We’re not sure about you, but we spent much of the weekend obsessively checking our e-mail to see if we’d received an announcement about Next. Grant Achatz’s hotly anticipated new restaurant is still scheduled to open on Wednesday, but it appears that none of the tickets have yet gone on sale. That said, the website was recently changed, and instead of that fancy opening video, there is now just a statement saying, “Coming Soon.” That’s a good start, and we’ll keep you updated when we hear anything. If you simply can’t wait to see what will be on the menu, a few people were lucky enough to attend “practice runs” this weekend, and one of them took pictures of the whole experience.
Writing on LTHForum, someone calling themselves Yellow Truffle provided a dish-by-dish breakdown of the entire Next menu. While most of the items look familiar to anyone who has been following Achatz on Twitter, this is the first time we’ve ever seen anything like the full menu.
As was rumored since the beginning, all of the dishes were inspired by Auguste Escoffier’s 1906 menu at the Ritz in Paris. Escoffier published all of his recipes in The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery, so Next was able to follow pretty precise instructions for each dish, even if they did change some of the details.
Below is a list of all the dishes Yellow Truffle was served. For the most part, each item’s name is given in French and is followed by a number, which corresponds to the recipe in Escoffier’s cookbook. That is then followed by a laughable attempt to translate everything into English. We do apologize for any mistakes. Everything in quotes is directly from LTHForum. Still, this should hopefully tide you over until those tickets finally go on sale. And definitely check out the full post on LTH, as the pictures are amazing.
Paris 1906
Hors d’oeuvres - “Leek with mushroom, anchovy on top of quail egg, pig on cracker with chive, foie gras and brioche, creamy egg custard with truffles.”
Potage à la Tortue Claire (#907) - Clear Turtle Soup
“Bread service comes out with a small dinner roll and butter.”
Fillet de Sole daumont (#1950) - Fillets of Sole with Sauce Normande
Suprêmes de Poussin (#3130) -Cutlets of Chicken
Caneton Rouennais à la Presse (#3476) - Roast Duck
and Gratin de Pommes de Terre à la Dauphinoise (#4200) - Potato Gratin Dauphinoise
Salade Irma (#3839) - Salad with diced cucumber, French beans, asparagus tips, cauilflower, shredded lettuce, and decorated with Nasturtium flowers,
Bombe Ceylan (#4826) - Coffee flavored ice-cream mixed with rum -flavored bombe mixture.
Mignardises - Tiny, bite-sized desserts sometimes served at the end of a meal.
[Chicago] Next - Grant Achatz [LTHForum]