Life, on the Line by Grant Achatz (leveled readers .TXT) 📗

had booked, but also because after extensive research and reading Mariani’s reviews for years, Grant knew full well that the man was not a fan of anything resembling molecular gastronomy.

While I didn’t typically spend much time at the restaurant during service, I made sure to be there as Mariani arrived with Jenn. I greeted him warmly and walked him back to the kitchen to say hello to Grant. He looked at me and said, “I haven’t eaten dinner this early since I was a child.”

I didn’t quite catch what he meant. “Pardon me?” I said.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit early to be eating in a civilized fashion?” he glared at me.

“Well, this is all we could do on short notice without kicking someone out. Just think of it as a late lunch and I am sure you’ll be okay.” I smiled warmly and was met with a half grin.

He shook Grant’s hand stiffly and was led upstairs. I told Grant what he had said. Grant looked at me. “Jenn’s an idiot for bringing him here. He’ll hate it even if he loves it. It was a mistake to let him come. He couldn’t write anything positive without changing his opinion in twenty previous articles.” He shook his head and went back to cooking.

I went downstairs and killed time for an hour and a half, then headed upstairs to check on their table. When I got there, Jenn had a forced smile on her face and was raising her eyebrow at me. “Mr. Mariani, how is everything tonight?”

“It’s interesting. What do you call that thing that you served the, uh, what was it on it,” he said, looking at Jenn, who of course had no idea which course he was referring to. It was then that he started going back through his notes, which were, to my horror, written on our wine list.

Martin had crafted four wine lists for us since we couldn’t find a binder that we felt fit our quality and aesthetic considerations. So he created four sets of steel bands with custom-made screws and fittings, then made the Excel spreadsheet template that would place the margins just right. Since we only had twenty tables and they were staggered seatings, and since most of our customers chose our wine-pairings program, four wine lists were enough. But just barely enough. And now one of them was about to walk out the door.

“Mr. Mariani, perhaps I can bring you a notebook to use?” I asked.

Jenn glared at me, and I back at her. Mariani ignored me completely and kept writing. I was appalled and getting angry. Critic or no critic, this was simply rude and entitled behavior. I walked away before saying anything further, headed down to Grant, and said, “You were right.”

“Why, what’d he say?”

“He’s using our wine list as a personal notebook.”

We sent a check to the table that was promptly paid. Jenn couldn’t believe we did that, and clearly thought it was another strike against us. Our attitude is that reviewers pay for their meals or else the review is biased. We had never comped a member of the press or any bloggers, nor did we intend to.

John Mariani walked out the front door of Alinea that night carrying our wine list and a handmade, one-of-four stainless-steel binders.

On August 18, 2005, the first major critical review of Alinea was to be printed.

Online at eGullet, from 10:05 on opening night, the reviews and page views poured in. Chef Sean Brock wrote,“We were the first table sat at Alinea on opening day....Alinea will change the way people look at restaurants forever. I can’t even imagine what this restaurant’s future will hold.” Yellow Truffle posted pictures that were better than our promotional shots. He analyzed the menu construction and visual design, and even created a spreadsheet of wait times between courses versus bite size. These obsessive reviews ensured that the foodies of the world and anyone who Googled “Alinea review” would read firsthand accounts from diners about their experiences.

More important, the national and international press could quickly gauge our daily changes to the menu, the evolution of the food and service, and the reaction of patrons. This real-time access to a restaurant and constant reviewing was a new phenomenon, and we were among the first to not only embrace it but to encourage it. A great deal of the interest drummed up about Alinea in the mainstream press mirrored directly the phrases, comments, and thoughts that these forum-posters created. We started playing a game where we would post something in a forum and see how long it took for the mainstream press to pick up the story. It usually took less than a week. Still, in 2005 the “food blog” as we know it today did not yet exist, and these forums were the provinces of mostly hard-core foodies. A bad review in the Chicago Tribune—which for us was anything less than four stars—would be crippling to our business and our goals.

Grant was adamant about trying to spot Phil Vettel, the head critic of the Tribune, knowing he would be in soon after opening and likely several more times before he wrote a review. The goal was for there to be no more surprises like the Bruni fiasco on opening night. Reservation books were scoured for odd-sounding aliases, common phone exchanges, and bogus credit cards for confirmation. Every single reservation name was Googled. Headshots of every major and minor critic in the United States were posted in the office. Grant personally watched every diner come in. Anyone who seemed a bit too interested in minor details or spent time jotting notes regularly was suspected of being a critic.

The Trib covered Alinea’s opening with a very positive “preview” that asked whether any restaurant could live up to the preopening hype, and then answered its own question with an emphatic yes, and then some. But until the official review comes out, you never know. There is a tendency among