What’s Next after Alinea?

The NY Times has a preview of Grant Achatz’s and Nick Kokonas’s next restaurant Next. [Insert elaborate Who’s On First routine with a nice mise en place pun here.]

The two of them — the spare, driven artist and the comfortable, fluid patron — evoke a modern Michelangelo and Medici, bonded by mutual trust and now locked into a very public artistic endeavor. With Next, Mr. Achatz is operating at a level of creative and financial freedom enjoyed by very few artists and only a handful of chefs in history.

And this line got me more excited than I should admit:

A menu might be designed around a single day — say, the Napa Valley on Oct. 28, 1996, the day Mr. Achatz started work at the French Laundry, where he remained until 2001.

The slideshow has some photos of the food.

• food
• Grant Achatz
• Next restaurant
• Nick Kokonas
• restaurants