I have a date to go to Alinea in a few weeks, on the nickel of an old friend and his bride, who have done very well for themselves. Damn them. Anyway, I haven’t been back since it opened three years ago, but ever since the Alinea doorstop landed earlier this month I’ve been thinking more/again about the function(s) of fine dining. It’s a topic that just won’t die, and not just because I’ve been reduced to hoarding bartending tips in my underpants drawer (seriously). My thoughts may have evolved a lot since I first stumbled into Charlie Trotter’s seven years ago, but I guess I still believe the aesthetic and ethical questions high-end cooking at the level of a Trotter’s or an Alinea raises are both fascinating and weirdly relevant.

All of which is to say, I don’t actually have anything more to say about it right now. But this snippet, from Mark McClusky‘s contribution to the “cookbook,”  has been rattling around in the brain pan.

“No one comes to a restaurant like Alinea simply to satisfy his or her hunger. You come to eat at Alinea to be removed from your daily life and surrender yourself to an experience that is managed down to the smallest detail. It’s theater you can eat.”

Elsewhere, in kitchen-theater news: Alinea at Home has launched.