Alinea
Located in a town house spitting distance from Achatz’s first employer, Charlie Trotter’s, Alinea is marked only by a valet’s sandwich board at the curb. The front door opens onto a dim trompe l’oeil hallway that narrows to a preposterously small alcove just past the main entrance. That swishes open on your left automatically, and unnervingly, as you hit some hidden motion sensor’s mark. A dining room and glass-walled kitchen share the first floor; up a set of glass stairs covered by metal-mesh mats are two more small, luxuriously spare dining rooms. Tables are set with white napkins atop small round steel-and-copper disks–and nothing else, until a waiter appears and deposits a large chunk of ginger root pierced by three long needles as a centerpiece.
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Porter’s Steakhouse
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Narra, 1710 Orrington, Evanston, 847-866-8700. Steak house in the Hotel Orrington with chefs Jacky Pluton and Eric Aubriot.
