From “The Bear” To Reality: My Michelin-Starred Culinary Experience In Chicago

"Would you like to see the kitchen?" our waiter asked. We had just spent the last three hours experiencing culinary masterpiece after masterpiece into the early evening.

Sometimes, when you have an experience that borders on perfection, seeing the backend may tarnish that masterpiece you saw on the plate. At least, that was my fear. But curiosity nipped at my mind – what did it take to put near perfection on a plate?

We were whisked downstairs to a stainless steel room that sparkled. While the final dinner service had concluded and we weren't watching the chefs at work, the pristine state of the kitchen was enough to seal in my mind that what I had just experienced was as close to flawless as I would ever see in a restaurant.

But it wasn’t just any kitchen. I was in the kitchen of Alinea. Alinea has been in the top 50 restaurants of the world for almost 10 years. It was voted the number one restaurant in the U.S. in 2016 and has been a three Michelin star restaurant since 2010. 

Chicago’s culinary scene, already renowned, has gained even more popularity with the hit TV show The Bear. The series centers around Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto, a young chef from the world of fine dining who returns to Chicago to run his family’s sandwich shop following his brother Michael's suicide. In the second and latest season, the focus shifts to the renovation and rebranding of the sandwich shop into a fine dining establishment named The Bear, highlighting the challenges that come with such a transformation.

The Bear showcases the intense labor and relentless pursuit of perfection required to create a restaurant worthy of Michelin recognition, depicting the ambition and personal sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness.

Chicago itself plays a significant role in the show, with its unique culinary culture and vibrant, diverse community influencing the storyline. It felt like the perfect place to have my first three Michelin star experience.

The outside of Alinea is unassuming, while the inside presents a sophisticated setting with creamy walls and chairs. It's as if the simplicity of the exterior and the understated interior design are intended to focus your attention immediately on the food.

As we sat, we were greeted by one of our numerous waiters for the night and promptly began the 12 course tasting menu with wine pairings.

The dishes arrived in timely succession, each one a work of art. Waiters would set items on the table and walk away, leaving us to wonder if they were centerpieces or the next course. The plates mimicked the food: caviar served in a caviar-shaped bowl you held in your hand, making it feel as though the waiter had just scooped the caviar directly into your palm.

The servers guided us through each course as if telling a story or performing a trick. Centerpieces on the table concealed dishes, and food was painted to resemble other foods, tricking our senses and making us re-evaluate what we were eating. Eggplant was painted to look like fish, so when you bit into it, you were delightfully surprised by the flavor. This approach created an experience that allowed us to view familiar foods through a new lens, as if we were tasting them for the first time. It's not often in life you get a second chance to experience something for the first time, especially something as mundane as food, but at Alinea, it felt possible.

Even simple dishes like dip and chips were elevated to the best versions I've ever had. Part of me felt melancholic knowing that any bowl of dip at a party will never compare to the experience at Alinea, but I guess it will live on in memory.

The food was artfully prepared, culminating in a final dessert in which the pastry chef threw food onto the table, creating a collage of colors and flavors, like an imitation of a Pollock painting, or perhaps what Pollock would have done if he had been a chef.

The whirlwind of courses and the sensory experiences of each made the evening fly by, despite us being there for several hours.

The experience was a birthday gift to me. Truthfully, I couldn’t imagine going to Alinea on a random night with nothing to celebrate. The indulgent experience and hefty price tag of several hundred dollars per person make it something reserved for special occasions, if you can even secure a reservation, which often book out weeks or months in advance.

Witnessing the near perfection in food preparation, I don’t crave such an experience every day. It felt akin to attending a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony. The soaring strings, the crescendos, and the harmonic finales resonate deeply, vibrating through your core. While beautiful, it's also transformative, shifting your perception and leaving you profoundly moved. Music that endures for centuries does so because it evokes such powerful emotions.

You could return to the symphony the next night, but more likely, you'd want to take time to see the world differently, having been changed by the musical journey. Similarly, after dining at Alinea, I felt a strange reluctance to eat the next day. It was as if, for a moment, food was ruined – nothing I could make or order would ever compare to the meal at Alinea.

Perhaps it’s true. I’m not a top chef, an obsessed perfectionist, or a creative genius, nor do I have access to the resources that restaurants like Alinea possess. But I do have the ability to pause and truly enjoy my food, rather than consuming it as a side note during a busy day. Alinea made me reconsider my relationship with food, presenting it in a way I hadn’t experienced before. Maybe, in itself, that new perspective is a gift worth the price tag.

I don’t plan on making it a priority to return to Alinea anytime soon, despite it being the best restaurant I’ve ever been to, period. Part of me fears that I might never have an experience quite like my first visit, and another part is eager to explore other three Michelin star restaurants – of which there are only 142 worldwide, with 13 in the United States. While there are many more two- and one-star restaurants, they are concentrated in a few states, primarily in their major cities: California, Florida, Colorado, Illinois, New York, Nevada, Georgia, and Washington D.C.

Alinea, as I’m sure each three Michelin star restaurant is, is more than just a meal; it’s an experience, like a vacation, and I would rather treat it as such. Although it stands out as a unique dining experience, I have visited a few other Michelin-starred restaurants I found on the Michelin website in the U.S. These are much easier to access and, while still pricey, they cost between $100 and $200, a fraction of the cost of a three-star experience. While the magic of a three-star meal is hard to match, these restaurants still offer fantastic meals and memorable dining experiences at a more approachable price.

But if you are looking for an experience that teeters on the edge of what is possible from a restaurant or you are craving the chance to look at the normal differently, a mind-opening revelation is only one reservation away.

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