New Cutlery: The Alinea Project

In November of 2002 Grant Achatz, the chef/owner of Alinea, decided to pursue the development of service ware to support the cuisine they were producing. His desire was to produce service pieces based on function as the priority as opposed to aesthetics. Pieces would be built around the food, supporting the dish based on its characteristics. He realized, with Martin Kastner of Crucial Detail, that the service of food has remained basically the same for the last 200 years. Looking at how cuisine had developed in the last ten years they decided that they needed to support the food functionally and emotionally was crucial to the success of the cuisine itself.

This process was initiated by one dish; they wanted to present a frozen sucker of unusual flavors. The making of the actual dish seemed easy - basically pick a flavor -but finding the appropriate holder proved very difficult. It was this difficulty that forced them to entertain the thought of building their own.

Alinea Serviceware Evolution Page