Entries associated with the tag "Grant Achatz":

Steve Rhodes, of the Beachwood Reporter, weighs in on D.T. Max's excellent New Yorker profile of Grant Achatz and his battle with tongue cancer:

The story also says something about Chicago and, perhaps, its bumbled rush to be seen as sophisticated and worthy. "Chicago prides itself on being a city with more daring restaurants than Manhattan," [Max writes]. "The city also has Moto, an Asian-inflected outpost of molecular gastronomy--and the home-town response was unequivocal. The Tribune exalted the very dishes that the Times suggested were contrived or showy, declaring the P. B. & J. opener 'comfort food fit for the Museum of Contemporary Art.'" Which suggests the locals didn't have the guts to say the whole thing is ridiculous for fear of coming off like hayseeds. But whatever. (To be fair, Gourmet did name Alinea the best restaurant in America in 1997.)

OR it suggests that Rhodes, like blinkered Second City sufferers across our fair city, automatically believes in the inherent authority of Frank Bruni and the New York Times over anything anyone in his "hayseed" town might argue. Never mind Bruni's well-documented bias toward the rustic and Italian (not that there's anything wrong with that!). And never mind that New York is hardly a stranger to the mysteries of sous-vide and nitrogen griddles. But most especially, never mind that "Chicago " is not the one in a "bumbled rush to be seen as sophisticated and worldly." "Chicago" did not force Food and Wine, Saveur, Gourmet, or any of the other national food rags to turn their attention to its exploding, innovative dining scene. The international food media has been falling all over itself for the last two years to cover Chicago--a fact easily obtainable, had Rhodes bothered to do any research--thanks to the ahead-of-the-pack convergence here of the two biggest trends of the 'aughts: locavorism and molecular gastronomy--or whatever you want to call it.

(Also, uh, Steve, Alinea wasn't open in 1997, as the NY'er makes clear. The Gourmet accolade came in 2006.)

Elsewhere in the piece Rhodes argues that high-end dining is "decadent and even immoral" given a global food crisis. This hardy perennial of a topic is more interesting, and one that, quite honestly, I'm all over the map on on any given day. (With reason: it might be noted, for example, that Moto's Homaro Cantu firmly believes that molecular gastronomy  can feed the world--in the form of nutrient-enhanced paper and whatnot. Check out this 2006 Fast Company profile for more on that.) But I do think that condemnations of fine dining on "moral" grounds spring from the same sort of reductive romanticization of cultural authenticity that valorizes the Waco Brothers over Beethoven or hip-hop over ballet. That the cultural product in question is food just makes it more complicated, because starving kids don't need music to survive--the closest analogy is actually probably to the fashion industry, which critics routinely disdain as frivolous and amoral (though those critics may well be clad in $12.99 sweatshop-spun Target tees . . . but I digress). The idea that food is a primary need and art and music are secondary luxuries--isn't that what defenders of school arts programs have been fighting against for years? In a diverse, cosmopolitan society isn't there room for both high and low culture, "dehydrated bacon wrapped in apple leather" and hot dogs? Would Rhodes have us seize the CSO's budget to fund the expansionist ambitions of the Empty Bottle?

I often find the excesses of the restaurant industry depressing and disturbing, but temples of mindless conspicuous consumption like Il Mulino are far scarier than a place like Alinea. Achatz is a visionary and an obsessive determined to explore the far frontiers of his chosen medium. If he was a painter, would anyone find that morally offensive?

Breaking news: Grant Achatz's publicist just released this statement from the chef, regarding his cancer treatment:

Go here for a sneak preview of Grant Achatz's first book, due out next fall from Ten Speed Press.

In other news, Achatz's publicist reports that the chef, who was diagnosed with cancer of the mouth in July, is responding well to chemo: the tumor on his tongue has apparently been reduced by 75 percent, and he starts radiation therapy next week.

Grant Achatz's publicist just released this note from the man himself.

"I wanted to personally report that I have been very recently diagnosed with an advanced stage of Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the mouth. I have consulted several prominent physicians and will likely begin aggressive treatment within the next few weeks. I remain, and will remain, actively and optimistically engaged in operations at Alinea to the largest extent possible. Alinea will continue to perform at the level people have come to expect from us -- I insist on that. I have received amazing support from friends, family, and everyone who has thus far been told of the disease, and I look forward to a full, cancer-free, recovery."

Did you know Ferran Adria has a line of tableware? You can get it in Chicago at Crosell & Co.

Jumping into the loca(l)vore field: ChicagoLocalvores.org. (Via Drive-Thru)

Hungry Mag loves them some cheese. (And scolds the Trib for pairing Grant Achatz with a loose woman on the cover of the Sunday magazine.)

CoalFire Pizza opened Tuesday and has already netted 54 (!!!) posts on LTHForum. (It does look good, I must say.)

Chicagoan Dale Levitski represents on Top Chef: Miami. (Chicagoist)

The winners of this year's James Beard Awards have been announced. To the surprise of probably no one, Grant Achatz was named Best Chef in America, Great Lakes Region, while Frontera Grill walked off with the Best Restaurant prize--bestowed upon the eatery that "serves as a national standard bearer of consistency of quality and excellence in food, atmosphere, and service" (and, to fit those criteria, on one that's been around a while). Tru was honored with the Best Service award.

Over in the ever-more-crowded field of food writing, a few things leap out from the list: the inspiring Marion Nestle got the nod for her encylopedic What to Eat, and Michael Pollan was swept into the "Who's Who of Food and Beverage in America" ranks (whatever that means). And in a moment of pride for alt-weekly writers everywhere, the great Dara Moskowitz, of the Minneapolis City Pages, picked up not one but two more honors: for her weekly column, and for her writing about booze (the latter shared with Eric Felten from the Wall Street Journal).

What *does* it all mean? It depends on who you ask. 

Some miscellaneous impressions from last Sunday's discussion at Steppenwolf between Grant Achatz and Michael Ruhlman:

The audience was a who's who of foodigentsia that by all appearances left the kitchens of Chicago empty (Look, there's Michael Carlson! Wait, isn't that Elaine Sikorski?) -- or at the very least left the Internet unmanned.

Much of the discussion tromped over ground familiar to anyone with more than a passing acquaintance with the Alinea Story: Achatz's childhood washing dishes in his folks' Michigan restaurant; his formative years at the French Laundry, which taught him everything there was to know and then some about classical technique; the epiphany sparked by a five-day stage at Ferran Adria's El Bulli -- and the apparently amiable, but painful, rift it caused between him and French Laundry chef Thomas Keller. Eating at El Bulli, he explained, provoked an emotional reaction stronger than anything he'd ever experienced. Sitting with Keller through a 37-course meal ("Thirty-seven courses! You guys think I'm bad.") he struggled to control his excitement, not wanting to disrespect his mentor. When he got back to Yountville, he said, "I was running around making hot gelatin and trying to melt sugar all over everything, and Thomas was like, 'Whoa -- this is the French Laundry,' and I realized I couldn't cook there anymore."

If there was a theme to the conversation, it was this idea of structuring a meal to generate a particular reaction. Achatz sees himself as a conductor, leading diners up and down an emotional scale from anticipation to excitement to bafflement, accomplishment, and pleasure.  He, like many of his peers, hates the term "molecular gastronomy." "It's not about science," he said of his cooking, "it's about emotion." 

There were a few surprises. Achatz's disavowal of "molecular gastronomy" may have grabbed headlines (and for a thorough dissection of what exactly he meant by that, see Ruhlman's own postgame analysis). But Achatz -- who turned down Iron Chef America and has so far steered clear of celebrity cheffitude (though he is working on a book) -- shocked everyone, including his interlocutor, when he admitted he'd still kinda like to do TV. "If we decided to do a TV show," he argued, "I think we'd do a pretty darn good TV show."

When asked if he'd like to go the Robuchon route and open another Alinea in New York -- or LA, or Tokyo -- Achatz, who admits that he only recently realized he didn't have to be in the kitchen all the time, was less than enthusiastic. While he didn't dismiss the idea out of hand, he seemed adamant that, if he were to branch out, he'd like his next project to be something very different.

Still, he didn't seem to be in too much of a hurry to go anywhere else. He's working in a city of innovators, he said, and "the next five years are going to be superinteresting in Chicago."