Recent Articles

A year ago

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Jul 1st, 2010 | 1 Comments

One year ago I woke up not feeling great. I had just returned from Los Angeles and a speaking date at the Dwell on Design Conference. I had arrived the morning before, after an overnight flight and flew headlong into a twelve-hour workday. As morning broke, a slight shiver crawled over my skin, which I [...]

In short order

Posted by Michael J Cirino on May 27th, 2010 | 0 Comments

Two weeks ago, I was standing in the kitchen at Alinea. It was the coldest day of the past 15 years and the beginning of my short stage, my brief glimpse into one of the best kitchens in the world.
One week ago, I was standing in a kitchen of apartment off Lake Shore. It was [...]

Heading West

Posted by Michael J Cirino on May 18th, 2010 | 0 Comments

We left Chicago exhausted but with a profound sense of accomplishment. We had lost Mayur to rug replacement and some kind of warranty battle with an ice cream maker and we made our way to the smaller of the city’s two airports. Excited by heading home and being able to get some Potbelly’s sandwiches and [...]

Eighty Percent

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Mar 29th, 2010 | 1 Comments

Driving through the brittle cold, we wove our way from our small sandwich haven to the bowels of Chicago to a brilliant little high end market that was our key dispensary for mousse de foie gras and a couple of other little baubles that we might be needing for our evenings adventure.
Parking was not an [...]

The Great Flood

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Feb 9th, 2010 | 1 Comments

Saturday morning started for me in a mid-priced hotel about a mile from the location of our dinner. It has been said that the best coffee shop in Chicago was right around the corner from us – this I cannot confirm or deny. Having entered bed well after 3:00am I was slow to rise when [...]

Friday Night in Chicago

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Feb 5th, 2010 | 0 Comments

Upon arriving in Chicago, on Thursday 21 January,  2009, we were a flurry of action, transforming our lovely host’s beautiful condo into a functioning kitchen and dining room. We were again blessed with a painful cold snap, which we used to our benefit by turning what was supposed to be a washer and dryer room [...]

From our town to Chi-town

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Feb 3rd, 2010 | 0 Comments

 
I departed Chicago a changed man, alive with new ideas, concepts and a much better grasp of what would be necessary to accomplish our next series of dinners in a fashion that would befitting the original hosts.
Our recreation dinners in Chicago would be our first attempts at performing such a high level of haute cuisine [...]

Stagiare

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Jan 22nd, 2010 | 1 Comments

So with an offhanded comment in a local New York publication inviting me to come and stage (intern in French pronounced with an AHGEE like mirage) at his restaurant, I found myself just a few days later speaking with Grant Achatz confirming the details for the few shorts days I would be spending in the [...]