Here’s What Alinea’s To-Go Offerings Look Like - Eater Chicago

Chicago already felt empty on Friday due to social distancing, but the void felt greater thanks to a gloomy day with rain. But there was still a crowd of cars and SUVs lined up along Halsted Street in front of Alinea. It was an unusual scene outside one of the world’s finest restaurants, a pioneer in molecular gastronomy. It felt like school was out with parents queuing up awaiting their children. One Alinea worker, standing outside in a poncho, laughed at the comparison.

“I’d be much more excited to wait for beef Wellington than my own kid,” he said.

It felt like school was out outside of Alinea.

Like most restaurants around the city, Alinea has adapted to the state-mandated closure of all dining rooms. On March 18, the restaurant, which costs around $300 per person for dinner, announced it would offer meals to go — an unexpected move for a fine dining restaurant, much less one that traffics in Alinea’s particular brand of modernist cooking. At $34.95 per person, the first batch of dinners featuring beef Wellington quickly sold out within five hours.

A second batch of dinners were made available on March 24. Customers order using Tock, normally a site where diners prepay for dinners at some of the more exclusive restaurants in the world, sometimes months in advance. But now they use the platform to order and than pick up from Alinea’s luxurious dining room, one that crews remodeled in 2016,. It’s now been converted into a carryout distribution center full of brown paper bags. A Chicago restaurants pivot to carryout, Tock has brought on new clients that aren’t all fine dining restaurants like Chicago Board Game Cafe, All Together Now, and Mango Pickle.

At Alinea, to-go customers aren’t permitted to walk inside. A paper sign on the door asked them, politely, to stay out. The sign also read “no public restrooms.” Back outside, staffers with tablets in hand, checked in with customers. The majority of customers arrived via automobile for curbside pickup, though there were a few on foot.

An Alinea meal for two, plus an optional $40 bottle of wine.

Ashok Selvam/Eater Chicago

Beef Wellington before it gets popped in the oven for 25 minutes at 275 degrees.

After customers checked in, a staffer emerges, wearing gloves, and holding a brown paper bag filled with food. Alinea’s first to-go meal includes beef short rib Wellington, 50/50 mashed potatoes (about half butter, half potato), and creme brûlée. The beef Wellington (Alinea swapped the customary beef tenderloin with 48-hour Prime Black Angus short rib) arrives in a foil packing; diners heat it up in their own oven later. A piece of paper includes reheating instructions for the stovetop or microwave. The instructions, which remind customers that the plastic containers are reusable, also have a brief description of the items.

The meal also includes supplemental courses: a squash curry soup; compressed mango and cantaloupe; a salad with vinaigrette; wild sautéed mushrooms; Brussels sprouts with shallots, bacon, and black pepper; and dinner rolls. For dessert, the instructions suggest if customers have a torch that they could “re-brulee the sugar.” Or just eat as is.

Creme brûlée can be re-torched.

This is billed as comfort food, items that can be easily translated for carryout. Last week, Alinea unveiled a new menu, one that features coq au vein. The restaurant will periodically change menus as long as its dining room stays closed, which could be at least through April. The state’s stay-at-home order, which allows essential businesses (hospitals, grocery stores — even liquor stores) to remain open, expires on April 7. However, there’s been indications the order could extend through late April which would match the president’s recent extension of social distancing guidelines.

Customers have taken to the challenge of trying to elegantly plate their dinners at home and taking photos on social media. They’re also posting photos of celebrating birthdays and anniversaries with meals at homes. It’s been well received, a much needed ray of sunshine during these difficult times for those who can afford to be fancy.

Sign up for the newsletter Eater Chicago

Sign up for our newsletter.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"Here" - Google News
March 31, 2020 at 05:16AM
https://ift.tt/2xw8A41

Here’s What Alinea’s To-Go Offerings Look Like - Eater Chicago
"Here" - Google News
https://ift.tt/39D7kKR
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update