Alinea 2.0

Continuing onto courses six and seven, you really don’t feel the need to cleanse any of the fantastic flavors still swirling on your palate, until this one-bite work of art is placed in front of you. A green almond gelée flavored on the corners with tiny bits of juniper, gin and lime. It jumps from salty, to sweet and lingers on light citrus for a while.

Green almond, juniper, gin and lime

Foam returns in the delicate lilac course with scallops, razor clams, honeydew gelée and hidden pillows of lilac that emit tiny floral explosions on your tongue. Thin slices of ulta-crunchy celery add more layers of texture amid airy foam, fresh herbs and tender seafood. It was paired with a bright and crisp Paolo Bea “Santa Chiara” Bianco from Umbria, 1994.

Lilac

Lobster with popcorn, mango and curry. A true study in beauty, humor, texture and color, we were told the dish was inspired by butter. Works for us. Popcorn kernels were scattered with juicy, tender chunks of lobster meat, curry, micro herbs, tiny mushrooms and corn while a sweet mango gelée rested in the middle.

Lobster

Served on the side was a slice of coconut toast, just one of the house breads brought out to try with various courses. This sweet slice didn’t really need a spreading of the goat’s milk butter, but we slathered it up anyway. The butter itself (not pictured), reminiscent of movie popcorn, was good enough to eat on its own, or as a dining companion declared, to “bathe in.”

Coconut toast

“The next dish is so well known you can google it,” our server told us. My first guess was the famous single strand of sweet bacon on a wire, but that was yet to come. It was the Hot potato that was placed before us. I had seen it before, but never had the gorgeous course of hot potato covered with a black truffle and resting over a ultra-creamy cold potato soup. The bowl is a wax mold made daily by the servers and a pin is pulled to release the hot potato and truffle into the soup ready to be sipped. Brilliant, delicious, and a great play on temperatures. Bowl-licking may have been sneaked.

Hot potato

Up next, Wagyu with “A-1” sauce, an explosion of truffles, maple sap reduction and more..