Dinner at Moto in One Word: Whoa.
My New Year gift from my wonderful boyfriend Evan was dinner at Moto, the well known avant-garde restaurant/laboratory in Chicago’s West Loop/Meat Packing district.
I can’t really begin to emphasize enough what an amazing experience this was, full of “I have no idea what this is going to taste like” to “this dish is like The Jetsons” exclamations. Moto provided the most mind-bending and playful dinner I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating.
(Please excuse the poor quality phone photos. I didn’t want to be “that guy” and take photos of the food, so I didn’t bring a DSLR. However, some dishes were so phenomenal I had to take a shot.)
(This was a version of shrimp cocktail, and what remains is the tail sitting in a citrus emulsion, with torn bits of the edible cocktail-sauce flavored menu.)
When it comes to the food, it wasn’t all style- there was serious substance, flavor, and quality to each bite. There was nothing that I did not like (though I will say, these guys know how to salt a dish!), and the progression of flavor in each singular dish was extraordinary. For example, the Nose-To-Tail was a pork-six-ways dish, starting with a succulent piece of sweet pineapple ham, then soft pork belly, then a flavor explosion of crispy, crunchy, salty shredded pig ears. Whoa, climax. Then, it softened again, with a confit of coconut pork shoulder, followed by a textural awakening with crispy pig skin, then a lean, delicate finish of pork loin in a sake sauce. I loved that it wasn’t a straight build up to texture, body, or temperature, but was more like a rollercoaster. Up, down, up again. I found many of their dishes did that with temperature as well, with cold, smoky sorbets or nitrogen frozen elements that played so well with the hot main item like quail breast or Cuban ham. It was all very yin-yang and balanced, but always kept us guessing and yearning for more.
The desserts (of which there were five) were all incredible as well, with the ACME Bomb finale (chocolate ball with a marshmallow wick which was lit, then when it fizzled out, i popped it into my mouth where it exploded with sweet deliciousness).
This is absolutely stunning art-as-food that is ahead of its time. No wonder these chefs give TEDtalks.
The infamous ‘Cuban Cigars’ sandwiches at Moto, smoking in a nitrogen-frozen haze of black and white sesame seed ash. Behind, a candle is lit but will serve as a rosemary-infused emulsion to be poured on my Beef Bourguignon a few courses later.
(The further into the pairing progressions, the more abstract both my thoughts and my handwriting became.)
My favourite pairings included:
- Dr Pauly ‘08 Bernkasteler Badstube kabinett with the crispy pig ears portion of the ‘Nose to Tail’ pork-six-ways dish. A perfect combination of salty and sweet.
- Billecart-Salmon reserve Champagne with the ‘Black and White’, which included crispy leeks and celery root puree infused with salty squid ink with scallops.
- Dme Anne Gros & Jean Tollot ‘Les Fontanilles’ Minervois with foraged mushrooms, salsify chips, and earthy vegetables.
- Saintsbury ‘Brown Ranch’ Carneros Pinot Noir with quail breast poached in butter with smoked apple sorbet.
- La Spinetta Biancospino Moscato d’Asti with the ‘egg drop soup’ (which was a sweet dessert with encapsulated mango).
Seriously. Go to Moto. Now. Spend the money. It is an incredible experience with the most wonderfully skilled, knowledgeable team of sommelier-captains I have ever met (outside of maybe Charlie Trotter).
We even got a chance at the end of the three-and-a-half-hour dinner to explore the downstairs lab and kitchen, which was as pristine and mysterious as the food itself.
Words aren’t enough to describe the experience. We were blown away. And I learned a very valuable lesson: always play with your food.
