Who has been?

BF and I are going on May 1 for our Farewell Chicago dinner - we're moving to NYC later in the month. Friends of mine who have been there uniformly say it was the best restaurant experience they've ever had.

If you've been there, what do you recommend? What should I know?

I went in January for the first time and loved it.

There's very little decisionmaking required -- there's only one menu -- so your only choice is in regard to beverages. If you're splurging on the dinner, go all of the way and get the wine pairing, too. (I think they'll do non-alcoholic matches as well, if you're not a drinker.)

Other than, I'd recommend that you NOT seek out pictures posted by other people prior to your dinner. Alinea deliberately does not give you a menu prior to your meal, so you can enjoy the element of surprise with each dish. I'd looked at pictures, so I knew what to expect in some cases (and was disappointed in others when we weren't served dishes that I'd admired in the photos).

It is the best dining experience I have ever had. I went on my birthday and it was also my a "farewell" to Chicago dinner, too.

There is only one menu. The wine pairing is about another 140$. My girlfriend and I both got the wine pairing, which in retrospect, we should have just "split" a single wine pairing, since we aren't that discriminate when it comes to quality wines.

Enjoy!

Best dinner I've ever had. Went for Valentine's Day 2008 and can still taste some of the dishes clearly. Been chasing that good of a dinner ever since like a drug addict chasing their first high. Have done similar type menu's at restaruants in Paris, Barcelona, NYC, etc and very little has come even close.

Headed to Next tonight. Very excited to see how that compares. #humblebrag

Chef Grant Achatz's family owns a successful pie company with stores in the metro Detroit area. Ask him for apple pie ala mode for dessert!

I'm excited for Alinea.

Haven't gotten my email for Next yet...fingers crossed I'll be able to try it before I move to NYC in June.

I'm pretty sure I signed up on the Next list the day it went online so I got pretty lucky. Got the email yesterday around 4pm. I feel very fortunate as I'm in a similar situation. I'm moving to Boston in 3 weeks and am travelling for work the next two, so not only was I able to make a reservation but I was able to get it for one of my last 14 nights left in Chicago. Good luck. Enjoy Alinea.

can we get a report on what you thought?

Overall thought it was very very good but not as good as Alinea. The only dish I wasn't crazy about was the turtle soup. Every other dish had at least one part of it that was absolutely amazing. The service was very similar to Alinea in that although it's a fancy place, it is not stuffy and the waiters will talk to you and joke around and stuff. They mentioned that they were not selling every table just yet to make sure they could handle the service properly. Wednesday went well and they took 10 more covers on Thursday. The cost with wine pairings for 2 was just over $350. If you have specific questions let me know.

Just got a 4-top for tomorrow night!

Congratulations. Enjoy...getting in feels like winning the lottery.

I'd gladly never visit Next if I could win the lottery instead.

So, my secret for getting in at Next was not to wait until they emailed. I went to the website and filled in my email to request a password, and they sent it. When I tried this last week, I just got an error saying that they weren't ready for me yet.

After getting the password and logging in, I added a credit card to my account to speed up checkout. This is one of the things they tell you to do, since any given opening probably has 500 people vying for it at the moment, and it goes to whomever gets it first.

I kept getting a "We're Sold Out" message, but I kept clicking Tickets on the top left every few seconds, on and off for an hour or so. Eventually they release new seats and you'll be presented with a calendar. Available dates are highlighted. Click a date, and it will load times.

Times are shown below the calendar. If you see a bunch of empty boxes, the time it was going to show was snatched by someone else. You'll want to click a price at the time and table size you want. They vary prices with time of day and day of week. My 7:15pm Saturday reservation was $108pp, but I saw a 9:30pm reservation on a Thursday for $70pp.

In any case, once you have selected the time you want, it holds the reservation for you for 8 or 9 minutes and you can then proceed in a more leisurely fashion to choose beverages and pay.

Check their Facebook page - they usually post when they release new seats, though by the time it's posted, if you're not already on the website trying for it you won't get it.

Yeah...my fiance said clicking around the website was pretty crazy. She just grabbed a time and hit enter before someone else could grab it. I happened to have signed up on the waiting list in the first day or two it was open after someone emailed me an article about it. I don't even remember what month it was. That was how I was able to get in last night.

I'm also heading to Alinea in early May. Wondering if there are any special considerations or requests I should be making. I'm assuming they are fine with me taking many, non-flash photos as well?

Emphasis on the non-flash photography. In the last couple of days there's been talk in the blog-o-sphere about Achatz chewing out a journalist who may or may not have been taking flash photos at Aviary.

They'll want to know any food allergies/sensitivities/dislikes, but other than that, no special issues that I can think of.