Inspiration From the Culinary Industry: Recreating the Alinea Dessert Experience at Events

As a creative bunch, some of our fabulous ideas are often outlandish without a concrete method of execution. This is where our vendors, who are all connoisseurs in their own areas, come into play.  One such idea was inspired by Alinea Restaurant in Chicago.

We recently did an event where one of the client’s main goals was to increase opportunities for networking and interaction throughout the evening. We had been dying to replicate the famous chocolate dessert created at the esteemed Chicago based restaurant, Alinea, and saw this as the perfect opportunity. However, doing it for an event of 450 people was a serious undertaking. The dessert at Alinea begins with a silicon tablecloth; the chefs then create a stunning almost Picasso like artistic creation, transforming dots into squares with gel, a chocolate & honey explosion created with freeze dried blueberries scattered on the cloth. It’s almost impossible to describe, so check out the video online!

For our recreation, we were working with an amazing caterer who at first was unsure they could pull it off. Eventually, our encouragement pushed them to take on the challenge.

Not surprisingly, the caterer exceeded our expectations as well as our client’s. They went with a chocolate and cherries theme that included nitrogen poached cherry mousse, Belgian chocolate pate, crispy macaroons, and cherry vodka foam. It provided an opportunity for the guests to interact with each other as well as with the chefs creating the dessert and everyone had a ball! It tasted and looked amazing as you can see in the picture above.