Alinea Plans Pop Up Restaurant In Manhattan
By Lisa White in Food on Apr 29, 2014 7:30PM
Next Stop: Manhattan
Alinea is having a very busy start to the week, first rising up landing the number 9 spot on the San Pellegrino and Acqua Panna World’s 50 Best Restaurants list and now an announcement that the restaurant will be heading East on "tour." In an interview with Fine Dining Lovers, Chef Grant Achatz reveals that he plans to transport the Alinea experience from Chicago to Manhattan for a short period of time. Details haven’t been revealed yet but Achatz suggested it will likely be for about a month (maybe more), the venue will be in Uptown Manhattan and he plans to open it in October. His entire team will travel with him for the pop up location in New York. He told Fine Dining Lovers, “we want to bring the experience to the diner as opposed to the diner coming to the experience.”
The venture will follow the same set-up as Alinea, 60 seats and the standard experience with Achatz declaring he wants it to be “exactly the same.” Achatz goes on to hint that if the experiment works out and is well received, this could lead to similar projects in other cities around the world.
This isn’t the first time the Alinea team has headed East to Manhattan. They traded spaces with the Eleven Madison Park crew in 2012, swapping locations and creating special menus for the event. This time it looks like Achatz simply wants to pluck Alinea up from Lincoln Park and plop it down, recreating the restaurant perfectly for diners outside of its Chicago confines. And if all goes well Alinea could see a run in multiple cities, giving Achatz and his team the experience of interacting with diners and cuisines across the globe. Surely a lofty endeavor but an interesting concept and one we wouldn't mind influencing other restaurants. We would love a visit from Mission Chinese Chicago, French Laundry Midwest or Le Bernardin on the Lakefront. It would be a culinary treat for those of us with adventurous taste buds who lack a plethora of frequent flyer miles.