FINDING INSPIRATION The slide show above illustrates how we are thinking about manipulating the environment at Alinea to change the perception of the meal. The first image shows the server wearing the black coat that is currently used at the restaurant. With each image please take note how the color of the jacket, the artwork and the tones in the adjacent room combine differently with the food on the tray. I feel these color shifts have a direct effect on the mood and therefore the perception of the food. While it is unlikely for us to have servers changing clothes to coordinate with specific courses, this mock-up helps us understand how we might use this as a creative tool. Photo by Lara Kastner.
A large robed man squeezed his way into the corner of a tiny, low-ceilinged room where 10 of us sat on tatami mats, squeezed around two small tables pushed together to form one. His robust stature combined with the fact that we were sitting on mats made for a strange scene. I was hyper-alert, as you would be walking down a shady street in an unfamiliar neighborhood at night, put on edge by the foreign surroundings. I kept trying to predict what was about to happen, even though this was the environment I was most comfortable in. A restaurant. Strangely, I had to keep reminding myself that in fact I was in a restaurant and we were in fact about to have dinner, because there were very few indications, at least not from the cues that I was used to. The conversation stopped and everyone focused on the silent man.
He began to sing. No, no that's not right. He began to belt out a song with arms flailing, brow furrowed, lips quivering, and eyes focusing on invisible things in the tiny room. Of course, it was in Japanese, and I had no idea what he was saying, but somehow it didn't matter. The fervent emotions were powerful, and they simultaneously transported me farther into a world I didn't understand and set me at ease, by reassuring me that this was real but wildly different.
We had been in the miniature room for 10 minutes but it felt like an hour, and already the experience was unlike anything I had ever had while dining. I eagerly awaited the next oddity, and wondered how I would process this in the end.
The lights in the room dimmed to a faint glow to coincide with a course and it hit me over the head in the darkness: this is an avenue I need to explore at Alinea.It is honestly quite rare for me to be a diner. While most people, perhaps like you, are meeting friends, dates, and colleagues for dinner and drinks at your favorite restaurant, I, of course, am most often working. One of the great ironies of being a chef is you rarely have time to eat, let alone dine. So whenever I am away from Alinea traveling, I have no choice but to become (mostly) normal and eat out. The very act can be inspiring, but eating out in a place where unfamiliarity is normal is especially exciting.
And the oddities came, one right after another. Giant sacks of blowfish semen lying on a bed of soupy bland rice porridge, arrived with the chef in tow. Through a translator he explained that he had placed only three grains of salt in each dish so we could fully understand the nuances of the delicacy. Delicious? No, not even close. Unusual? Certainly.
A whole poached, hollowed-out yuzu came floating in an aromatic broth. It had a mysterious clear film covering the opening where the top had been sliced off. Inside were three seeds from the fruit. No, wait, they were roasted soybeans acting as seeds. We were instructed to eat the entire fruit, including the mock seeds, which would bring us good luck. It was creamy and not in the least bitter. A cleansing, overwhelmingly healthy feeling consumed me as I took it in.
A basketball-sized snowball was placed on the table. Our hostess for the evening, the chef's wife, pulled up the sleeves of her kimono and chiseled the top off the sphere with chopsticks. She instructed us to reach into the hollow dome and remove one of the several clams contained inside. She warned us that they were hot. Of course cooks are accustomed picking up hot things in the kitchen, and how hot could it be if it was sealed in a giant ball of ice?! I reached in and had to juggle the palm-sized clam to rest on my plate, and...it was...in fact...hot. While this was happening I felt a fiery cold on my cheek, I turned and there was the hostess, smiling and pressing the lid she had chipped off the ice sphere onto my face. "For contrast," she said.
Got it.
At one point, when the lights in the room dimmed to a faint glow to coincide with a course, it became clear to me. Actually, it hit me over the head in the darkness: this is an avenue I need to explore at Alinea. Not poor lighting but the manipulation of the environment. The food was not great, in fact some of it was not even good, but somehow this was working. This chef had succeeded in crafting an experience that was transcending. Imagine if I could choreograph elements of the meal in this manner, and simultaneously serve delicious food. We would be onto something.
At this restaurant they had a clear vision of the experience they wanted to convey. However, the tools that they used to build it were far different than those that most chefs consider, and for that reason they were inspiring to me. Of course, I feel the dinner could have been better if the food had been more to my liking. But in terms of being inspired, maybe it was better that there was a clear separation. Would the effect of manipulating the dining environment been as clear if I had been focused on amazing food? Perhaps not. In this case, the sacrifice was well worth it.
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Chef, that sounds absolutely fascinating. In reading, to me, it sounds like a combination of dining and theater (and not in the cheesy dinner theater type of way!). I'm not sure I agree with you on the assessment of the meal being a little underwhelming being a benefit to the overall experience. I would think not having a clear separation would bring more to the meal/show as a whole.
As for the photo up top, I'm a visual person and the changing colors of the server's coat definitely affected my view of the image as a whole. White immediately brought to mind clinical lab. The other colors didn't jump out at me, but I'm sure there are some that would.
Thank you.
David
Very interesting. Nice writeup of the experience, chef.
I think you have to ride the fine line between being theatrical and presenting delicious food, because one can get in the way of the other. Eating at a restaurant is an overall experience, with varying degrees of one element (food vs. ambiance vs. service) depending on the level and concept of the place.
You may have heard of it, but there's a restaurant in LA that's essentially pitch black, where the servers are blind (and thus able to navigate), and the diners eat in total darkness. It's a weird experiment (not sure if it works, but they're still in business I believe).
I cannot speak for the quality of the food that you had, but I do believe that Western minimalism in architecture and design is greatly inspired by the tranquil simplicity of Eastern design. I would think that manipulating the environment in a restaurant like Alinea, which unfortunately I have not yet had the pleasure of dining at, could have profound effects due to it's minimalist style. This would be a great opportunity to bring architect, designer and chef together to create a truly "living space." The colored shirt above is an excellent visual and so too are your edible creations of the power of a minimal space design. The space is there but it's almost as if it is a blank canvas against which the food, and staff, "pop." But because you and/or your architect has designed the environment, the staff (their appearance) and the subject matter, it is all manipulated so that the diner is comfortably perched in the midst of it, being stimulated on all fronts. Too often, minimal environs are seen as sterile, but I believe it is the people and activities which take place within them and how the elements of design complement those people and activities--think lighting, materials, texture...
Chef, I definitely can appreciate where you are coming from, and only regret that the food didn't live up to your expectations. However, the old "smoke and mirrors" theory is clearly alive and well in this experience. Looking at the photo above, my mood changes decidedly as the color of the server's coat changes as well. As opposed to the respondent above, I prefer the white coat for my server, and perhaps the dark or black coat as the wine steward. And perhaps, the server could change only once during service, from the white chef's coat to a burgandy or dark blue coat for dessert and apertif service. Wonderful experience. Thanks for sharing.
Mark Boxshus
I'm curious if there's any research on how these stimuli affect not just the experience, but taste. There was some research on this I read about a year and a half ago on this about how different genres of music can differently affect peoples impressions of the same wine. I'd link to something, but that seems to get my posts funneled into the SPAM department, but there is a Nov 2, 2007 SF Chronicle article covering this called "Music to Drink Wine by..." I'm not clear what the level of rigor is behind this research but certainly the implications are interesting when it comes to the theatrics of food.
Chef, i certainly cannot fathom where you look for inspiration or how you define and create your dishes, but one idea to brainstorm with is why when someone goes on a picnic, no matter what is served, why is it always so delicious?
is it the air and being outside, is it the environment or the smell or in some cases the complete isolation....i know that eating in an environment where i am isolated as in a tatami room, or in a minimalistic environment, or even a one-colored hue of a room - the food always becomes the focal point and inevitably it always tastes good and the sensory taste buds become enhanced - but eating in a darkened room with no light as I have experienced in one Montreal restaurant, is a horrible and tastless meal: even if it is not, but to this day I have no idea as it was never repeated.
Does the article not name the restaurant here? I keep looking for it, but can't find it.
ChefG - I don't want to discourage you from being mindful of every detail, but the color of the server's jacket strikes me as really, really subtle and "momentary" or transient - but maybe that's good.
Expanding your thinking about the diner's environment is great. Lighting is the easiest thing to alter in a space - brightness, "form" (what is lit, what is not, and where), color and point source (sharp shadows) vs. a diffuse light soruce. Slamming the lighting from color to color is clumsy, but there are lights available with multi-color LEDs that can be adjusted very subtly to produce different hues. In a mix with other lights, they could be used to change the hue of the lighting in the dining space slightly below the diner's threshold of perception as the meal progressed. Changing the hue of the lighting in the dining room would persist through the course, or even change as the food arrives, or if the 'plate' changes during the course. Between courses, shifts in hue could contribute to anticipation. We use terms like "warm" and "cool" to describe these colors, which relate to the feelings they evoke.
Another, more challenging, element to think about in the diner's environment is its thermal characteristics. As architects, we work very hard to create highly consistent indoor environments - a fixed temperature, within a very narrow range of humidity. As a challenge to this, Lisa Heschong wrote a little book called "Thermal Delight in Architecture." It's focused on passive solar energy, but it includes wonderful reminders of the power of thermal "inconsistencies" in our environment. Think about the subtle emotional power of the feeling of warmth radiating from a fireplace, a camp fire or in your own experiences, a stove in a kitchen. Similarly, a cool breeze can be as emotionally evocative as a scent. This can be done by altering the temperature of the air being blown into the dining room, but in the case of heat, it could also radiate from an element of the space, or even an object brought to the table. Think about that "warm face" feeling when you are roasting marshmallows over a camp fire.
Even more technically challenging would be keeping the room temperature constant, but varying the humidity. Spicy Thai food and muggy air. Crisp Scandinavian food and dry, winter air.
I'm curious how you're thinking is progressing on that "table as plate" idea...
Tom D - Chicago
Tom:
Thanks for the thoughts.
I plan to talk about the table as a plate idea in an upcoming post.
Stay tuned.
Grant.