The 21st Century Limited is Full Steam Ahead

Tonight is going to be the third dinner is a seriers of five; all part of the 21st Century Limited switch with Alinea and Eleven Madison Park.  Grant Achatz and his Chicago Alinea crew drove to town earlier this week and served their first dinner at Eleven Madison Park Wednesday night.  There's been people on Craigslist selling tickets to the affair and Pete Wells, who got to experience the $495 meal on Wednesday, describes in a Diner's Journal article how he bobbed for apples, littered the floor at Eleven Madison Park with dead leaves, and watched Achatz shatter a “Chocolate piñata” over a table he and EMP Chef Daniel Humm just painted to look like "a lost Abstract Expressionist canvas."  Wells goes on to write:

There is real magic happening at Eleven Madison Park.  The collaboration is a culinary first and those lucky enough to experience it are lucky enough to experience it.  Part of the multi-course menu includes urchin and driftwood, Scottish woodcock, pines hoots, huckleberries, and an edible helium filled balloon that tastes like green apple.  Grubstreet has pictures to prove it.  Dinner continues through Sunday.

Daniel Humm and Eleven Madison Park will pack up and make the drive westward for a five night stint at Alinea beginning October 10th.  Tickets have yet to go on sale for the EMP at Alinea portion of the 21st Century Limited.

The Train's Full

Tickets for the first half of the 21st Century Limited switch between Alinea and Eleven Madison Park went on sale Friday via the Limited's Facebook page and sold out in a matter of minutes.  From September 26th to the 30th, Grant Achatz and the team behind his Chicago restaurant Alinea will be cooking at Eleven Madison Park.

The event takes its name from the 20th Century Limited train, which ran passengers back and forth from Chicago to New York from 1902 to 1967.  The $495 ticket price includes a multi-course dinner, reserve wine pairing and, we're guessing, an assortment of flowers.  It was tradition to give men that rode the 20th Century Limited carnations and women flowers and perfume.

No mention yet as to when tickets will go on sale for October 10th to the 14th, when Alinea will host Daniel Humm and the Eleven Madison Park team in Chicago, but something tells us when they do they'll go fast.