I used to be the slightest bit skeptical of the story Grant Achatz tells of the famous pheasant and burning oak leaf course at Alinea that reduces nostalgic diners to tears. That was until I witnessed the phenomenon myself at the first incarnation of Next. After my mate took one of the opening bites of the night—from a slice of brioche piped with foie gras torchon and garnished with roasted mustard seed-apricot jam—she held back her head, closed her eyes, and misted up.
Turtle soup, or tortue claire, appears on at least 20 set menus in Georges Auguste Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire, usually as a second or third course. Le Guide—as you know if you’ve read just a few of the thousands of stories written about Next in the year before it opened—is the culinary equivalent of the Ten Commandments. And Escoffier is the turn-of-the-century chef who modernized French cooking to the extent that it’s recognized as the academic foundation of Western fine dining. What Achatz, partner Nick Kokonas, and executive chef Dave Beran aim for with the first menu is an interpretation of a meal as it might have been eaten in the dining room of the Paris Ritz, where Escoffier reigned during La Belle Epoch.
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Despite that, it was one of the few courses that didn’t flatten me with pleasure. One that did makes reference to an entirely different chef. Carré d’agneau consists of three fried onion rings balanced atop a stack of duchesse potatoes, lamb tongue rillettes, rare sliced loin, and a sweetbread, all situated in a pool of sauce Choron, the combination of bearnaise and tomato fondue named for a contemporary of Escoffier’s. Served halfway into the meal, this tower of meat is the course that broke me, forcing me to admit that if I was going to make it through the night I’d need to stop consuming every last morsel, each smear of sauce, and every drop of wine paired with them—as much as it hurt to do so.
E-mail Mike Sula at msula@chicagoreader.com
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