Fork My Life: Next and Aviary

If Grant Achatz wanted people to view dining and drinking differently, he definitely accomplished that with Next and Aviary.

He established the "best restaurant" in the country using techniques far ahead of our culinary norm and then opened Next, a themed restaurant with the opening theme of "Paris 1906, Escoffier at the Ritz." I can't think of more opposite cooking styles to pair up against each other- but I think he was making a statement. With proof of his gastronomic abilities set in stone, I think he set out to prove that he could cook the foundations of cooking absolutely perfectly. And he did.

Our menu offered the numbers for each course that corresponded with it's recipe from Escoffier's book. The diners next to us actually brought the book and were critiquing each course according to the encyclopedia as they took each bite. It looked like they were in agreement- these were the classics, the foundations of cooking themselves, done absolutely perfectly by the master of molecular gastronomy- Grant Achatz.

Outside of just the food making a statement, the entire concept of both Next and Aviary made a statement.

Reservations for Next, scored via email list and internet only design the eaters to be young and internet savvy. Orders at Aviary are taken via Iphone. Our servers at Next were so lax that almost every course was delivered with a borderline inappropriate joke such as - "And this petifour is a wine cork, the other one is a grown up Gusher" and when the turtle consomme was put in front of us it was "I hope you guys didn't have turtle sanwhiches for lunch." Statements were being made left and right- his staff wasn't trained to grab Michelin stars, they were trained to poke fun at the food and entertain. What was interesting as we looked around was that most tables were groups of four, not like the two tops filling Alinea. The menu in pictures below:

Potage a la Tortue Claire

Filet de Sole Daumont

Supremes de Poussin

Caneton Rouennais a la Presse

Pommes de Terre a la Dauphinoise

Salade Irma

A little taste of 1906- Liquid Nitrogen Sancerre...hmmm...

Finally- Bombe Ceylan

Next door, connected by a shared bathroom space, is Aviary- the drink spot where line cooks spend their night forklifting ice out of the mini-cooper sized ice machine and chiseling it away. 22 kinds of ice fill up the mis-en-place for the line...bartenders??

They have stations like a kitchen, each cook...or bartender...is responsible for a handful of drinks, allowing them to concentrate fully on their stations drinks. Set up behind a cage where tall bar tables allow people to stand and watch their drinks being made- there's an entire open kitchen devoted to drinks.

A friend from work knew the guy on expo so we got a pretty awesome tour of the underground prep.

We hung out in the ice room where some guy spends his day creating these 22 different kinds of ice. There was a circulator reading negative numbers, a small crane to life blocks of ice, trays of silicone molds holding different shapes and flavors of ice, and injecting needles for drinks "in the rocks."