BAKR Story Time: Alinea Three Michelin Star Cookie Dough Collaboration
Alinea is one of the BEST restaurants in the entire United States, one of just thirteen 3 Michelin star restaurants in the country, and until this year, the ONLY 3 Michelin starred restaurant in Chicago (congrats to the Smyth, absolutely well deserved!). Climbing all the way to its peak of the 15th best restaurant in the world in 2016, Alinea continues to reign supreme against the best of the best in the restaurant and hospitality biz…always pushing the boundaries of food, progressing the limits of gastronomy, and elevating fine dining to new heights.
My husband and I are not fine dining food critics by any stretch of the imagination; however, we are foodies through and through, choose experiences over things, and are lovers of all things creative. Although we are not food critics, we are very critical of the food and recipes we make at home, and especially like to evaluate restaurants we go out to eat at. We LOVE dining out – it is one of our sources of entertainment…so much so, we have gone as far as to create an entire google map, categorized by style of food (hit me up if you want access!). It is an entire map dedicated to tracking our restaurant “hit list” and of course accompanied with notes for all of our favorite dishes from places we have tried. Yeah…you could say we love food…lol. Both of us also appreciate learning about and hearing from best of the best, masters of their craft. We have watched all of Chef’s Table and have watched the Grant Achatz episode multiple times as he was one of our favorites and one of the most accessible 3 Michelin Star restaurants around, being right in Chicago.
We absolutely do not frequent 3 Michelin star restaurants – this was our first experience with any Michelin tasting menu. We also no means have a knack for fine dining, nor the budget to support anything but a once in a lifetime celebration such as this. In fact, we have never been to any Michelin starred tasting menu experience before, let alone a 3 Michelin Star joint. Our first experience with Kasama’s Brunch, which is a one-star Michelin joint close by in Chicago (you must check it out…a Pilipino hot spot for SUPER reasonably priced day-time grub). They also have a tasting menu, which is much more fine dining esque, but if you are looking for good food on a budget, the brunch is where it’s at! With that said, for our joint 30th birthdays, we had ALWAYS talked about going to 3 Michelin Star tasting menu, and…we pulled the trigger. We booked a reservation at Alinea to ring in a new decade and man ohh man…we were BLOWN. AWAY.
You talk about dinner and a show? My goodness were we entertained. You walk into the unassuming restaurant, and you are greeted by the most extravagantly designed dining room. I won’t go into many details, because I simply do not want to ruin the surprise, but prepare yourself to be amazed by just the ambiance alone. And then the food. Not only did we get 17 courses throughout the night (which really was like 25 unique plates), but we toured the kitchen throughout one of the courses and paired the meal with 6 glasses of wine (we had fun, lol). My husband’s parents also surprised us and it was incredible to experience that night out others that had the same love for food.
Every detail had such intent. The plates and dishes. The textures. The visual presentation. The smells. Of course, the taste. Course after course, and surprise after surprise, each moment kept you thinking…how could it get better than this? What could they possibly deliver in the next plate to make this any better. Yet, somehow…over the length of the evening, each plate, each bite, each moment seemingly was better than the last. It wasn’t until after the entire 4 hours of dining perfection was completed and we were able to pick our jaws up from the floor that we were able to make sense of what we just experienced. It’s safe to say, we all walked away with a newfound appreciation for everything we had heard, tasted, and experienced throughout the night and absolutely left with a newfound appreciation for food.
Listen. This experience is not cheap, but I would go as far to say I would PERSONALLY comb through someone’s finances to find the spare money laying around to have a night like this. It was like seeing an artist painting a once in a generation masterpiece or a pitcher throwing a perfect game…a true master class in food, with every dish exuding the level of craftsmanship needed to earn even 1 star, let alone 3. Chef Grant Achatz and his entire team are true masters of hospitality and entertainment, and that experience was second to none. All of this was taking place while my husband and I were just starting our cookie dough brand. In fact, the day after our meal with Alinea, we were right back in the kitchen scooping dough and reminiscing for the entire 13 hour-long production day about how incredible the night was.
Now…fast forward 2 months. We are in full swing with BAKR and had a rare Saturday morning to ourselves before an entrepreneur event in the evening. I went for a run on our favorite trail by our house (the 606) in Bucktown - a great neighborhood in downtown Chicago; while my husband was working out at home. We were generally just going through our days - I was chatting with my mom on my way back, my phone is buzzing up a storm.
Text from my husband (Kyle): “Did you see the email we just got? Someone wants 3,000 cookies?!” (Mind you, our capacity at this time in a 13-hour day was 2,000…thank goodness we can make more now!)
Alexa: “What?! How did they even find us? 3,000 is a lot of cookies, we should talk about it.”
Kyle (10 minutes later): “HOLY SH*T, DID YOU SEE WHO IT WAS FOR?!”
MISSED CALL
MISSED CALL
MISSED CALL
Kyle (5 minutes later to a family group chat): “OHH MY GOD…ALINEA JUST EMAILED US ABOUT OUR COOKIES.”
Meanwhile, I am still on my phone about to walk into my house. I tell my mom I love her and walk into the door and Kyle is FREAKING OUT. He tells me the news and we are at a loss for words. The restaurant we COULD NOT stop raving about, wanted our cookies. As part of THEIR Thanksgiving box for THEIR 3 Michelin Star customers, alongside the food prepared by Grant *FREAKING* Achatz and some of the best chefs in the world. To say we were radiating joy was an understatement. Of course, there was the elephant in the room…how we were going to make the dough, but all we could think about is how excited and incredibly grateful we were for the opportunity to put our dough alongside some of the best food we have ever had in our lives…and we were ready to do whatever we needed to do to make it happen. We were OVER. THE. MOON.
I spare you the details of my exchange with their operations team, but 3,000 quickly turned to 4,200 cookies and not a week later I was meeting them for coffee and finalizing the details of our collaboration to be in their Alinea at Home Thanksgiving Box. It turns out they found us from me winning a shared kitchen and my food incubator, the Hatchery, posting about us on Instagram. And that was that…BAKR – the company that was just 4 months old at the time was partnering with a world class fine dining restaurant…something we had dreamed about, happening seemingly overnight.
We got to work on ordering ingredients for a busy production day a few weeks later. We were so blessed to have my husband’s parents help for a full day of production. Remember that 2,000 a day number from earlier? Well, with 4 people, we thought…no problem, we can knock out scooping and bagging all in a day’s work. My husband and I showed up to the Hatchery at 5 AM, bright and early with our coffee in hand (duh).
We whipped up 12 batches in our 30-quart mixer and his parents showed up around 9 AM to help start to scoop. They were a god send, scooping almost 11 hours and I’d say close to 1,500 dough balls each. If you are reading this, Kevin and Sue, we love you more than you know and are so blessed to have you in our lives.
All in all, we spend 58 hours collectively preparing for the opportunity of a lifetime. We wrapped up the production day well into the midnight hour, froze the dough and delivered it to Alinea later that week. We were so grateful to even have the opportunity to partner with Alinea, but they also were so generous in their own right, in providing 2 to-go boxes for us to enjoy with our family (my in-laws included, who absolutely deserved it after their production effort). To say we had a lot to be thankful for on Thanksgiving was an understatement. No surprise, the boxes were unbelievable and some of the best tasting Thanksgiving food we’ve ever had.
We whipped up everything:
The apps:
- Shrimp Cocktail – jumbo shrimp and the best tasting cocktail sauce I have ever hard…I don’t even really like shrimp or cocktail sauce and I would seriously drink their sauce through a straw. The shrimp were so fresh and it was the perfect starter for the day!
- Butternut Squash Soup with Date Mousse and Rye Chips – I have never had butternut squash and I have never even thought about adding a mousse to my soup, but this dish was the definition of balanced. Perfectly salty thanks to the rye chips (think the dark brown chips from Chex Mix!), a little bit sweet from the date mousse – all combined with the unbelievably creamy, light soup base. This was the surprise of all the apps.
- Baked Brie with Apple Cinnamon Compote and Bread – flakey, buttery, salty, sweet, gooey, tangy. I love brie and I loved this dish – apple compote was just the icing on the cheese here.
The Mains:
- Roasted Garlic and Sage Stuffing – wow…best stuffing ever. The chunks of bread and the combination of crunchy and soggy bits were unreal.
- Green Bean Casserole with Fried Onions – a classic. Can’t go wrong here, but the fresh cut green beans changed my life when I think about making this myself. Will never go back to the canned stuff.
- 50/50 Mashed Potatoes with Turkey Gravy – legit 50% fat and 50% potato. I think you could imagine how rich and succulent this dish was, but somehow, it didn’t overwhelm. But…of course it didn’t – it’s from a world class chef…lol.
- Cranberry and Orange Compote – honestly the only thing I didn’t care for. I prefer my cranberry sauce to be a bit sweeter and there was too much thyme going on here for me. I’m not complaining though…still would eat again.
The DESSERT:
- Achatz Pumpkin Pie with Homemade Whipped Cream – hats off to chef’s brother here. I don’t even like Pumpkin Pie like that and I ate a slice and could have went back for seconds if I didn’t feel like a beached whale from all the food lol. There were two entire pies too, which made for an incredible day after sweet treat.
- BAKR Brown Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies: To say we savored these a bit more after all the hard work we put into this partnership was the understatement of the century. I’m not here to sell you on our cookies, but these hit different on this particular occasion.
We cannot thank Alinea enough for including us in their offering for Thanksgiving. From time to time, we will have people come up to us and mention they tried it in the box and it was the highlight of their Thanksgiving or they were hooked as soon as they tried them. It overall was one of our favorite moments in our companies short history to date and one we will never forget. We cannot wait to continue to collaborate with some of the coolest brands and businesses out there and are so looking forward to everything that is in store for BAKR as we grow. We want to take the time to some some appreciation for everyone who has shown us support over the past year and THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts.
As Always, Happy Baking
Alexa
P.S. chase your dreams…it can be so, so stressful at times, but there are moments like this that make it all worth it. You never know what is in store for you as an entrepreneur, yet it has been my favorite time of my adult life. The long hours, the endless to-do list, working most nights and weekends on this silly idea that once was just a thought in my head. It is the best…just feeling sappy and emotional writing this and want you all to crush life, no matter what your goals are or how crazy your dream is.