The prices fluctuate, but after pairings, tax, and gratuity, you walk out of Alinea having paid in the neighborhood of 0 a person.

It's also like a four hour meal.

I would find it so hard to resist leaning in and dragging my tongue and chin across the center of that. Then, after having food all over my face, look up to the server that made it and exclaim, "Thank you, that was excellent!"

Wasn't really supposed to be a reply. The reply I was going to make for this was, "I'll wait until I can pick up a frozen version of this at my supermarket."

does that price include use of the vomitorium? and can you bring your own child prostitutes or do you have to order theirs?

You can bring your own, you just have to pay a corkage fee HEYOOOO

The vomitorium is a great big misunderstanding. It was just the exit of the building, not a place where everyone went to make room for the next course.

Also, this makes me think of the banquet scene from Sweet Movie, which is almost certainly the last thing in the universe the restaurant wanted.

The only problem with this is not everybody can do it because it's expensive... But man... It's art! I would love to eat here one day. Not something I'd want to repeat over and over, but the experience of this kind of thing can be life altering.

baleen...

Chut up.

You've been drinking again baleen.

I'd like to run into this bitch with a huge sack of Taco Bell and go all Biotic Baking Brigade on the lot of them.

It's not on the tablecloth; they clear the table and then put down a specially made silicon cover before they do this. Some of them have little divots in them too, that's why you can see some of the pools of sauce they put down turning into more square-like shapes.

They do clean those in the dish pit tho :-D

And for the record, their dish area is cleaner than most restaurant kitchens.

Why? What about food makes you angry? Tell us where the chef touched you on this napkin swan.

Aww, look at baleen white-knighting for foodies

Baleen white-knights for cops that straight up murder homeless guys just standing around.

What if a cop shot a foodie? What then?

Haha, go lick the salt wall and, foodie.

Oh wow I didn't see baleen attacking the concept of charity below.

Jesus, eat to live, man.

Foodies are ridiculous people, I mean there's gourmands and such and then there are foodies, which is usually part of a lifestyle of fussy dilletante-ism, novelty-seeking and brief, shallow embraces of hobbies and creative endeavours and wrapping oneself up in these in an attempt at simulating having a personality or trying to look cultured.

"
Baleen white-knights for cops that straight up murder homeless guys just standing around."

I never did this.

"Jesus, eat to live, man."

I never "attacked the concept of charity."

Eat to live? I make all my own food. I live on a very low budget. I eat very little meat. I bake my own bread. Again, how does appreciating this stuff violate that?

What do you eat on a given week? You're calling me a foodie, but coming off like a bunch of neanderthal food tribalists. Please tell me where your sweet spot of is. I really don't want to offend your Epicurean sensibilities.

sweet spot of food. Why I'm so flustered by your lack of appreciation for the culinary arts that I'm dropping nouns!

being upset at foodies is really foolish. Paying a couple hundred bucks for a meal is a lot less obnoxious than someone buying a Hummer or contributing to a political party.

It's like being pissed off at people buying paintings. These people have dedicated their lives to a craft. It is a pleasure to take part in it when it's done right. Eating at a really amazing place is a gift. It's not "living to eat," though food is fascinating outside of its nutritional value. It's an intensely personal thing, and when people don't care about it, it's depressing to me. Its history, its complexity, these things are written in the circuitry of all the world's cultures. It frustrates me that people conflate classism with the appreciation of good food.

Future update: Baleen went off and ate himself to death.

foodies deserve nothing less

Ure parent comment made me lol!

Edgy!

Not really, he's 100% true. Decadence like this is sickening and indication of a culture that has become fundamentally corrupt.

Shit like this is almost always paid for by a company or one person. I would bet serious money that no group of four-five people has independently paid for their shares of one of these without being compensated afterwards. One person with a lot of money treating friends/family/associates to a ridiculously fancy meal is not exactly the crime of the century or a symptom of a corrupt country.

Yeah, extra money can always be directed to better causes. Did you decide not to buy that game, drink, snack, decoration, hobby-related item, or accessory and instead donate the money to a worthy charity? Do you live a spartan lifestyle and relinquish all unnecessary money to the needy? No, because you do what you want with your extra money and charity is usually not the first thing that springs to mind. That's human nature, not corruption. I donate money here and there to organizations I like (Girl Scouts, local and worldwide personal rights organizations, JREF) and I would donate proportionally more if I made more money - but I buy unnecessary stuff now (I'm 25, have never made more than an hour, and I carry a 0 pocket knife that sees little use) and would certainly still buy unnecessary stuff if I had more money.

I'm not even sure what I'm arguing towards or even if what I said is wholly relevant, but I had fun typing it so I'm just gonna post this.

Comeuppance - some people do. A friend of mine had a food service teacher who used to go to places like this once a month. He and a group of like-minded foodies would save up a few hundred dollars each; they'd usually rotate the gratuity, to ease some of the burden, but it was still a major individual expense, and none of these people were particularly rich (most of the group made less than k a year).

And oddeye, this place is a tiny three Michelin Star restaurant that only a fraction of Chicago's populace will ever have the opportunity, let alone desire, to eat at. I don't know if it's fair to draw conclusions about our culture based on something as marginal as this.

I'm edgy, but not too edgy.

If you're an artist, the chances are you have to pay rent by selling something to a rich person at some point.

Stop being children. There is room for stuff like this in the world. My main issue with places like this is that I'll probably never get to eat at them, which makes me feel envy and sadness. But as a person that loves cooking all forms of food, I have a great deal of respect for the people in the kitchen.

On a few occasions in my life, I have eaten at Michelin starred restaurants. They amazing. I respect the staff. I respect the guys cleaning the dishes. I respect the chefs, and I respect their food. Grow the fuck up.

So you don't think there is anything wrong in a world where children starve to death while others are able to spend (or have spent for them) 0+ on a meal?

I didn't say "This meal is the end of all civilization" I said it is a symptom of a disease. I also didn't specify any country or population, I said culture, as in the culture surrounding decadent spending on luxury goods (sports watches, yachts, fancy cars etc. Are you guys honestly telling me you support that too?). "What's decadent?", "Decadent for others is normal for me!", "Why shouldn't I spend MY money how I want to?" etc. are all arguments for another time and another post and are largely subjective and hard to define.

P.S. Comeuppance, I attempt to live my life in seclusion with the minimum possible luxury. This is a public computer and so on.

Respect them while you can. When the Revolution comes, all of these chefs are getting lined up against the wall.

Pretty big jump from sports watches to yachts.

Oh, it's not the worst thing in the world.
It has crawled up its own ass, and it's a waste of time, money, know-how and effort, but it's not the worst thing in the world.
Luxury products aren't the biggest evil, they're just for morons.

Children are not starving because there are 0+ a head restaurants. Children are starving because the average American eats over half a pound of meat every day, and because grain surpluses are rotting in their silos because the farm complex can only get a few cents less per pound than their target.

The idea that we can't feed everyone AND have fancy restaurants is absurd. The idea that luxury products are a symptom of some social corruption is retarded.

- so retarted it's true.

There's a huge difference in buying a non-essential item like a tablet (though it might be essential for work) instead of donating every last penny to charity, and spending over ten times the market amount on the same thing out of sheer vanity.

That officially makes you an asshole. Buying a car does not make you an asshole. Buying a 0,000 performance car does.

As for companies paying for this, it's even worse because there's no justification for layoffs when shit like this is put on the company card. I think everyone has a story about being turned down for a raise because "there just isn't any money" while seeing their company charge useless expenses.

I did not say stupidly expensive meals cause famine I said that it is a symptom of an unjust and corrupt culture.

Culture is the key word. The culture of excess and waste, of which vanity luxury goods are a symptom, that is prevalent throughout human history is a corruption of the way things could be for the betterment of all mankind.

Also I used sports watches as an example because no one needs a clock that costs more than a car. Maybe sports watches didn't translate well but I was meaning expensive rolex etc.

"So you don't think there is anything wrong in a world where children starve to death while others are able to spend (or have spent for them) 0+ on a meal? "

I don't know oddeye. Have you ever taken a vacation?
Do you think there's something wrong with taking a vacation when there are children starving in the world?
If you want to spend 0 to FLY IN A GIANT AIRPLANE somewhere just so you can attend comic book convention or whatever, by all means, that's how you choose to celebrate your life.

You are basing this hatred on a fucking video. You know nothing about any of the people who made this food, who work there, or who are eating there. Maybe this is their passion?

I am one of the most outspoken people on this stupid website about decadence. I would feel disgusted to be around people who thought that this sort of meal was normal. Those people certainly exist. We do live in a gilded age. I am aware of that. There is space for appreciating good art while not calling for a bonfire of the vanities just because something makes you feel uncomfortable.

We're working on it!

They are most likely courses-on-a-cracker if you like. Tiny burgers, a thimble of mashed potato, etc.

They're very small courses and spaced out over several hours. They don't throw out more food than the average chain restaurant. And unlike those places, they work with hunger relief charities. Grant Achatz, the chef there, has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and donated hundreds of hours of his time for charities. They're definitely not a farm-to-table place, but they do have a number of strong relationships with local, sustainable food providers. I could keep going.

There are evil restaurants. This is not one of them.

I eat beans and rice and use the library computer because I'm on a personal quest to save the world. Everything else is a bunch of bourgeois bullshit.

About any chain restaurant in the states is a lot more evil than this place.

I can't believe the two hills you're going to die on are defending murderous cops and phony modernist cuisine.

Oh fuck off.

good points other capn
based on the portion size for this course (generous) I assumed that there must be a higher than average level of waste per meal than most restaurants
the reason a culture of charity associated with high end cuisine exists shouldn't diminish the good works produced as a result, so kudos to that chef