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Slideshow: Take a Tour of 80s Childhood With Grant Achatz’s Next

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Sticking mostly to a palette of kid-approved flavors, Next Childhood was never going to be the most complex or exotic dinner in town. Instead it aims to be something rarer: charming. It offers a sweetly nostalgic tour of Midwestern childhood in the 80s (as the red LED-calculator logo indicates), which prompts delight and laughter as it rings sophisticated variations on the bedrock dining experiences of Baby Boomers and GenXers, from PB&J; to S’mores. Next’s most conceptual menu to date and the first to break free of following an existing cuisine, it’s a culinary Christmas morning with one present after another to open. As with presents, half the pleasure is anticipation, so while we’re sure plate by plate depictions will appear soon enough online, our slideshow tour of the menu’s third night is more of an impressionistic account which gives you the feeling of the evening without spoiling all of its surprises. Watch it below.

Slideshow: Take a Tour of 80s Childhood With Grant Achatz’s Next