Next Restaurant
Fine dining restaurant · West Town
953 W Fulton Market, Chicago, IL 60607
Highlights
Themed tasting menus & inventive presentations from acclaimed chef Grant Achatz
Themed tasting menus & inventive presentations from acclaimed chef Grant Achatz
"Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas’ highly anticipated follow-up to Alinea arrived in 2011 amid much buzz for several reasons. First is its unique concept: the entire restaurant changes its theme every “season,” offering a completely new menu and design three times a year. Secondly, diners have to prepay upfront for the cost of the meal by purchasing tickets on Kokonas’s reservation system, Tock. Despite the massive expectations, the restaurant managed to live up to the hype and was deemed the Best New Restaurant in 2012. Former executive chef Dave Beran followed that up with a Best Chef: Great Lakes win in 2014, and his successor, Jenner Tomaska (who opened his own restaurant, Esmé, last year with his wife Katrina Bravo, another Alinea Group veteran), was nominated for 2018’s Rising Star Chef award. Kokonas has since left Alinea." - Naomi Waxman
"One of the group's remaining Fulton Market venues that leadership says will not be relocated, this restaurant is set to feature a 2026 menu partly informed by AI: the chef created a fictional persona named "Jill" in ChatGPT and used the output to develop recipes reflecting that character's influences. The venue has also been a launching pad for chefs who have gone on to open their own successful restaurants." - Ashok Selvam
"A restaurant known for its rotating themes, currently hosting a pop-up menu that pays homage to Charlie Trotter's culinary legacy, featuring dishes inspired by his work." - Ashok Selvam
"A restaurant in Chicago offering a special tribute menu to honor Charlie Trotter from September 8 to December 31, 2024, featuring dishes inspired by Trotter's legacy." - Michael He
"Put away any apprehensions about going to a tasting-menu restaurant for soup. Next Restaurant, the rotating concept from Alinea Group, is basing its menu around the food from Charlie Trotter, the influential Chicago chef whose Lincoln Park restaurant was a pioneer in the fine dining scene. Trotter’s featured a chilled heirloom tomato soup which became a favorite of Alinea’s Grant Achtaz. It’s made with an avocado coriander sorbet for a slightly creamy texture with perfect notes of acidity. It’s a sublime showstopper. The menu will last through December at Next." - Naomi Waxman, Ashok Selvam
