Grant Achatz: an inspiring chef
8/03/2016
"One of America's great chefs" (Vogue), Grant Achatz, shares how his drive to cook immaculate food fueled his miraculous triumph over tongue cancer.
By 2007 chef Grant Achatz had been named one of the best new chefs in America by Food & Wine, he had received the James Beard Foundation Rising Star Chef of the Year Award, and he and Nick Kokonas had opened the conceptually radical restaurant Alinea, which was named Best Restaurant in America by Gourmet magazine. Then, positioned firmly in the world's culinary spotlight, Achatz was diagnosed with stage IV squamous cell carcinoma-tongue cancer.
The prognosis grim, Grant undertook an alternative treatment of aggressive chemotherapy and radiation that ravaged his body and left him without a sense of taste. Tapping into his profound discipline and passion, he trained his chefs to mimic his palate and learned how to cook with his other senses. As Kokonas was able to attest, the food was never better. Five months later, Grant was declared cancer-free and went on to achieve some of the highest honors in the culinary world. Life, on the Line is not only a chef's memoir, it is also a book about survival, about nurturing creativity, and about profound friendship.
The debut cookbook from the restaurant Gourmet magazine named the best in the country.
A pioneer in American cuisine, chef Grant Achatz represents the best of the molecular gastronomy movement--brilliant fundamentals and exquisite taste paired with a groundbreaking approach to new techniques and equipment. ALINEA showcases Achatz's cuisine with more than 100 dishes (totaling 600 recipes) and 600 photographs presented in a deluxe volume. 
Three feature pieces frame the book: Michael Ruhlman considers Alinea's role in the global dining scene, Jeffrey Steingarten offers his distinctive take on dining at the restaurant, and Mark McClusky explores the role of technology in the Alinea kitchen. Buyers of the book will receive access to a website featuring video demonstrations, interviews, and an online forum that allows readers to interact with Achatz and his team.
"Achatz is something new on the national culinary landscape: a chef as ambitious as Thomas Keller who wants to make his mark not with perfection but with constant innovation . . . Get close enough to sit down and allow yourself to be teased, challenged, and coddled by Achatz's version of this kind of cooking, and you can have one of the most enjoyable culinary adventures of your life." --Corby Kummer, senior editor of Atlantic Monthly
"Someone new has entered the arena. His name is Grant Achatz, and he is redefining the American restaurant once again for an entirely new generation . . . Alinea is in perpetual motion; having eaten here once, you can't wait to come back, to see what Achatz will come up with next." --GourmetReviews & AwardsJames Beard Foundation Cookbook Award Finalist: Cooking from a professional Point of View Category James Beard Foundation Outstanding Chef Award! "Even if your kitchen isn't equipped with a paint-stripping heat gun, thermocirculator, or refractometer, and you're only vaguely aware that chefs use siphons and foams in contemporary cooking, you can enjoy this daring cookbook from Grant Achatz of the Chicago restaurant Alinea.. . . While the recipes can hardly become part of your everday cooking, this book is far too interesting to be left on the coffee table. As you read, a question emerges: Is Alinea's food art? . . . I go a little further, describing Achatz with a word that he would probably never use to describe himself: avant-garde, as it defined art movements at the beginning of the last century--planned, self-concious, and structured attempts to provoke and shake the status quo. Just as with those artists, the results are not necessarily as interesting as the intentions and concepts behind them. In this sense, this volume constitutes a full-blown although not threatening manifesto."—Art of Eating
"Achatz is something new on the national culinary landscape: a chef as ambitious as Thomas Keller who wants to make his mark not with perfection but with constant innovation . . . Get close enough to sit down and allow yourself to be teased, challenged, and coddled by Achatz's version of this kind of cooking, and you can have one of the most enjoyable culinary adventures of your life." --Corby Kummer, senior editor of Atlantic Monthly
"Someone new has entered the arena. His name is Grant Achatz, and he is redefining the American restaurant once again for an entirely new generation . . . Alinea is in perpetual motion; having eaten here once, you can't wait to come back, to see what Achatz will come up with next." --GourmetReviews & AwardsJames Beard Foundation Cookbook Award Finalist: Cooking from a professional Point of View Category James Beard Foundation Outstanding Chef Award! "Even if your kitchen isn't equipped with a paint-stripping heat gun, thermocirculator, or refractometer, and you're only vaguely aware that chefs use siphons and foams in contemporary cooking, you can enjoy this daring cookbook from Grant Achatz of the Chicago restaurant Alinea.. . . While the recipes can hardly become part of your everday cooking, this book is far too interesting to be left on the coffee table. As you read, a question emerges: Is Alinea's food art? . . . I go a little further, describing Achatz with a word that he would probably never use to describe himself: avant-garde, as it defined art movements at the beginning of the last century--planned, self-concious, and structured attempts to provoke and shake the status quo. Just as with those artists, the results are not necessarily as interesting as the intentions and concepts behind them. In this sense, this volume constitutes a full-blown although not threatening manifesto."—Art of Eating
A Conversation with Grant Achatz
Amazon.com: Can you describe what sets Alinea apart from other restaurant cookbooks?
Grant Achatz: We took the approach that we will present exactly what we do in the restaurant without concessions. That means that while we scaled the recipes to 8 servings, we did not convert to teaspoons or cups. This assures us that the recipes are tight and sound because we have made each of them a thousand or more times. Equally important is the fact that every single finished dish is pictured in the book. I always find it frustrating to read a great recipe and then not see the finished product. I understand that usually cost factors into showing only a portion of the recipes in picture form, but we decided that we had to take pictures of everything and we did.
Grant Achatz: We took the approach that we will present exactly what we do in the restaurant without concessions. That means that while we scaled the recipes to 8 servings, we did not convert to teaspoons or cups. This assures us that the recipes are tight and sound because we have made each of them a thousand or more times. Equally important is the fact that every single finished dish is pictured in the book. I always find it frustrating to read a great recipe and then not see the finished product. I understand that usually cost factors into showing only a portion of the recipes in picture form, but we decided that we had to take pictures of everything and we did.
I also think because the creative team involved in making the book is the same that has made Alinea what it is, the "feel" of the book exemplifies that of the restaurant. This is truly important when taking on a project of this scope, the hope is that the reader felt an Alinea experience without dining here. We wanted the book to capture the essence, the spirit of the restaurant, and I think we accomplished that. Many cookbooks set out to simply highlight recipes, we wanted more.
Amazon.com: When you started developing the book, did you have other cookbook models in mind? How did you want yours to be different?
Achatz: We wanted the book to mirror the restaurant and its philosophy in a consistent manner. We looked at various other books to set different bars--one for the aesthetic, one for the quality of the printing, others for their clarity in recipes--then we decided what we didn't like in other books and went about finding solutions. For example, giant ingredient lists at the top of a page are often frustrating when you begin to go through the recipe. So we eliminated the overall ingredient lists and placed the ingredients right next to the instructions on how to make that sub-recipe. We think that makes a ton of sense and simplifies making the recipes a great deal. We were encouraged by pretty much everyone to explain each and every dish in a header--something most books do--and realized that they all start sounding the same. At one point we started reading headers from ten different books and they were interchangeable. So we got rid of those and put the over-arching explanations and technique descriptions in the front.
Amazon.com: You designed a website to complement the cookbook. How do you hope cooks and chefs will use the site?
Achatz: Ideally a community forms where home cooks, professional chefs, and our staff can interact with each other as a community interested in pushing the culinary arts forward. By community, we mean an open exchange of ideas and encouragement. Now that we are done with the book and it is hitting stores and homes we are going to turn our attention back to the front of the Mosaic as well and start adding more content--videos, recipes, essays....
Amazon.com: Speaking of websites, how do you think "Alinea at Home" blogger Carol Blymire will fare? (She did make it through The French Laundry Cookbook…)
Achatz: We already have a section on the Mosaic where early buyers who gained access to preview recipes made dishes and posted their results--and they look fantastic! I think she will do quite well but will be forced to scale back in a few areas unless she makes this her full time job. And that is fine--we encourage ambitious amateurs to tackle the recipes by picking out key elements and making the dish their own.
Amazon.com: Since Alinea opened its doors three years ago, both you and your restaurant have earned the prestigious James Beard Award. Could you have envisioned this enormous success when you first started out?
Achatz: Our goal was to build the best restaurant in the country...that was our stated goal. Did I think we would get there? Is there such a thing? We push to refine and get better. We are certainly not the best restaurant to go to if you want a pizza. But within the high-end haute culinary world I think we compare well. I don't believe there is such a thing as "the best." But we strive for that ideal.
Amazon.com: Molecular gastronomy is something of a vogue classification these days--do you think the food at Alinea fits this description, or is the high-tech aspect of your kitchen just one piece of the puzzle?
Achatz: It is a small piece of the puzzle. Questioning convention is the bigger piece. We do that with almost every dish…and with the book. Technology is used where necessary to achieve a specific goal for a specific dish. As we say in the front of the book, we create first and worry about technology second. At the end of the day, I am a cook.
Amazon.com: Does a "molecular" approach to cooking necessarily mean that you're working with greater precision and efficiency than you would if you were only using traditional methods?
Achatz: I believe that Herve This did not mean "molecular" in the sense of chemistry when he coined the term...regardless, our approach is to do everything with a sense of purpose. Does that mean we are a precise and efficient kitchen? Absolutely. But I don't know if using unique ingredients and techniques pushes us in that direction. I think, rather, it is a commitment to overall excellence that does that.
Amazon.com: In today's ever-competitive culinary landscape, is it possible to be both low-tech and genuinely innovative?
Achatz: Absolutely. High-tech for its own sake is a bad idea and results in a soulless cuisine. I have had some high-tech meals that fall flat and taste lousy. You can certainly be innovative with just ingredients, a knife, and a pan over heat. But why not do both if you have the inclination, desire, and ability?
Amazon.com: What advice do you have for home cooks who want to experiment with your style of cooking? Is there a technique or ingredient that's versatile enough to be a useful entry point for the uninitiated?
Achatz: You know, none of it is really that difficult to execute. It is just very time consuming as there are usually a great many mise en place requirements. So I would advise that they start with the dishes that are small in scope and build up from there.
Amazon.com: What do you enjoy most about the process of building a new recipe?
Achatz: Discovering a combination that is both unexpected and delicious. It is remarkable to me when we hit upon something that seems incredibly novel at first only to think at the end at how obvious it was--like it was sitting there just waiting to happen.
Amazon.com: What are the challenges (and, conversely, the triumphs) for your staff in serving the Alinea menu?
Achatz: We work hard with our service team to remain approachable and to have fun with the guests. The meal should be enjoyable, but there is a great deal of information that needs to get passed to the guest to maximize their enjoyment. So we work to do that in a way that doesn't sound like a lecture or a rote script. So the staff needs to find a balance between giving descriptions and keeping the evening rolling along. Most of the time they are good at reading a table to find out what kind of experience a group wants and then tailoring their service to that table. We can do formal Michelin 3-star European service, and we can do a really smooth but toned-down relaxed style. Ultimately, we have a group of people in the front of house that love the restaurant and believe passionately in what we do--and as long as that shows through above all else,the guests will be well served.
Amazon.com: What's the most gratifying presentation you've created for a dish? Is it featured in the book?
Achatz: Again, this is like asking a parent to single out their favorite child. Impossible. I enjoy the Hot Potato–Cold Potato. I think it shows the collaboration between Martin (Kastner) and I. It exemplifies the whimsy, the function, interaction, and engagement we utilize in our dishes.
Amazon.com: Do you take in the occasional Chicago hot dog, or are your local food pleasures more quirky?
Achatz: Pot Belly's Sandwich Works is always a good call. I like pizzas, hot dogs, quintessential Chicago diners. I am not a food snob.
Amazon.com: In the book you talk about how food is as much an emotional experience as a physical one. Do you have a favorite food memory?
Achatz: I have many great food memories. The first meal at the French Laundry always lands near the top. I credit that experience with opening my eyes to the creativity of food, and establishing my relationship with my mentor Thomas Keller.
Amazon.com: Jeffrey Steingarten was frank about his initial hesitation to eat at Alinea, wondering if he would "get" your food. What's your advice to diners who may not understand what you’re trying to do at Alinea, or who may find it intimidating?
Achatz: Try it. Really, there is no other way. I often read comments on the web or in the press about our dining experience or food from people whom I know have not eaten at the restaurant. How can they know without trying? 95% of our guests come down to the kitchen at the end of the night and the look on their face tells me that they had a great experience. So I would tell anyone--young, old, from any part of the world--come try Alinea...there is a 95% chance you will "get" it.
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