What can I say about Next Restaurant that hasn't already been said? For those of you unfamiliar with Next, it's a restaurant like no other. I'm not even sure restaurant is the right word. Experience is better.
The restaurant does not take reservations per se. Instead, you must buy tickets. Ticket prices vary depending on when you dine and whether you sign on for the wine parings. The ticket is inclusive of all food and beverages. There is no menu where you can select items ala carte. The ticket also includes a service charge because you do not tip in the end. It's truly a brilliant system considering how much money restaurants lose when customers no show and how much food they must waste when they cannot predicate exactly how many customers will frequent the restaurant. Usually restaurants must calculate all of these risks in pricing their food. In theory, eating at Next is truly affordable (at least compared to other five star restaurants) because the ticket system solves for these risks. In actuality, unless you are incredibly lucky, you have to get the tickets off the black market (eg. Craigs List) for crazy prices because the tickets sell out so fast.
The other thing about the restaurant: the theme and the food served changes every three months. Opening theme: Paris 1912 Escoffier at the Ritz. But check back soon for Bangkok 2060.
I'll skip the slightly long and sketchy story of getting the tickets off Craig's List and skip to the restaurant itself. It's impossible to describe how excited I was about this restaurant. I am obsessed with the restaurant's executive chef, Grant Achatz. I ate at his other restaurant, Alinea, in February and was still thinking about how the Alinea meal was the best meal of my life. As soon as we had the tickets, I obsessively read every review I could find on Next and spent countless hours refreshing Yelp to read more. My roommate Allison had attended one of the previews of Chef Achatz's new bar Aviary (next door to Next), and I made her tell me every detail.
Basically, I was so excited that there was no way that Next could meet my expectations. But it did. Oh, it did.
The food was fabulous.
First, a platter of Hors d'Oeuvres. Quail egg with an exploding yolk, topped with a little white anchovy. Foie gras torchan: so creamy, so delicious. And the black truffle egg custard in half an egg shell was beautiful.
Second, a turtle soup consomme. Difficult to describe but fragrant, herby, like a winter vegetable garden. They served the soup with a sherry and it sounds bizarre, but it worked.
Third, a fish dish like no other fish dish. A sole with a crawfish mousse and some buttery French sauce that left me in food bliss.
Fourth, poached chicken. I wasn't a huge fan of the side of poached cucumber wrapped in salt pork. Warm cucumbers are just sort of... well, odd. But the chicken itself was perfectly poached and the sauce was delicious. Again, a sort of buttery sauce with a hint of cream.
But by far the raison d'etre for going to Next is the pressed duck. OMG the duck!!!!! Yes, all of the exclamation points were necessary. It's rich, it's tender, it's favorable. It's everything a duck should be. I could have wept over this duck. And the sauce! Oh, the sauce! No words can describe other than AMAZING. It tasted like meat and barbecue and kind of had the feel of a mole sauce. Just when I worked up the nerve to ask for more sauce, the servers brought some more preemptively. Also, the duck is served with potato gratin. Sliced potatoes + cheese + cream = pure heaven. If I ever get to choose the last meal before I die, I would choose this and die happily.
The rest of the meal blurred by (could have been the wine, which they just left in whole bottles). The duck and potato gratin made everything else pale in comparison. There was a salad after. It had vegetables, it was fresh. There was a delicious ice cream dessert with brandied cherries. But I was still stuck on the duck.
The service was incredible. Unlike Alinea, the servers felt like real people and didn't take themselves too seriously. We had a server/sommelier at Alinea who told us how he likes to drink this expensive dessert wine before he munches on tacos at 3 am (yeah right, I'm sure he drinks PBR just like the rest of us). He also kept calling his wine pairings a "little weird" but in this creepy, off-putting way like he was letting us in on a dirty secret of his. But the servers at Next were perfect. After the Hors d'Oeuvres, one of the servers quipped, "Did you enjoy the apps? How about those mozz sticks?" I loved how relaxed they were. It was as if they were saying: yes, this is the best meal ever, but at the end of the day, it's just a meal that should be enjoyed, not worshiped with tiny statues and incense.
But ultimately, it was the best meal of my life, perhaps worthy of worship. 5 out of 5 spoons!
