A little over a year ago Dusty and I took a trip to Chicago as a little retreat.  We were able to get a reservation for dinner at Grant Achatz’s Alinea. After a mind blowing experience we discovered that Grant Achatz was opening another restaurant called Next with a new concept that many would say couldn’t be done.  Every three months Next changes it’s menu and essentially opens as an entirely different restaurant.  The first menu was ‘Paris: 1906’ and included some classical French foods served at the Tour d’Argent in Paris for more than 200 years.  Some of the dishes included whole lobes of foie gras baked in brioche, clear turtle soup with Madeira, duck pressed and sauced with its own blood and marrow.  The next two themes were ‘Thailand’, and ‘Childhood’.

In February, Next transformed into ‘A Tribute to el Bulli’. El Bulli was a gastronomic destination in Spain and served its final mean in July 2011.  Reservations to Next, as you can probably guess, are really difficult to get but Dusty was very persistant or lucky and was able to get reservations at the chef’s table for this 28 course adventure.  Here are a few pictures from our food journey!