Yesterday, Bradley Gene Smith, manager at Next, tweeted the first pic of preparation for the restaurant’s first 2013 menu—The Hunt.

Whether taking a look at the whimsical photo below leaves you happy or sad will depend on how lucky you were over the last couple of days. Did you manage to score season tickets for next year’s three offerings (the way I did)—or will you end up spending 2013 on the outside looking in?

As for me, I’m happy … and stoked!

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…)

As I told you a couple of weeks ago, I fell so in love with Next restaurant while in Chicago last month that I was unable to resist booking a Kitchen Table for its current Kyoto menu, which only runs until the end of the year.

One reason I wanted the Kitchen Table, which seats six, rather than the other tables for two or four, is that it’s the only table per seating that gets a few extras unavailable to the other diners. (And you know how much I love my amuse bouche.) And while searching on @NextRestaurant over at Twitter—because I’m hungry not just for food, but for learning more about the food which will be satiating that hunger—I discovered that a fellow foodie by the name of MaryMary had tweeted the following photo.

The pic seemed amazing to me, and not just because the duck made me think, “Get in my belly!” No, it was the caption:

“Duck, served out of a 200 year old duck”

I knew that even the settings on which Chefs Achatz and Beran served their food was mind-blowing, but a 200-year-old bowl? Astounding.

Why am I bringing this up to you, especially since most of you will likely never get to enjoy this meal? Because I’d like to hear from you—is it possible for a meal to be spoiled? (And no, I don’t mean that way. I mean the other way.) (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…)

Yesterday, I shared with you a few rather enigmatic videos hinting at Next restaurant‘s Kyoto menu, which has its official opening tonight, and this morning, I posted a pic of the menu scroll itself, which had been tweeted by someone lucky enough to attend the test dinner.

But for those who want something a bit more concrete, here’s the video Next released today which explains more about the food (and the spirit of the food) during the latest incarnation of its ever-changing menu, similar to what was previously released for Paris: 1906, Thailand, Tribute to elBulli, and Sicily. (Oddly, there seems to have been no official video for Childhood, so this footage, uploaded by others, will have to do.)

This is what the lucky first night diners were able to experience earlier tonight in Chicago. (more…)

Tonight, Next restaurant will officially launch its Kyoto menu—and as I told you yesterday, I bought tickets for an upcoming Kitchen Table there even though I had no idea exactly what Chefs Grant Achatz and Dave Beran would come up with.

Well, early this morning, Graham Elliot tweeted a pic of the menu that shows what he was served during the test dinner Thursday night—and what I can expect when I return to Chicago in November.

Can’t wait to experience the umami!