $80 on a meal,

3 – When I’m at school, I never eat before 2pm so that I can get the 20% discount happy hour at Blondie’s Pizza.

If you’re still reading this, I can only guess that you’re curious what the plebians think about fancy food. In this case, my opinion is that I liked Alinea (although In-N-Out still clears it by a bit). I would also say I’d never go there just because the food tastes good. Whether you’re eating a hotdog or a foie gras amuse-bouche, your body will say “Yummy! I taste fats and proteins that are necessary to survive” and you will probably feel happy. Instead, Alinea felt like an art museum – a place that tries to not just please aesthetically, but one that wanted to surprise me with experiences I’d never had before.

One of the surprises they had for us was a pretty slice of fish that had just a little bit of maple syrup on it. Between the crispy skin and the syrup, the dish somehow managed to strike a pretty cool balance, but that wasn’t the strangest part. After we’d finished the fish, we were told to flip our dishes over. It turned out that there was another course somehow hiding right inside a nook under the plate, which featured the roe of that same fish we’d just eaten. Kind of poetic I guess. But it was a pretty great reveal with nice flavors to back it up.

I think highbrow art asks the spectator to put themselves into the piece, and by golly did Alinea ask that of us. One of our dishes gave us a genuine excavation kit to clear the cracker dust off of our empanadas. It was not the most intuitive of meals. They gave us at least four different utensils, and that’s not counting your typical fork/knife/spoon. There was also a bite-sized potato dish that they asked us to remove a pin out of before eating it whole. I did not understand the pin mechanism and our poor waiter had to help me before I stabbed my tongue out. So there was a lot of food that was not easy to eat, but it was all tasty while also being totally different from anything I’ve ever had in my life.

I wouldn’t be doing the meal justice if I didn’t talk about the dessert. I was briefly spooked by the waiter guiding me out of my seat to the other side of the table. But the reason I had to move was to make space for the pastry chef to come around and make an abstract painting directly on the table. She made her artwork with three different sauces, blueberry cake, chocolate ice cream, and a sweet blueberry dust. It was a huge dessert, but the thing that impressed me the most was that it all somehow tasted good together. There were half a dozen things to eat, and all of them were wonderful. Then, to top it off, the waiters brought out candy balloons complete with helium inside that we were instructed to inhale, and then say a few words after doing so. It was quite silly and I was happy that Alinea felt comfortable being a bit unserious.

There were many other Willy Wonka-esque foods that I enjoyed at Alinea, but I just wanted to give a general overview of some of the artistry they performed for us. If you’re curious about places like Alinea but haven’t tried them before, you might wonder if it’s particularly worth it to go to these spots rather than a nice steakhouse or something. Speaking as the uncultured college kid, I would guess that the average person who hasn’t eaten at a Michelin 3-star isn’t missing out on too much. There is so much good food out there, and more than that, there are so many life experiences that come with the food. If you’re scared of going down to the Asian market and trying one of the big weird shellfish, then you have some experiences left to cover before you need to go to Alinea. But if you’re looking for something way different, then Alinea will absolutely provide that for you. And I can promise you’ll have a lot of fun eating food.

Tammy’s Version:

It’s always a big deal for me to eat at a Michelin star restaurant. Some of my friends splurge on designer purses, fancy cars, lavish vacations, remodeling their homes, and expensive jewelry. I save my money and splurge on a Michelin meal. And in my opinion, the experience is totally worth it.

We’ve been lucky to eat at many Michelin restaurants partly because we are frugal in other areas and partly due to the generosity of my boss. He gifts me with nice dinners to show his appreciation for all the hard work I do. 

If a restaurant is given three Michelin stars, they have been awarded the highest level of culinary achievement, indicating exceptional cuisine that is considered worth a special journey. I’ve never made a special journey out of state to eat at a restaurant before; Alinea is the first for me. And this journey only happened because it was my husband’s surprise birthday gift to me. I have a hard time with the concept of self-care and would feel too guilty having us all go to Chicago just to eat at a restaurant. 

I’m excited, giddy almost while anticipating what Chef Grant Achatz and his team at Alinea will create for us. Where else but Alinea can I eat a black truffle explosion and an edible green apple balloon that is filled with helium? I’m not making them at home because I don’t have the equipment for molecular gastronomy. I also don’t have the culinary skill, time, or extraordinary ingredients these chefs have. What I love most about eating at these places, more than the artistry, creativity and rare ingredients, is the care. These Michelin chefs put great care into their food. I know because a few years ago I wanted to make David Kinch’s “Into the Vegetable Garden” at home. We tried it at his restaurant and I was blown away by how delicious a salad could be. The recipe in the Manresa cookbook was five pages long with detailed instructions on how to make the seven different components of the dish: the dirt, root set, cooked set, raw set, flowers and seed set, and the “dew.” After reading the directions for making the “dirt,” I gave up. The entire recipe would have taken me several days to prepare.

It means so much to me when someone puts that much care into a dish. I feel very special and very loved. Maybe because my mom has always put that much care into her own food. She spends hours at the grocery store picking out ingredients to the point that my sister, who hates shopping, is afraid to take her to an H Mart. (I love shopping. I totally get the thrill she has in this kind of hunt. For part of our Valentine’s date this year, I asked my husband to let me go up and down every single aisle of H Mart in Daly City without rushing me.)

Alinea was everything I expected and more. Shortly after we were seated in the gorgeous salon, they lit a fire in a pot at our table. It looked like a fancy candle but later the waiter showed us the candle pot contained hidden tamales. They were cooking until our fifth course arrived.

They started us with Osetra caviar which had bits of pineapple and finger lime in it. After that, they gave us another refreshing treat: white gazpacho soup with diced grapes and cucumbers. Next came a piece of arctic char with a maple syrup glaze served on a colorful glass pedestal. This dish had a surprising twist because after we ate our fish, they flipped our empty pedestal over. Hidden underneath and suspended upside-down the whole time, there was a savory panna cotta made with the smoked roe of the char mixed with tiny pieces of cubed carrots, just waiting for us to enjoy.

Then a salad called “Spring Pie” was placed in front of each of us. It was a flaky pastry dressed up with white asparagus, morel mushrooms, and nasturtium flowers.

Our server had a prankish look in his eyes as he set the service for our next course by placing several tools in front of us: scalpel, wooden spoon, long metal spoon, thin metal forks, and wooden brushes. He walked away mischievously, without an explanation, leaving us to confusedly wonder what we would be eating next that might require a brush.

“They are going to have us clean crabs!“ joked Sean.

There was no such cleaning involved. Instead they came back carrying three flat stones covered with what looked like dirt. We were given instructions on how to “excavate” and eat this “Fossilized Humita Bone” dish with our tools. By brushing and digging a bit, we found a red prawn buried under a dirt made of cracker crumbles as well as a savory empanada. Beside our plates was a large bone filled with roasted marrow, potatoes and parmesan. The server then dug out the sweet corn masa tamales that have been hidden for the last hour in the warm table fire. Sean and I both thought eating the creamy, rich marrow was the best part of our archaeological adventure. 

Two truffle dishes followed: the black truffle explosion and the “Hot Potato / Cold Potato” made with black truffle and parmesan. As a kid I detested eating Pop Rocks candy because I never liked it when food was violent. The truffle ravioli on a skewer exploding in my mouth gave me the same uncomfortable sensation. The Hot Potato / Cold Potato dish was a yummy juxtaposition that was quite pleasant after the explosion.

The main course was the Japanese Wagyu with Japanese eggplant, pine nuts, Okinawan sweet potato, turnip, and plum done up well. 

The “paint” dish was an artistic dessert. The pastry chef came out to decorate our table with blueberry cake, blueberry sauce, blueberry snow, freeze-dried ice cream, chocolate sauce, candied oats, dark chocolate, and other things I lost track of. There were so many components to that marvelous dessert! None of us expected it to taste so good considering it was so fanciful. It was one of the best desserts we’ve ever had, evidenced by how we cleaned the entire table with our forks and spoons. The pastry chef told us that it was the highlight of her job to get to “paint” and smash food on tables for guests to eat.

The green apple balloon made me smile. I laughed so hard to hear both Sean and Grant talk after inhaling the helium. It was fun but hard to eat because it was so sticky. I ended up getting green apple taffy on my face and in my hair.

My birthday “cake” was a bottled vanilla cake drink that was labeled with the following ingredients: vanilla cake, vanilla frosting, unicorn sprinkles, water, CO₂, citric acid, and 3,739 grams of whimsy. It really did taste like a Betty Crocker boxed vanilla cake. It was super sweet so they diluted it with a fizzy drink.

Our entertaining meal was not only filled with sophisticated drama and theatrics, but also amazingly delicious. I’m grateful we made the trip to Chicago to eat at Alinea because not only did we have a memorable meal at one of the best restaurants in the world, but we got to eat at so many other incredible restaurants in Chicago. Now I totally get why Michelin inspectors want all of us to make more of these special journeys. When you are older like me and take care of everybody all the time, you want to be cared for extravagantly in return like this.