Moto

The paint was barely dry at Alinea before Homaro Cantu, a former sous-chef at Charlie Trotter's (see more)), opened his own culinary laboratory, Moto, in late 2004, out west of the Loop in the Fulton River district. Cantu's Asian-inspired food is even more whacked-out high tech than Achatz's—he does stuff like pumping carbonation into fruit so that it bubbles in your mouth, twining herbs into special patented forks that infuse herbal tastes into the food while you're eating, and printing his menu with food-based inks on edible soy paper so you can eat it once you've ordered.

Cantu's culinary wit makes dining at Moto a mind game as well as a meal. You may start out with a bowl of hot miso soup filled with globules of liquid-nitrogen-frozen egg, which bubble and smoke in the soup. A hot black resin box set on your table contains a piece of sea bass that starts cooking, to be eaten two courses later on. Cantu's version of surf and turf is a sliver of smoked salmon resting on a puddle of sea-salt foam, next to a composed pile of duck breast, duck confit, and foie gras (accompanied by an edible print of M. C. Escher's design in which a sky full of birds morphs into an ocean of fish). Bread crumbs surround a blob of grape gelatin that sheathes a dollop of peanut-butter cream—a deconstructed peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. "Nachos and cheese" turns out to be a dessert, with sweet chips of Mexican corn and flan, chocolate granulated to look like ground beef, and grated mango sprinkled on top like Monterey jack cheese.

It's also an interactive experience—diners are instructed to mix and match bites with contrasting flavors, to squeeze a bulb of liquid into their mouths before eating another ingredient, or to pour hot liquid onto something to watch it melt. To get the full three-ring circus, you can order the 20-course Grand Tour (close to $200—but cheaper than Alinea's), though there are also five-course and 10-course options. The dining room's spare black-and-white decor is even more minimalist than Alinea's, but then who needs dramatic decor, with so much entertainment right there on your plate?