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# All about "sous vide" eggs

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Okay, I've just made my first attempt at replicating my stovetop HB egg method in my immersion non-circulator (a Presto Kitchen Kettle and a thermapen). The only purposeful variation I made was to use a larger water to egg ratio, so that we could be sure we're talking about a larger bath. I had about four inches of water for two eggs.

I settled on 200 F for 10 minutes and then into an ice bath. Almost constantly, I measured the temp with the Thermapen at various locations. Although I occasionally saw measurements of 199 or 204, I'd say 90% of the readings were 200-201.

I purposely took one egg out at the 9 minute mark because I knew the difference I should see.

Conclusion: The temp was just slightly too low, but the results were good. Not for HB eggs, but something between HB and SB. In the 10 minute egg, the yolk was just solidified all the way through, but was still gelatinous. The 9 minute egg yolk had a gelatinous exterior but a 'molten' core.

The whites in both cases were very good and tender. In fact, just trying to pick up one end of half of the 10 minute white caused it to break in half. I think I'd want to replicate one of these results if I just wanted to eat a boiled egg.

But a hard boiled egg probably needs around 205F.

Oh, and the eggs were right out of the fridge.

Edited by IndyRob (log)

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The below is from an email I sent on 24 August, 2009.

A number of months ago, Alex (of Ideas in Food) and Martin (of Khymos) asked me to computing the cooking time of eggs in a 70C--80C water bath so the center will be 64.5C. In the past, the perfect egg'' referred to cooking the egg in a 64.5C (148F) water bath for 45--60 minutes. The only problem with this egg is that only one of the three main proteins in the egg white has denatured --- at 61.5C conalbumin (12% of the protein) denatures, at 70.0C ovomucoid (11% of the protein) denatures, and at 84.5C ovalbumin (54% of the protein) denatures --- which means it forms to loose of a gel. The goal is to denature two of the (main) egg white proteins so it is a slightly firmer gel, but still heat the yolk to only 64.5C/148F. But to get both, we no longer have a "set it and forget it" egg, but an egg which requires a tape measure and an egg timer ;-).

While I already had the numerical algorithms to compute the times, I didn't know what to use for the thermal diffusivity, the shape parameter or the surface heat transfer coefficient. Finally, two days ago, I super-glued pencil erasers to 14 eggs (a mix of medium, large, and extra-large chicken eggs), inserted a needle probe, and data logged the temperature for around 45 minutes. The raw data is attached to this email as "allData.dat". After fitting the thermal diffusivity to be 1.85*10^(-7) m^2/s, \beta = 1.8, and the surface heat transfer coefficient to 200 W/m^2-K I got the error in the attached plot ("EggModelError.pdf").

The error is a little more than I expected. I believe the source of this error is (a) the difficulty in placing the tip of the probe at the center of the egg and (b) the non-uniformity in shape of the eggs, which ranged from almost spherical to surprisingly cylindrical in shape.

Nonetheless, the calculated times are attached as "Egg Cooking Times.xls".

Edit: Note: I had to change the xls file to pdf since it won't let me upload an xls. Also, if you'd like me to compute tables for a lower than 64.5°C center temperature, just let me know and I'll post it.

EggModelError.pdf

Egg Cooking Times.pdf

Edited by DouglasBaldwin (log)

My Guide: A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking, which Harold McGee described as "a wonderful contribution."

My Book: Sous Vide for the Home Cook US EU/UK

My YouTube channel — a new work in progress.

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LIttle experiment 195F for 20 minutes. I think I'll cut the time to 18 minutes to shoot for a softer yolk but the white was nice and soft. The top is my favorite type of Jidori egg and the bottom is what I mentioned above. Storing eggs with truffles and imparting flavor. Worried about the freshness of the egg I only stored it over night. It had a strong truffle smell and flavor, people will really enjoy me working these into dinners.

Sleep, bike, cook, feed, repeat...

Chef Facebook HQ Menlo Park, CA

My eGullet Foodblog

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Looks like an oeuf mollet to me: a classic egg preparation that is rarely seen anymore.

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I tried the aerated scrambled eggs from the Ideas in Food book today (eggs, milk, salt, butter whisked, bagged and cooked in 72.5C bath for 25min, loaded in siphon with 1 charge). Result wasn't what we expected--more of a slightly foamy liquid sauce than solid foam scrambled eggs. My only variation was to scale down from 6 eggs to 2 eggs.

Has anyone else tried this? Are these the expected results?

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Wow: 91C. (At 47, I must be finally learning metric, as I had to convert this to celcius to understand it.) That's way above the usual hard-boiled temps recommended.

Are those whites solid enough to hold some tasty deviled yolk?

Chris Amirault

Sir Luscious got gator belts and patty melts

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I tried the aerated scrambled eggs from the Ideas in Food book today (eggs, milk, salt, butter whisked, bagged and cooked in 72.5C bath for 25min, loaded in siphon with 1 charge). Result wasn't what we expected--more of a slightly foamy liquid sauce than solid foam scrambled eggs. My only variation was to scale down from 6 eggs to 2 eggs.

Has anyone else tried this? Are these the expected results?

Percyn did scrambled eggs at 72C, though his post isn't clear on time. I'll ping him to see if he can weigh in. They look delicious.

Chris Amirault

Sir Luscious got gator belts and patty melts

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I tried the aerated scrambled eggs from the Ideas in Food book today (eggs, milk, salt, butter whisked, bagged and cooked in 72.5C bath for 25min, loaded in siphon with 1 charge). Result wasn't what we expected--more of a slightly foamy liquid sauce than solid foam scrambled eggs. My only variation was to scale down from 6 eggs to 2 eggs.

Has anyone else tried this? Are these the expected results?

Percyn did scrambled eggs at 72C, though his post isn't clear on time. I'll ping him to see if he can weigh in. They look delicious.

My eggs looked similar to Percyn's photo, perhaps a little looser, before going into the siphon. Coming out of the siphon was the problem -- more of a sauce than a stiff foam as I expected...should have taken photos...

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Haven't tried the Ideas in Food method yet.

While my "eggsperiment" was not very scientific, I recall the egg mixture being in the 72C-73C range for over 20 minutes. There was a bit of trial and error as the "correct" consistency is a bit subjective. I like mine on the looser side but cooked through. They also firmed up a tad once removed from the water bath.

Hope this helps - happy to do more experimentation if needed.

TravelBlog - Bombay, Chicago, Stockholm & Paris.

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Yes, let's do more. I think that those scrambled eggs look heavenly, percyn.

Chris Amirault

Sir Luscious got gator belts and patty melts

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My water circulator arrived but not my vacuum sealer so I decided to try some eggs last night. I put a dozen in at 154F for 2+ hours. The yolk was great but the white was not what I wanted. The eggs rolled around a lot in the tank does that matter? Thanks

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Edsel, I tried your soft boil eggs tonight from that link you provided on p.1

They came out great basically what you had in that photo. 7.5 minutes at 194F and then 5 minutes at 130F.

Thanks!

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OK, so I did some more egging around...

Decided to use 4 Large Eggs, 1/8 cup Cream (half&half), a tsp Truffle butter and a few shavings of Truffle Cheese

Mixed the eggs, cream and truffle butter by hand.

Instead of taking out the vacuum sealing machine and bags, I put it in a ziploc type bag which you can pump the air out off.

At first, I started it at 73C. After 20 minutes, it had the consistency of Crème anglaise or an ice cream base. The ingredients I used were straight from the fridge so were a bit cool. Around the same time, I came across some articles which said they had good results at 75C - http://www.fiftyfourdegrees.com/lang/en-us/archives/607

So, getting a bit impatient, I raised the temp to 75 on the immersion circulator and presto - within 7 additional minutes, I had lucious, custard like scrambled eggs.

Topped with Miti Sottocenere cheese w/truffles from Italy.

Topped w/Columbus Secchi Salame

And couldn't resist topping it with some smoked Duck Breast from D'Artgnan.

So to summarize, whip up a few eggs, cream and (tuffle) butter, place in an air tight bag and 75C water bath for 25-30 minutes (depending on how many eggs you have) and you should be able to enjoy these wonderful eats.

TravelBlog - Bombay, Chicago, Stockholm & Paris.

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That is excellent, percyn. What do you think would happen if you kept them in longer?

Chris Amirault

Sir Luscious got gator belts and patty melts

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If it was in longer, at 75C it might have firmed up a bit more. If the temp were higher, it may take on the consistency of an omelet, which is too thick for me.

I also came across an article saying a small amount of acid in the eggs will yield fluffy eggs due to a reaction of the acid and the protein in the eggs.

TravelBlog - Bombay, Chicago, Stockholm & Paris.

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Coz, glad to hear that the SB egg technique was successful. My main problem has been peeling the eggs once they're done. The whites are very tender and have a tendency to shred when the shell is removed.

Percyn, interesting thought about using acid to make the eggs fluffy. I'm assuming one would use a very tiny amount so as not to screw up the flavor. Your results look very good as-is, though. Thanks for posting your results.

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Question -- if I make sous vide egg in the shell (my normal MO has been about an hour at 146.5 deg F), will the eggs be safe for awhile if I lower the temperature? I want to keep the eggs warm for dinner (roasted asparagus/miso butter and a sous vide egg) but also warm up my proteins (SV Chicken and 72 hour short ribs). If I drop my bath to say, 120 deg F, would it be safe to keep my eggs in the bath until serving, along with the warmed proteins (to be seared/deep fried right before serving)?

I'm thinking of keeping the eggs at temp for the cooking time, quick dunk in an ice bath, while the water cools, then back in the bath until dinner.

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Stomsf, as you may know, please all over the world keep hard boiled eggs at room temp for a day or two. Not a safety expert here, but I would think that if you make a "hot spring egg" at 146.5 (63.6C), cool them rapidly, store in fridge until ready to reheat, that they should be fine.

TravelBlog - Bombay, Chicago, Stockholm & Paris.

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Lots of home cooks (and restaurant chefs I know) do what percyn is suggesting all the time.

Chris Amirault

Sir Luscious got gator belts and patty melts

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Messing around with quail eggs I found that 146 for 20 minutes is my favorite. I was able to pop them out of the shell only losing one out of 5.

Sleep, bike, cook, feed, repeat...

Chef Facebook HQ Menlo Park, CA

My eGullet Foodblog

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Thanks, ScottyBoy. I've been wondering about quail eggs for a while...

Matthew Kayahara

Kayahara.ca

@mtkayahara

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Great to see this topic here. Our book has cooking times, temps and reasons for many of these eggs and the desired results. To add, we found quail eggs at 75 °C for five minutes produced wonderful onsen eggs and well, the book does tell a ton more than I can type.

if there are questions, please feel free

h. alexander talbot

chef and author

Levittown, PA

ideasinfood

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I don't see much white in that photo. Did any of that fall out or is it just very translucent and look like the yolk?

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Great to see this topic here. Our book has cooking times, temps and reasons for many of these eggs and the desired results. To add, we found quail eggs at 75 °C for five minutes produced wonderful onsen eggs and well, the book does tell a ton more than I can type.

if there are questions, please feel free

Alex and Aki, congratulations on your book, it is as informative and inspiring as your blog.

TravelBlog - Bombay, Chicago, Stockholm & Paris.

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Thank you, Douglas, for your Egg cooking time table in post #28.

I did "perfect eggs" for the first time. The eggs had 14.0-14.5cm circumference, so at 75°C your table recommends 16 minutes.

With 16 minutes, to our taste the egg yolk was a bit overdone with just a small creamy center. So I tried 14.5 minutes, the yolk had remained creamy, rather a bit liquid, and the white was also a bit liquid, the eggs easily slided out of the decapitated shells. The third run with 15 minutes resulted in "the perfect egg" to our taste with a sufficiently firm yet soft white and a perfectly creamy yolk. So at 75°C it is really time-critical, and next time I'll start with 1 minute less than recommended in the table.

For fast and easy removal of the eggs from the water bath without scalding my hands, I had placed them in an ordinary plastic bag with a few dozen holes punched in it to allow free circulation of water, and suspended on a skewer.

Peter F. Gruber aka Pedro

eG Ethics Signatory

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• By chefg
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This was good motivation.
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• It’s the first day of cooking in Alinea's Food Lab and the mood is relaxed. We’re in a residential kitchen but there’s nothing ordinary about it. Chef Grant, along with sous chefs John Peters and Curtis Duffy are setting up. The sight of the 3 steady pros, each in their chef’s whites, working away, does not match this domestic space. Nor does the intimidating display of industrial tools lined up on the counters. While the traditional elements are here in this suburban kitchen: oven, cooktop, sink, so too are the tools of modern restaurant cookery: pacojet, cryovac machine, paint stripping heat gun…wait, a paint stripping heat gun?
In the physical realm, the Food Lab is a tangible space where the conventional and the unconventional are melded together in the quest for new culinary territory. With Alinea’s construction under way, the team must be resourceful. This meant that renting a space large enough to house both the office and the kitchen aspects of the food lab was out of the question.
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On a more abstract level, the Food Lab is simply the series of processes that continually loop in the minds of Chef Grant and his team. While there is no single conduit by which prospective menus--and the dishes which comprise them--arrive at Alinea, virtually all of them start in Chef Grant's imagination and eventually take form after brainstorming sessions between the Chef and his team. Menus are charted, based on the seasonality of their respective components, and the details of each dish are then laid out on paper, computer or both and brought to the kitchen for development. In this regard, the Food Lab provides something very special to the Chef and his team. “We consider the food lab a luxury,” says Grant. Once Alinea is open and the restaurant’s daily operations are consuming up to 16 hours of each day, time for such creative planning (aka play) will be scarce. Building a library of concepts, ideas and plans for future menus now will be extraordinarily valuable in the future. Otherwise, such planning sessions will have to take place in the 17th and 18th hours of future workdays, as they did when the Chef and his team were at Trio.
Today, several projects are planned and the Chefs dig into their preparations as soon as their equipment setup is complete…
Poached Broccoli Stem with wild Coho roe, crispy bread, grapefruit
Stem cooked sous vide (butter, salt, granulated cane juice)
Dairyless grapefruit “pudding”
Dried Crème Brulee
Caramel orb shell made with bubble maker and heat gun
Powdered interior made with dried butterfat, egg yolks, powdered sugar & vanilla
PB&J
Peeled grapes on the stem
Peanut butter coating
Wrap in brioche
Broil
Micro-grated, roasted peanuts
Instant Tropical Pudding
Freeze Dried Powders of coconut, pineapple, banana
Young coconut water spiked with rum
Cilantro
Candied Chili
Jamaican Peppercorn
Vanilla Bean
The steps required to comprise each dish are, as one might imagine, intricate and numerous. For the Poached Broccoli Stem, Chef Grant begins by separating the broccoli stems from the florets. The stems are stripped of their fibrous exteriors and pared down until they are uniform in size. Grant comments on the use of the second hand part of the vegetable: “This dish started with the roe. Every year we receive the most amazing Brook Trout Roe from Steve Stallard, my friend and owner of Blis. Typically, we serve the eggs with an element of sweetness. I find it goes very well with the ultra fresh salinity of the week-old roe. This time around we wanted to take a savory approach so I began looking into complimenting flavors in the vegetal category. About the same time, our group had a discussion about secondary parts of vegetables and the stem of broccoli came up. I had a past experience with the stem and found it to be very reminiscent of cabbage. Knowing that cabbage and caviar are essentially a classic pairing, I felt confident that we could work the dish out. Now I'm struggling to decide if this is a broccoli dish or in fact a roe dish, I think they really battle for the top position and that helps makes the dish very complex."

Chef Grant processing the broccoli

The stems are placed in a polyethylene bag, along with butter, salt and granulated cane juice. The bag is sealed with a cryovac machine

The sealed stems are placed in a 170 degree F water to cook, sous vide, until extremely tender; about three hours

Broccoli stems after cooking
The crisp bread element is fabricated via the use of an industrial deli slicer. Chef Grant then brushes the sectioned pieces of poached broccoli stem with eggwash, affixes them to the thin planks of brioche and places them in a fry pan with butter.

Grant's mise...not your ordinary cutting board

Poached Broccoli Stem and Crisp Bread cooking

A bright green broccoli puree is made with a vita-prep blender. Here, Chef Grant "mohawks" it onto china given to him by Thomas Keller

Smoked Coho roe has arrived via Fed-Ex, courtesy of Steve Stallard

Chef Grant devises a plating scheme for the Poached Broccoli Stem while Curtis looks on

Chef Grant ponders one potential plating of the dish. He called this incarnation 'predictable' and started over.

Another plating idea. This version is garnished with broccoli petals and ultra-thin slices of connected grapefruit pulp cells. The yellow petals are stand-ins for what will ultimately be broccoli blossoms
Grant is still displeased at the dish's appearance. "The dish tastes as I envisioned it....texturally complex, with the crispness of the bread, the soft elements of the floret puree and stem, and the pop of the eggs. The buttery richness from the bread gives the stem the flavor of the melted cabbage I loved at the [French] Laundry. And the hot and cold contrasts from the roe and broccoli …I like it…..I just don’t like the way it looks.” Another attempt and the group agrees, it is better but not “the one.” The use of the thinly sliced cross sections of peeled grapefruit energizes the group. In the next rendition, they make small packets with the ultra thinly-sliced grapefruit containing the roe...

A third plating configuration for Poached Broccoli Stems; this one featuring the packets of roe wrapped in ultra thin sheets of grapefruit pulp cells
At this point the team decides to move on and come back to it next week. After some conversation they decide that in the final dish, broccoli will appear in at least 5 forms: poached stems, floret puree, some raw form of the stem, the tiny individual sprouts of broccoli florets, and the blooms. Grant feels that Poached Broccoli Stem could be ready for service, although he still envisions some changes for the dish that will make it even more emblematic of his personal style. “Our dishes continue to evolve after they hit the menu. It is important for us to get to know them better before we can clearly see their weaknesses.”
The thought for the dried crème brulee originated over a year ago when a regular customer jokingly asked for a crème brulee for dessert. “He said it as joke, I took it as a challenge,” says Grant. "Of course, we never intended to give him a regular crème brulee.” The team tried various techniques to create the powder-filled caramel bubble while at Trio to no avail. An acceptable filling for the Dried Crème Brulee has been developed by the Chef and his team but several different methods, attempted today, to create the orb from caramelized sugar have been less than 100% successful.

Caramel blob awaiting formation. Chef Curtis kept this pliable by leaving it in a low oven throughout the day

Chef Grant’s initial idea to use a metal bubble ring and heat gun (normally used for stripping paint) to form the bubbles does not work as hoped. Attempts to fashion them by hand also come up short.
Says Grant, “At Trio we tried a hair-dryer. When Martin told me about these heat guns which get up to 900 degrees F, I thought we had it for sure. If it was easy everyone would do it I guess.” Eventually, Alinea partner Nick Kokonas garners the task’s best result by positioning a small, warm blob of sugar onto the end of a drinking straw and blowing into the other end. The results are promising. Curtis suggests using a sugar pump to inflate the orbs. That adjustment will be attempted on another day.
“We intentionally position whimsical bite in the amuse slot, it tends to break the ice and make people laugh. It is a deliberate attempt to craft the experience by positioning the courses in a very pre-meditated order. A great deal of thought goes into the order of the courses, a misalignment may really take away from the meal as a whole.” For PB&J, the grapes are peeled while still on the vine and then dipped into unsweetened peanut butter. They are allowed to set–up, and then they are wrapped with a thin sheet of bread and lightly toasted. When the peeled grapes warm, they become so soft they mimic jelly. The composition is strangely unfamiliar in appearance but instantly reminiscent on the palate. PB&J is, according to Grant, virtually ready for service. There are a couple of aesthetic elements, which need minor tweaks but the Chef feels very good about today’s prototype.

Chef John peels grapes while still on their stems

Peeled grapes on their stems with peanut butter coating

Chef Grant studies the completed PB&J in the Crucial Detail designed piece

PB&J
Often, creative impulses come by way of Alinea’s special purveyors. “Terra Spice’s support over the past couple of years has been unprecedented, and it has accelerated with the start of the food lab,” says Grant. “It is great to have relationships with people that think like we do, it can make the creative process so much easier. Often Phil, our contact at Terra, would come into the kitchen at Trio and encourage us to try and stump him on obscure ingredients. We always lost, but not from lack of trying. He even brought in two live chufa plants into the kitchen one day.” The relationship has developed and Terra team has really made an effort to not only search out products that the chefs ask for but also keep an eye out for new ingredients and innovations. In August, Phil brought by some samples of products that he thought the Alinea team might be interested in trying.

Phil of Terra Spice showing the team some samples

Coconut powder and other samples
Grant recalls “the most surprising item to me was the dried coconut powder. When I put a spoonful in my mouth I could not believe the intense flavor and instant creamy texture, it was awesome.” That was the inspiration for what is now Instant Tropical Pudding. The guest is presented with a glass filled with dried ingredients. A member of the service team pours a measured amount of coconut water into the glass and instructs the guest to stir the pudding until a creamy consistency is formed.

The rum-spiked coconut water being added to the powders
At the end of the day, the Chefs assess their overall effort as having gone “fairly well.” It’s a mixed bag of results. Clearly, the fact that things have not gone perfectly on Day 1 has not dampened anyone’s spirits. The team has purposely attempted dishes of varying degrees of difficultly in order to maximize their productivity. Says Grant, “Making a bubble of caramel filled with powder…I have devoted the better part of fifteen years to this craft, I have trained with the best chefs alive. I have a good grasp of known technique. The lab's purpose is to create technique based on our vision. Sometimes we will succeed, and sometimes we will fail, but trying is what make us who we are." The team's measured evaluations of their day’s work reflect that philosophy.
According to Chef Grant, “The purpose of the lab is to create the un-creatable. I know the level at which we can cook. I know the level of technique we already possess. What I am interested in is what we don't know...making a daydream reality.” With little more than 100 days on the calendar between now and Alinea’s opening, the Chef and his team will have their work cut out for them.
=R=
A special thanks to eGullet member yellow truffle, who contributed greatly to this piece

• Sometime this week, at an undisclosed location in the city of Chicago, Chef Grant Achatz begins the next leg of his journey to open his new restaurant, Alinea. Grant will christen the 'food lab' where the menu for Alinea will be developed. eGullet will be trailing Grant and his team throughout the process -- not just in the food lab but through every facet of the launch. Over the next six months, we will follow the Alinea team as they discover, develop, design and execute their plan. We'll document behind-the-scenes communications, forwarded directly to us by the Alinea team. We will be on the scene, bringing regular updates to the eGullet community. And Grant will join us in this special Alinea forum to discuss the process of opening Alinea. eGullet members will have the opportunity to ask Grant, and several other members of the Alinea team, questions about the development of the restaurant.

A Perfect Pairing?
By the time he was 12 years old, Grant Achatz knew that he would someday run his own restaurant. The story of Alinea is the story of Grant's personal development as a chef and a leader. Grant was brought up in a restaurant family. He bypassed a college education in favor of culinary school, after which he ascended rapidly to the position of sous chef for Thomas Keller at The French Laundry in Yountville, California. In 2001, Grant took the helm of Trio in Evanston, Illinois, which had previously turned out such noted chefs as Gale Gand, Rick Tramanto (Tru) and Shawn McClain (Spring, Green Zebra). In 2003 Grant won the James Beard Foundation's "Rising Star Chef" award, and other prestigious awards followed. By 2004, Grant was recognized as one of the most influential and unique voices on the international culinary scene.

In January 2004, Grant met Nick Kokonas, a successful entrepreneur who was so obsessed with haute cuisine that he had traveled the world in search of it. After globe-trekking specifically to eat at such culinary meccas as Alfonso 1890, Taillevent, Arpège, Arzak, and the French Laundry, Nick was in near disbelief when he realized that the "best food in the world was 10 minutes from my house." Nick had not previously consideredbacking a restaurant, even though he has both relatives and friends in the industry. But in Grant, he saw an opportunity to help create something great.

Through Grant's cuisine, a bond formed between the two men. So inspired was Nick by Grant's culinary ideas that he returned to Trio almost monthly. Finally, he challenged two of his friends, one from New York and the other from San Francisco, to fly to Chicago and experience Trio. He wanted to prove definitively to his skeptical, coastal buddies that Trio was the best and most important restaurant in the country, assuring them that "if the meal at Trio isn't the best meal you've ever had, I'll pay for your meals and your flights." Nick won his bet: his friends were blown away.

Later that night, after service, Grant joined Nick and his guests at their table. The men chatted about a variety of topics and in the '14 wines' haze of the late evening, they discussed Blue Trout and Black Truffles: The Peregrinations of an Epicure, Joseph Wechsberg's gastronomic memoir. The next day, Grant emailed Nick to ask again about the title of the book they had discussed. Not only did Nick remind him, but, within a few days, sent Grant a copy of Wechsberg's book. A friendship was born.
Shortly thereafter, Grant sentNick his business plan for Alinea, sending an email after evening service. By the following morning Nick had read it and replied with his own enthusiastic amendments. With a burgeoning friendship already in place, trust developing between the two men and proof they could work together crystallizing before their eyes, it became clear that they would become a team. Says Grant, "I think most people, in a lot of ways, look for themselves in other people in order to match with and I think to a large degree, the reason why we get along so well is that our personalities align very well."

Nick felt the same way. "It's one of those situations where everything just lined up right. I had the interest, I'd started a number of different businesses and I felt like it would be an opportunity to work with someone who I'd get along with very well. I wouldn't want to build a restaurant just to build a restaurant and I doubt I'll ever develop some other restaurant. I think this is the right situation at the right time."

Grant adds, "I think we're both very driven and passionate people. So for me, it was about finding someone I could trust, someone that I knew was going to think like me, be as motivated or more motivated than me. Those things were very, very important--and something I hadn't seen--or something I didn't believe in--that I saw in Nick." Nick continues, "I think a lot people come to a chef with their pre-existing vision of the restaurant they want to build. I didn't even want to build a restaurant before I saw his vision, so it wasn't like I was saying 'I'm building this restaurant and I want you to be my chef' -- it was more like 'I think you should build a restaurant, what can I do to help you build it?'" Grant would have the additional supportive backing he'd need and Nick would have another venture -- and one he solidly believed in -- in which to direct his business acumen.

Anyone who's eaten Grant's cuisine at Trio knows that he is intensely concerned with food and the optimal ways to prepare and serve it. His dishes innovate in flavor; they challenge, tease and delight the senses. But Grant is also driven to innovate in service and technique, constantly seeking new vehicles to deliver sensations to the diner. He works closely with a trusted collaborator, Martin Kastner of Crucial Detail in San Diego, CA to create original service pieces for many of his dishes. And as Grant has searched for additional ways to expand the continuity of the dining experience, it has become clear to him that it starts before the diner even gets to the restaurant's front door.

According to Grant, "You can pull it back as far as you want. The experience is going to start before someone even picks up the phone to make a reservation to this restaurant. It's going to be about their perceptions; why are they picking up the phone to make a reservation? What did they see? What did they read? What's leading them up to that point? They call to make a reservation, that's another experience. The drive to get to this neighborhood is another experience. The minute they open their door and take one step out of their car, now they're surrounded by another experience."

Advancing the functional elements of how food is served is an innate part of the cooking process for Grant, who seeks to render the traditional boundaries of dining obsolete. When asked what he will be able to accomplish at Alinea that he couldn't accomplish at Trio, Grant says, "the obvious is to create the container in which we create the experience. I think that's the very exciting thing for me that I've never been able to have a part in." For Grant, a restaurant's physical space represents the ultimate container and the ultimate personal challenge. The result should break new ground in the world of fine dining.   Grant and Nick are intense and competitive. In both their minds, "crafting a complete experience" is the primary focus of Alinea. According to Nick, "the whole idea is to produce an experience where the food lines up with the décor, which lines up with the flow through the restaurant and from the moment you get, literally, to the front door of the place and you walk in, your experience should mirror in some respects--and complement in others--the whole process you're going to go through when you start eating." Grant takes it a step further. "It's about having a central beacon from which everything else emanates and therefore, it's seamless. The whole experience is crafted on one finite point and if everything emanates from that point, then there's no chance that the experience can be interrupted."

The search for Alinea's space further reflects not only their shared philosophy but also their separate intensities. Says Nick, "One of the things we felt really strongly about, and we both came to it, was that we wanted it to be a 'stand alone' building because if you're in something else you can't help but take on some of that identity. And it's really difficult to find the right size building in the right kind of location, with the right kind of construction that was suitable for the identity of Alinea."
Nick and Grant drove down every street within a chosen geographical band, armed with a giant map and a set of green, yellow and red markers. Once they had found a set of acceptable streets, they asked a realtor to show them every space available on them.

"Once we did find the building," says Grant, "whichever space we would have chosen, we would have analyzed and considered each different aspect to provoke a certain emotion, a very controlled emotion depending on how we wanted it arranged. But I also think that we wanted the neighborhood to feel a certain way, the street to feel a certain way. Is it like Michigan Avenue where I have people 4-deep, walking straight down the sidewalk, non-stop, all day and all night or is it more of a tranquil environment outside? All those things were spinning around and once you identify the golden egg, then you have to go find it."
While they would probably never admit it, each innovation, each step they take together in building their venture serves as yet another a opportunity for the Alinea team to challenge the restaurant's competitors. Their attention to all the details provides countless opportunities to distinguish Alinea from other restaurants.

Here the two men can share in the creation, combining their diverse skills and experiences into a unified and shared vision. Alinea will be their baby. They want it to be the best --not just the best food -- but the best everything. They even want the experience of calling for a reservation to be a memorable one.

The Path From Here
In that spirit, the Alinea food lab opens this week. Grant refuses to promote even one of his legendary creations to 'signature dish' status. Instead of populating Alinea's menu with previous favorites from Trio or 'trial' dishes that have been only roughly tested, Grant and his team will take six months to devise, develop and perfect the dishes and delivery modes that will appear on Alinea's opening menu. When the idea of maintaining a kitchen staff for six months before the restaurant's opening was presented to its investors, in spite of the additional expense, "it seemed like a no-brainer" according to Nick. Grant is an equity partner--a true chef/owner--in the venture and there is a solid consensus among all the backers about the priority of his vision.
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In addition to being one of today's foremost chefs and culinary innovators, Grant Achatz is a long-time member of eGullet, and a lively, provocative contributor to our discussion forums. Read his March, 2003 eGullet Q&A here.
Photos courtesy Alinea

eGullet member, yellow_truffle, also contributed to this report