A Little Science – A Little Cooking – A Total Sensory Experience

minibar by Jose Andres

My much anticipated New Year’s Eve dinner was at minibar by josé andrés (http://www.minibarbyjoseandres.com/#), the Pièce de résistance restaurant (one of fifteen) of celebrity Washington, DC chef José Andrés http://www.joseandres.com/craft/restaurants). Chef Andrés won the 2011 James Beard Foundation Award, Best Chef for minibar by josé andrés and has won many other awards, accolades and articles of praise. Vanity Fair magazine featured minibar in their ‘Food Porn’ article (http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/01/minibar-chef-jose-andres-iphone-photos) and Bon Appétit magazine included minibar in its list of ‘The 11 Toughest Restaurant Reservations in the USA’ (article link no longer available). Chef Andrés’ is so masterful at his craft; he was asked to help instruct a culinary-physics course taught at Harvard University with famed Spanish chef Ferran Adrià. The course is designed to bridge a trend in recent years that elevates the culinary experience by combining cooking traditions and physics to create other-worldly palette pleasing delicacies. A 2010 Washington Post article described the course as “having a greater understanding of the physical parameters of food, students will learn how to manipulate them… All cooking, if you look at it, is soft-matter physics,” said Otger Campas, a Harvard research fellow and native of Barcelona, Spain who is helping design the course. “This is designed to create a dialogue between cooks and scientists.” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/23/AR2010032300718.html). I could go on about Chef Andrés’ talents and accolades, but I’d rather move-on to my own personal New Year’s Eve experience dining at minibar by josé andrés, so here it goes…

Arriving a few minutes early for our 9:00pm reservation, we were promptly and pleasantly greeted by a hostess and the marketing manager for minibar by josé andrés and barmini by josé andrés. Upon arrival, one is actually entering barmini, Chef Andrés’ innovative cocktail lounge adjacent to minibar “a hub of chef-driven libations that pays homage to the golden era of cocktails and forgotten techniques, barmini serves as José’s cocktail lab for all of his restaurants and projects” – a fitting accompaniment to minibar next-door… At barmini we were immediately offered one of the innovative cocktails while we waited to be seated for dinner – as tempting as it was, we opted for sparkling water as we had a long evening still ahead. An innovative cocktail from barmini is on the list for another time…

After a few minutes, a large door opened and we were greeted by a chef who directed us to our seats in the twelve person restaurant – you read that right, the entire restaurant can only accommodate twelve people in the half-moon bar-style dining space. Once we sat-down the head chef for the evening introduced himself and the six or seven sous chefs on hand. Then then the magic began!

Using tools you would expect to find in a lab, the chefs began preparing course one (1) of twenty-nine (29) in synch much like you would see in the performing arts. Half of the fun and excitement of the entire experience were the chefs themselves:  Being in a very intimate environment, so close to the preparation space, created a dramatic effect for the diner. And when the food came out, it was dramatic in its own right. The entire experience can be summed up as making an art out of the process of dinner:  From beginning preparations to consumption, the diner is a part of (or at least a close witness to) the entire process. And that is what makes the experience at minibar different than many of its counterpart dining establishments around the country; the diner is sitting right on top of the action and can watch the preparation of every course in its entirety. I found the food at Komi across town to be just as good as minibar, but the difference is the diner at Komi sits in a traditional dining room without any interaction with the kitchen, and it’s the close interaction with the kitchen that elevates the experience at minibar to a true delight of all the senses. I’m not a food critic, so I will not try to dissect all twenty-nine courses; my intention is to help convey the experience of the place. Rest assured that the food is world class and worthy of the reputation. My only complaint is that the wine pairings were not quite up to the level of the food itself. Wine service came with an additional fee on-top of the already hefty upcharge we were paying for the privilege of dining on New Year’s Eve (be prepared to spend around $500 per person, with wine, on a holiday like NYE), but I just couldn’t imagine not having wine with a meal like this, so it was a necessary cost for the total experience! I was just happy to have gotten reservations on what I assumed would be a very sought after night to have an experience like this. And what an experience the three-and-a-half hours ringing in the New Year turned out to be! It was just exactly the kind of New Year’s Eve experience I had hoped for and one that I will not soon forget.

Listed below are all the courses from my New Year’s Eve dining experience. The courses were broken into eleven (11) segments, or as I am referring to them, Acts in a play. Unfortunately, I lost all my pictures from this dining experience, so you will have to imagine how these plates look. They all looked like works of art!

ACT I

Hot and Cold Pisco Sour

Parmesan Canele

Pineapple Shortbread

Pizza Margarita

ACT II

Pressed Flowers

Almond Tart with Blue Cheese

Rubber Ducky

Beef Tendon Churro

Waldorf Salad

 

ACT III

Late-Night Chicken Shawarma

ACT IV

Iberico Sea Urchin

ACT V

Coconut Cuttlefish

ACT VI

Beech Mushroom Papillot with Truffle

Spiny Lobster

ACT VII

Abalone and Pear

Fabes con Almejas

ACT VIII

Espardenyes with Bone Marrow and Caviar

Squab Hay

ACT IX

Bonne Bouche Cheese Puff

Pine Snow

ACT X

Truffle Ice Cream Cake

After-Eight

ACT XI

Chocolate Box

Doughnuts

Raspberry Bon Bon

Thai Pocky Stick

Lemon-Mallow

PB and J

Boozy Bear