Michael Cirino Stages in the Alinea Kitchen
Time Out New York gets the inside scoop on working in the kitchen at Alinea — via A Razor, A Shiny Knife's Michael Cirino, the guy behind the recreations of the Achatz-Keller dinners. How does Cirino know what it's like to buckle down in the Alinea kitchen? Achatz and the Alinea team invited him to stage.
In the first of a multipart series (quelle Dumas!), Cirino reveals the goings-on of the first two hours with wide eyes and a Bill Buford-esque attention to detail:
without warning it was 14:00—in Alinea parlance this means that everyone immediately stops what they are doing (literally) and cleans the entire workspace. The room was brutally scrubbed and the sheer force of action took me off guard. I have never witnessed this kind of militaristic rule over a team of people, and it was mind-blowing ... What I assumed at first was an uncomfortable break in the middle of prep was soon revealed to be the secret of Alinea’s success.
More to come (and be reblogged) tomorrow!
Update: Michael Cirino's second dispatch on the Alinea kitchen can be found by clicking here.
Inside Alinea: Part One [The Feed/TONY]
Alinea [MenuPages]
Alinea [Official Site]
[Photo: Alinea/Official Site]
By art on 02/05/2009 at 11:36 AM