I met an old and dear friend for dinner at Alinea on Wednesday; we'd snagged somebody else's cancelled reservation.
The food was remarkable. One course (a square of sous-vide venison surrounded by a bowl of steaming eucalyptus leaves) distinctly underperformed, and a couple of the last dishes (unfortunately including the truffle explosion), were overly salty (had Chef left the building?), but overall one of the best single meals that I have had in this country, probably the best.
Of course, you have to desire dining as theater, as performance, as well as remarkable food, to enjoy the experience. As my friend kept remarking, not wholly positively, you are forced to pay more attention to what's going on around you, and to put up with more interruptions, than one would otherwise. The deep calm that comes after a great meal with great wine at a fine restaurant with good friends (and/or loved ones) will not be found here. But the food does dazzle.
The wine, however, is a little more of a puzzle. Most patrons, rumor has it, go with the wine accompaniment, which is either 2/3 or 3/4 of the price of the meal (roughly $120-140). It accompanies some 21 courses--not a glass for each course (I think 6-8 total), but no one goes thirsty (they refill, if necessary), so in itself it is not a terrible deal. By most reports, however, the choices are not that distinguished, not bad...a lot of spanish reds, etc., but by no means in the league of the food.
Now, somewhat notoriously their wine list is not available online, nor, it seems (as I read in a thread elsewhere) will they fax or scan it for you, as some places do. Thus after our first two choices--a half bottle of the Billecart-Salmon Rose NV and a half of the Chateau Beaucastel white 2005 (both drank as we had hoped and expected)--we were faced with the following choice in Red Burgundy (we were going to drink much Bordeaux and Barolo the following night): 1) the 2002 Gros Frere and Soeur Vosne Romanee 1er Cru; 2) 2001 Vincent Girardin Chambertin-Clos de Beze, and 3) 2004 Jayer-Gilles Nuits St.-Georges "Les Hauts Poirets." These were all within $50 of one another, with the Girardin the most expensive of the three. (Of course, there were many other Red Burgs, but we had narrowed it down to these. Their list in Burgundy is fine, but, for the record, not nearly as good as the one at Tru, where we ended up having appetizers the next night.)
Now, I am very curious both what decision others would have made and whether anyone has recently drunk any of these wines.
For the record, the sommelier was pressing for the Gros Frere and Soeur, and, owing to the vintage and it being Vosne Romanee (the characteristic brightness and somewhat more red fruit character of which I thought would go better with the food than the Chambertin or the Nuits St Georges), I went with his suggestion. Whether shut down, or over the hill, the wine, when served, seemed to lack all fruit. Complexity there was, some articulated structure--tannins, to be sure, but also something a little herbal--but it was dry in the mouth and not at all fun to drink, as I informed the sommelier. To be fair, though it was not technically corked, they took it back and replaced it with my second choice (which really had been my first all along): the Chambertin. Fruit was to be found and some sauvage notes and definite size. Interesting. This one we didn't mind drinking, but it had no real structure that I could distinguish, the flavors simply blending and buzzing in the mouth. Perhaps it was just too young or maybe I had just tasted too many different things by then, but by no means would I call it great or even in the first rank.
Finally, I have never had a wine by Jayer-Gilles, and, in the end, given all that I have heard, I regret that we did not go with that (though both the year, but also the commune and level kept me from doing so).