Thought for Food

Next: Childhood

It’s been a long time since I asked someone out on a date. The good news is, not a lot has changed in the three years since I bowed out of the single’s market. Doing it by email is best. Make it witty but not labored. Suggest something cool, make a joke, and you’re out (anything more and you sound desperate). Then refresh, refresh, refresh your inbox ‘til they write back.

So it was when I asked M. out way back when — and so it was when I asked Emily if she and her husband Simon would like to join us for dinner at Next while we were in Chicago. It wasn’t out of the blue — we had already talked about “getting drinks” — but dinner is a commitment, we had never met, and they’d already experienced the Childhood menu.

Well, dear reader, she accepted — bells most exuberantly on. (They don’t call her emphasisadded for nothin’.)

And we had such.a.blast!

Quick background: Next is a sister-restaurant to Alinea that openend last year to much excitement and acclaim. The entire concept and menu change every quarter. They’ve done Paris 1906, Thailand, and Childhood, which we were at the tail end of. Right now, Next is closed in preparation for the menu-to-end-all-menus: elBulli. The golden ticket. When seats got on sell next month, they’ll be the hardest reservation on earth — and we got a sneak peek! But more on that later.

The first thing you see when you take your seats for the Childhood meal is a half-smoked cigar, a pair of reading glasses, and a finished crossword puzzle. At each place are three cocktail glasses with garnishes and one last swill of cocktail. It took me a moment but when I realized what we were looking at I grinned with delight: waking up in the morning after your parents’ cocktail party, perhaps you had your first taste taste of booze as you surreptitiously swiped a sip….

And then, a gift, with the instructions not to “shake it too hard” (so of course we did). Inside, a very grown-up PB&J: raspberry pâtes de fruits and peanut butter crisp.

The first proper course: chicken noodle soup. The noodles are literally made of chicken. They melted into the broth, oozing their essential chickenness, creating a fabulous emulsion as you stirred together the broth and mousseline of chicken. Imagine the most exquisitely concentrated chicken soup flavor you’ve ever had — then triple it.

Next, a playful update of fish sticks with cod, corn crisp, and pickled cucumbers. On the bottom right, crispy bits of cod skin tasted like the StoveTop Stuffing my socialist parents never served (and which I craved all the more).

“Can you guess what this is?” the waiter asked as he removed the glass tube and a creamy pile oozed onto the plate. 

“Mac and cheese?” M. guessed (Emily and Simon having recused themselves).

Indeed it was. Mac and cheese with flavors of hot dog, compressed apple, Iberian ham, crispy cheddar, tomato caviar, and good ol’ Kraft Mac & Cheese, to sample and mix in as we wished.

Then, an imaginative course of wild mushrooms and Swiss chard with white truffle powder that evoked that great and glorious gift of childhood — the Snow Day. I could almost feel the crunch of the snow underfoot. (Alinea, Aviary, and Next do such wonderful things with the natural world.)

Short rib starred in a high-wire take on the fast food hamburger — not far in concept from the one that M. imagined for the Modernist Cuisine Top Chef challenge. 

They nailed child-of-the-80s nostalgia, from the music (soundtracks from Star Wars, Fraggle Rock, and Jurassic Park) to a course served in old-school lunch boxes. (Here I am with my Smurfs lunch box in 1984, looking a little worse for wear.)

Inside each box were a black truffle Oreo, Wagyu beef jerky (Emily brought hers home to her lucky little baby), hazelnut and chocolate pudding, a modernist fruit roll-up, and a Thermos full of grape juice. 

And a note from mom or dad, of course. 

Next, a sarsaparilla float.

And then the now-notorious foie-sting — frosting made of foie gras, somewhere between savory and sweet, that you get to lick from the beater — and cider doughnut holes, an homage to Michigan, where both Chef Achatz of Alinea and Chef Dave Beran of Next grew up.

What would Childhood be without a campfire? This one was made of sweet potato logs that were edible after the fire went out (amazing). We were served deconstructed sweet potato pie and were invited to roast our marshmallows over the fire. I like mine nice and burnt (patience was never a strong suit).

Finally, hot chocolate with a little nip on the side (some things are better when you’re an adult). 

Before we went, Chef Dave gave us a quick tour of the kitchen. We were all set to go downstairs to their main kitchen — the one they share with Aviary where all the really crazy stuff happens — but then Emily got a look at the clock. It was nearly 2 AM! They had to relieve the poor babysitter at home. Next time! we said. (There is always the promise of next time at Next.)

All in all, an absolute knockout punch to end a fabulous weekend.