Elite Traveler May-June 2016

INSPIRE TOP 100 RESTAURANTS

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ALINEA Chicago, US Head chef: Grant Achatz 2015/1

F or the fifth year running, Chicago’s Alinea has been voted the best restaurant in the world by the readers of Elite Traveler . Chef and co-founder Grant Achatz is naturally delighted with the news. “All these accolades validate the hard work the team puts in and the commitment and the passion and everything we do on a daily basis,” he says. “ Elite Traveler is special because the votes are anonymous and so we never know who is in. I feel it gives a true representation of the quality of the restaurant, which makes me very proud. It is who we are.” Achatz is speaking shortly after launching his fourth restaurant, Roister, and as he gears up to reopen Alinea, which has been closed since the start of 2016 for a total refurbishment. As well as a complete change in layout and aesthetics, the menu will be radically different and even regular diners will find a few surprises when they return. For his part, Achatz speaks of a "bittersweet change" as he looks to this new era. “We have made a commitment not to replicate any of the dishes we have done in the past. Hopefully people won’t be too disappointed, but we are taking that risk and saying there will be no more black truffle

“ Elite Traveler is special because the votes are anonymous and so we never know who is in. I feel that gives a true representation of the quality of the restaurant, which makes me very proud. It is who we are” Grant Achatz Alinea

explosion, no more table top dessert and no more hot potato, cold potato,” he says. “We've always said Alinea is about constant reinvention and while we have held true to that in the last 10 years, there were some mainstays; the dishes people wouldn’t let us take off the menu, but now we feel confident in making the change.” Though all regions of the world are represented in the Elite Traveler Top 100, almost one fifth of the restaurants on this year’s list are based in the US. Is there a momentum lifting American cuisine? Achatz thinks so. "In a sense we are filling in the gaps. Before it was about New York and San Francisco and a smattering of cities elsewhere. But now the breadth of American cuisine is coming into its own,” he says. “When somebody asked what American cuisine was, everybody floundered, they never really knew how to define it. We all know what French or Italian cuisine is, but with the US it was always vague. Now I feel we are embracing our culture and our regionality in a way that emphasises what US food is – from lobster in Maine to gumbo in New Orleans.” A renewed focus on ingredients and sourcing is also becoming more evident across all US restaurants. Achatz believes this is an influence

Photos: Alamy, John Carey, Joan Pujol-Creus, Araceli Paz, Christian Steel, Francesco Tonelli