Next restaurant, which reinvents itself three times a year, releases a video to promote each new menu. Sometimes, as with its video for The Hunt, you get a good idea what you’ll be eating while there. But the just-released video for the new Vegan menu, which launches tonight, is a bit more … enigmatic.

Enigmatic … but hilarious.

After having watched that, I have absolutely no idea what Next will have in store for me when I sit down at my Kitchen Table at the end of the month.

One thing I do know, however—it makes me want to go on a heist with those guys!

As those of you who’ve read about my visits to Chicago for Next’s Sicily and Kyoto menus know, the restaurant is not only unique—completely reinventing its cuisine three times each year—but also extremely difficult to get into. Thousands more people want to dine there than can. As Eater quoted co-owner Nick Kokonas back in February:

” … the queue reached 1,500 within 10 seconds of turning the sales page on … so in reality you had to be there within 8-10 seconds to have a shot at season tix.”

I very much wanted to be part of Next’s Brigadoon-like magic again next year, and through careful (and sometimes exhausting) attention to the restaurant’s updates on its Facebook page, I managed to become a season ticket holder for 2013.

So here’s what I’m in for: (more…)

So three weekends back (yeah, it’s taken me awhile to find the time to get to this), I did one of the craziest, most extravagant things I’ve ever done. I flew to Chicago. For a meal.

Oh, I’ve gone to extremes for high-end dining before, such as my meals at Astrid y Gaston in Lima, Momofuku Shoto in Toronto, and Alinea in Chicago, among others. But all of those meals were a side dish to a pre-existing trip—our visit to Machu Picchu, and my attendance at the World Fantasy and World Science Fiction conventions, respectively.

But this was a trip with the meal as its primary focus. My Sicilian dinner at the ever-changing Next restaurant impressed me so that I wanted to take part in its follow-up offering, Kyoto, and so booked tickets back in September the moment they became available.

Even as I did it, it felt wrong somehow. Fly to another city … for a meal? How decadent!

And yet …

If I had a chance to see Nijinsky dance one more time, or Olivier act again, I’d fly across a continent and feel no shame, but when it comes to food, there’s somehow a twinge of guilt, of … should I really be doing this?

The answer is, when it comes to chefs operating at this level of art on a menu which will be offered for a limited period only to vanish and never return …

Yes. Yes, I should. (more…)

The Chicago Tribune broke some news today that’s of intense interest to foodies everywhere—the three Next restaurant menus for 2013. I’ve already told you about Next, and how its chefs will serve a particular cuisine for just a few months, then shut down briefly before changing over to a completely different menu, so that if you miss one, you’ve missed it forever.

Think of it as the Brigadoon of restaurants, there, but not there.

It was announced earlier this month that 2013 would start off with The Hunt (that is, wild game), with a Vegan menu rumored to follow … but now we know for sure what next year has in store for us.

First up, The Hunt, for which we are told, “expect to see bear jerky and venison heart tartare.”

(more…)

While I was off eating at The Black Hoof, Lai Wah Heen, Momofuku Shoto and Cafe Boulud in Toronto, some exciting foodie news was revealed which I’ve only now caught up with—and it’s news I’ve been waiting to hear ever since the artists behind Next restaurant asked what we’d like to see tackled for future Brigadoon-ish menus.

According to Eater, Penny Pollack announced on Twitter the other day that Kyoto would be followed by “The Hunt,” which would be a “midwestern game–focused menu.”

Plus, over on Facebook, someone shared that “I was told last night by Chef Rene that Vegan will be the menu following The Hunt. I’m not 100% sure if he was joking or not, but he seemed pretty serious to me.”

I hope that time and money will allow me to attend seatings for both. Even though I’m about as far from Vegan as a person can get without killing and butchering his own meant, I’d love to see what Grant Achatz and Dave Beran can do with vegetables!

Next, the restaurant which reinvents itself several times each year, offering up a cuisine for several months that then vanishes, never to be seen on the menu again, has asked over on Facebook what we’d like to see in the future. So far, the query has received 772 comments, which represents an even greater number of suggestions.

Since I learned during my Sicilian meal that Next serves the platonic ideal of whatever concept they’ve chosen—so much so that I was moved to purchase Kitchen Table tickets for its Kyoto dinner—I feel very invested in the outcome.

So which three menus should they serve in 2013?

Here are the most intriguing suggestions so far. (more…)

When I’m at home, I tend to eat rather spartanly, but when I travel the convention circuit, I like to make each meal matter. I do my best to avoid remaining in a hotel for a meal, or getting anywhere near a chain, unless my dining companions demand it, and aim for unique eating experiences representative of the particular city I happen to be in. Which is why I’m so often relying on the advice of people like Man v. Food‘s Adam Richman (who led me to my favorite hamburger ever—The Thurman Burger at the Thurman Cafe in Columbus) or on Yelp reviews (such as the ones that got me to Sugar Ray’s Bakery in St Petersburg).

Chicago, which hosted the 70th World Science Fiction two weeks ago, was going to be a bit more challenging than my usual gastronomic adventures, because the two restaurants I most wanted to visit—Next and Alinea, co-owned by three-star Michelin chef Grant Achatz (though of course co-owner Nick Kokonas and chef Dave Beran also deserve kudos)—don’t take reservations.

And by not taking reservations, I don’t mean they’re the kinds of places you walk up to and stand in a long line to get seated. I mean that in order to get in, you need to buy a ticket, the same way you would to the theater or a rock concert.

Why would a restaurant do such a thing? Because apparently, demand was so great that when Alinea would announce a particular month’s block of tables was available for reservations, the calls would crash their Chicago area code, the tables would fill within the hour, and they needed a full-time staff whose only job was to say, “No, sorry, we’re booked.” And at one point Next had 19,000 diners on its waiting list.

To quote Alinea:

Alinea has 3 people answering phones six days per week answering hundreds more phone calls than we have reservations available. It is a disappointing and frustrating process for our customers and staff alike.

And as for what Next has to say:

Unlike an a la carte restaurant with many walk-in customers and dozens of menu items, Next is creating a truly unique dining experience and doing so at an amazing price. By eliminating no-shows, requiring pre-payment, and varying the price by time and day we are able to create a predictable and steady flow of patrons allowing us to offer a great deal more than would otherwise be possible at these prices.

So—tickets, a concept which frees up the staff to do what it does best, create mind-blowing meals.

If you’ve never heard of either of these restaurants, you’re probably wondering why there’d be such a demand. There are two very different reasons. (more…)

I’ve been remiss in not yet sharing with you my impressions of the visits I made to Next, Alinea, and The Aviary (plus The Office, a speakeasy beneath The Office) during Chicon7, but recovering from the trip while staying on top of Blastr left me with no remaining juice to tell the whole amazing story of the restaurants Chef Grant Achatz has created. Rest assured, though … that will come.

For now, suffice it to say that I was so enamored of his constantly changing restaurant, Next—if you don’t eat there during each cuisine’s brief run. you’ve missed it forever—that I decided my three-star Michelin taste of Sicily wasn’t enough and so booked tickets for Kyoto the moment they became available this evening.

Booked? Tickets? Why, what could Scott possibly mean? What kind of restaurant sells tickets?

Don’t worry, all will be explained later, when I finish my write-up of the above gastronomic experience … this weekend, I hope.

In any case, if you’re wondering what awaits me during Chef Achatz’s Kyoto menu, perhaps the first video teaser he released will explain it all.

Perplexed? Then maybe this second clip will enlighten you. (more…)