Champagne houses will often fly VIPs around the world for blowout banquets celebrating new high-profile launches. Laurent-Perrier upped the ante recently with a 13-course feast at the Chicago restaurant Alinea. More than dinner, it was a tour de force of culinary prestidigitation—theater on the plate—complete with flaming cauldrons of salt and charcoal and a “truffle explosion,” all washed down with Laurent-Perrier.
Alinea is, of course, one of the world’s most celebrated avant-garde restaurants, a pioneer of the boundary-busting style of modern cooking sometimes known as molecular gastronomy. The three-Michelin-starred restaurant has been celebrating its twentieth birthday all year with special dinners in Chicago and pop-ups around the country. Laurent-Perrier joined forces with its chef, Grant Achatz, to introduce its innovative new Héritage Champagne, a unique blend of reserve wines with great tension on the palate, a beautiful mix of maturity and freshness.
Over dinner, Laurent Perrier’s chef de caves, Olivier Vigneron, and oenologist, Constance Deliare, talked through the 10 different cuvées, poured from large format bottles, that accompanied the restaurant’s most iconic dishes. With Achatz’s “Hot Potato, Cold Potato” (a tiny warm potato dropped into a shot glass of cold potato soup, in a two temperature sensation), his “Osetra” (presented in a trompe-l’oeil vessel that resembles the caviar), his “Balloon” (an edible green balloon filled with helium that floats to your table), there were vintage and non-vintage rosés, brut nature blanc de blancs, and of course, the new Héritage blend.
Like Alinea, Laurent-Perrier—a rare grand marque Champagne house that’s still family- owned—has always been at the forefront when it comes to innovation. In 1981, it became the first house to introduce an Ultra Brut Champagne, with zero dosage (or added sugar). Many other Champagne brands followed their lead, creating a hot new category. Héritage, its new release, builds on a long track record of blending prowess.
After Bernard de Nonancourt inherited Laurent-Perrier from his mother in 1948, he set out to create a new benchmark for vintage Champagne by mastering the fine art of blending. Eleven years later he launched Grand Siècle, Laurent-Perrier’s tête-de-cuvée (their top of the line), a blend of three exceptional vintages made with a majority of chardonnay and smaller portion of pinot noir from 11 Grand Cru villages. The cuvée ages 10 years on its lees, resulting in the tiniest, most refined bubbles. Héritage is Grand Siècle’s new little brother.
Our dinner ended on a high note—and a sweet note—with Laurent-Perrier’s lovely Harmony Demi-Sec, and Achatz’s show-stopping “Painted Table” dessert. The dish is an interactive one created live in the dining room, à la minute. It begins with servers pumping in chocolate-scented smoke, before a paper canvas is laid down before you. An energetic dance ensues, as chefs paint, spatter and swirl, creating an edible Jackson Pollock of chocolate and caramel, of scattered berries and crumbly cakes.
As Alinea’s twentieth-anniversary year draws to a close, after pop-ups in Brooklyn, Miami and Beverly Hills, the restaurant’s roadshow makes one final stop, with a month-long residency, running through most of October, at the Mandarin Oriental in Tokyo. Laurent-Perrier, I can attest, will make the perfect accompaniment for every course.
