It all started one day in 2008, when Chicago based photographer Allen Hemberger went inside an Alinea Restaurant (Yes, it is technically a restaurant, even though they insist that it “is not a restaurant… at least not in the conventional sense.”) and for the first time tried their menu. He got overwhelmed by the whole experience of it, from how unique the way the food are served, to how their food should be eaten, and of course, the surprising good taste of it that you won’t get from any other “normal restaurant.” That probably is a factor why it is considered as one of the best restaurants in the world. After that experience, he decided to get a copy of chef Grant Achatz’ Alinea cookbook which has over 100 recipes of the Alinea’s menu so that he could re-create all of it.
Allen is not the first person to do it, but what’s different is that as a professional photographer, he decided to document the whole project and create a photo book about the whole experience. He even created a successful Kickstarter campaign, The Alinea Project, to fund most of the project.
© allenhemberger
The Kickstarter campaign not only gave him the fund he needed, but also the attention of filmmaker Dan Addelson, who contacted Allen and his wife Sarah, to talk about documenting the project on film too. They both agreed. So Dan flew to Chicago to spend some days with Allen and Sarah while creating the short film. You can watch the short film below:
