The food was as delicious as Eleven Madison Park, but much more inventive. I was a bit worried it was going to be completely bizarre from start to finish when the second course was salsify with branch camouflage - basically a big wreath of branches with two pieces of salsify twisted around it that you had to find. And the salsify was dehydrated and made to look like branch too. Most of the other courses had slightly less bulky decoration.
The mini camp fire that arrived with the take out course was actually our beef for the following course - they wrap the wagyu in seaweed and then it stays perfectly cooked but picking up a bit of the smoky flavour from the fire.
A particular highlight was the green apple balloon that you had to suck the helium out of and then eat - totally ridiculous, but very entertaining. The guy on the table next to me took a photo of me eating mine, which was rather awkward (Bruce didn't notice because he was too busy getting balloon off his face), but he was also highly entertaining because he kept falling asleep during dinner.
The other ridiculous course was the final dessert course - they cover the table with a special tablecloth and one of the chefs comes out of the kitchen and prepares your dessert on the table... which was huge! We are pretty sure that Bruce managed to dip his sleeve in some of the violet syrup.
Basically, there are only two things wrong with Alinea:
- They don't have a full bar so you can't have a cocktail.
- It's not in Bermuda.
It should absolutely be rated higher than 9 on the San Pellegrino list - I mean DINNER is at number five, and I've yet to meet anyone that seriously rates that (and meat fruit is so 2011).
