Wine Pairings at Moto?

Folks,

I am heading to Moto next week and based upon mixed overall reviews (compared to other awesome places,) I figure it will not be a fixture on my dining calendar so I will opt for the Grand Tour. (As a note, when I went to Alinea a few months back, I went with the smaller menu as I hope to go back from time to time.)

Anyway- since I will be doing the Grand Menu I was wondering what you guys thought about wine pairings. I generally avoid then due to my feeling that they are not a great value. However, with such an experimental menu I am considering them next week.

Thank you in advance- and thanks for all of your recommendations so far!

chico

I did the GTM at Moto with wine pairings and couldn't really imagine doing it any other way - the pairings are very well thought out and the menu is diverse enough I don't know what bottle(s) would work.

They do offer bottle service, so it's an option, but if/when I go again it's pairings all the way.

chrisch wrote:I did the GTM at Moto with wine pairings and couldn't really imagine doing it any other way - the pairings are very well thought out and the menu is diverse enough I don't know what bottle(s) would work.

They do offer bottle service, so it's an option, but if/when I go again it's pairings all the way.

agreed- pairings are the best here.

I have not yet eaten at Moto, however a good friend of mine has eaten there twice. First time with wine pairings and second time with non-alcoholic drink pairings. Her conclusion, wine pairings (which were not all wine by the way – I know at least one sake was served) were very good (but expensive) and non-alcoholic pairings were very unique and fun and went well with the food. For what it’s worth, maybe you should consider the non-alcoholic drink pairings.

I have done a 8-10 course meal with the wine pairing, as well as an LTH function (the Iron Chef beet dinner) also with the pairing. I suppose my reaction to Moto is, in general, just what Chef Cantu intends - I cannot say that there are any dishes I have had there that are among the best, most wonderful food I have ever had. On the other hand, pretty much every dish is memorable, and Moto would easily dominate the list of the most memorable dishes I have ever had.

So while it is expensive and not always as delicious as I would like, it is always great fun, and I will continue to go back. It also is always different, from the last time I went, and from anything else I have had. There are some similarities to Achatz work, but Moto is wild rock 'n roll to Achatz John Cage. Both innovative and different, but Moto is not so subdued

And I guess I still like to twist and shout.

The wine pairings were worthwhile. Because of the complex flavor profiles of the food, they favor crisp, pure flavors, relatively simple and light. No oak. No leathery, earthy barnyard blends. I have enjoyed some of the wines very much, but I think I would try the non-alcoholic pairings next time as that may allow a wider range of flavor profiles in the beverages. After a while, simple grape seems limiting.

On the other hand, don't miss the cocktails. Totally wacky in a very good way.

Kathryn Simpson, private event manager for Moto and Otom, shook my hand in late August with genuine warmth, at the LTH Otom dinner. "I hear from [happy_stomach] that you're considering Moto for your 5th wedding anniversary in October. Please do come. Get in touch with me a few weeks in advance and we'll set something up memorable for you."

The late summer and early fall were very busy; my wife started the schoolyear teaching a new grade, and music and work ramped up considerably for me. Our anniversary was upon us before we knew it, and by early last week all I had to show for it was an unconfirmed OpenTable reservation at Moto. In the summer, I had provided paragraphs on Vie, Schwa, Topolobampo, Moto, and Alinea to my bride, and while she did not like the pricepoints on the last two, we had settled on making a "tentative" reservation at the M and re-evaluating in late September. A serious followup discussion never occurred; early last week, we actually flirted with going out to Vie or May Street Market and then getting Oberweis, as we hadn't appropriately mentally prepared ourselves for molecular gastronomy. But since we had purposefully stayed in town to free up the budget by avoiding bed and breakfast rates and kenneling our pup, we stuck with the original plan, and I wrote Kathryn on just three days' warning to confirm. She responded with telepathic speed and calm and told us they were looking forward to hosting our anniversary.

I am predisposed to liking, even fawning over, celebrity chefs. I would like to have been baptized by Julia Child. I constantly and annoyingly imitate Rick Bayless when eating in Mexico. I had the blind good luck to share a bag of potato chips with Adria in Spain in 1999. I got chills looking at David Hammond's recent La Pasadita post, since I realized I sat in the same booth as Heston Blumenthal, one day later. I'm the same age as Chef Cantu, and after reading about the LTH raccoon dinner, wanted to make a poster of that plate for my office wall. Cost aside, Moto had been by far my first choice for making a unique memory with my wife, and once we decided to go through with the plan, I did unabashedly tell Kathryn that meeting Homaru Cantu would make our night, if he was around.

On arriving at the restaurant, Friday-night full and yet placid and relaxed, we were greeted like old friends, even before a note in our electronic reservation record made the host smile. With a brief nod to our table, we were taken directly behind the curtain at the rear of the restaurant, where a smiling Chef Cantu firmly clapped our arms. "Happy fifth anniversary. Will you join me downstairs?" With the kitchen lights dimmed, Chef pointed proudly but affectionately to each staff member with a laser pointer. "My sauciers. My garde-manger. There, my chef de cuisine, who does everything people give me credit for. These people are the best. Over there, the liquid nitrogen repository. So, you're with LTH? Great site. Great people. What do you two do? Any questions? Yeah, I've been experimenting with supercooling, but need to get the failure rate down. Everything needs to WORK, you know? I can't wait to send you some of our favorites. No raccoon tonight, sorry. Congratulations to you and really, thank you for choosing to celebrate with us."

Back at our table, we observed a neighbor couple hovering with arched eyebrows over their dessert simulacra of a Chicago-style hot dog. After dutifully eating our menus with an excellent deconstructed corn chowder, a waiter came by with a fog-seeping silver pot. "Frozen sesame oil for your ceviche," which appeared in a yin-yang ballet from the left and right sides of our table by two smiling black-clad servers.

"If you eat it fast enough, you can blow smoke rings from your nose."

Which we tried with some success.

Seeing just a few tantalizing mentions of the non-alcoholic drink pairings on this and other sites, I had asked Kathryn if they were always available, and our host confirmed that while not openly advertised, they had them ready for us. First though, would we accept a house-favorite 1989 Veuve Clicquot Grand Dame?

After our first sip of champagne and nasal pyrotechnics, we moved to the matched beverage for the kajiki ceviche, which was a grapefrut rosé in a red wine glass. The citrus paired perfectly with the marlin-like fish and crisp nori sheet accompaniment. This synergetic hydration set the tone for clever, rewarding pairings which continued throughout the night and which I've chronicled separately below, my main reason for posting in this beverage-themed thread.

First, though, the food: as my wife communicated to my folks this weekend, "awesome." We didn't have one miss out of 13 courses. Far from being a string of goofy, gimmicky, ultra-small plates, we received generous portions, imaginative but logical flavor combinations, and just the right level of circuses, all delivered in a pleasantly self-deprecating way. Having seen the same ten course menu up online for months (while the five and GTMs did adjust slightly), I didn't know how seasonal it would be, or if I would be really surprised by anything. It turned out to be a resonant Indian summer experience, with plenty of delightful surprises, and based on what we saw at other tables and in other recent reviews, this particular menu has survived statically because of the quality and substance at this price level. Our courses after the menu-chowder and kajiki ceviche opener:

beet with bacon - a rarefied beet and goat cheese sorbet topped with micro-basil, on a plate strewn with crispy bacon cubes.

greek salad - a shooter of crystal-clear liquid with one dab of faint color in a tiny secondary pool on the liquid's surface. On the palate, this somehow turned into intense bursts of tomato, red onion, cucumber, lemon, and feta, some by molecular inclusion and some by association alone. Mystifying and delightful.

greek salad again - grilled octopus on greens and tangy feta aioli. Beautifully plated.

caramel apple with pork - not on the usual ten-course menu and slight variation from the recent GTM item, our poached, caramel-glazed apple halves sheltered a rich, stringy pork pot roast, consumed in Chef's famous "battleship" plates with a sage-entwined corkscrew fork and spoon. As happy_stomach mentioned elsewhere, the disorientation of not being able to see how your partner was attacking the dish was quite fun, and the vertical panel really helped elevate and concentrate the aroma of the herb.

bbq pork and baked beans - a happy union of Chinese and American Southern flavors, this was a beautifully marinated (and I believe sous-vide) pork medallion, its crown of delicate fat rubbed with a complex spice mix reminiscent of five-spice powder, served alongside ginger-infused collard greens and topped with buttery-crisp runner beans. We welcomed the hearty portion size of this central entree (and applauded the apple-pear soda pairing).

pasta and quail - a highball glass filled with freeze-dried elbow macaroni, cheese and butter powders, melted cheese sauce, and tender, moist quail morsels, chicken-fried. The overall dish had a wood-smoke aroma to balance the cheese, and we marveled at the creative reversal of using the pasta as the "crust" of the dish. I could have eaten a full cereal bowl of this.

fruit and bubbles - a fruit and cheese plate, described in detail in the drink pairing note. Like the kajiki opener, half of this plate was covered by a wafer, hiding the scented apples from view, and inviting you to read the plate like a book, starting at upper left with the carbonated watermelon.

2 and 3 dimensional truffle - palate-melting cotton candy paper and a mind-bending white-chocolate truffle filled with a supercooled cotton candy liquid that flooded the mouth with much more volume than could be expected of a sphere of that size.

flapjacks served tableside - another visitor from the GTM, your garden-variety syringe-ejected reconstituted pancake batter cooked on a liquid nitrogen stove and served over a brandy-barrel-cured maple syrup-filled soup spoon. Ho-hum. Our server-chef expertly handled the deep-frozen spatula without gloves, but alas, seemed embarassed by, and wouldn't let me eat, one very large and irregular frozen flapjack that escaped from the syringe.

raspberry and olive oil - somewhere between fruit leather and thick jam, a sticky twist of raspberry and olive oil which is draggable through, from right to left, raspberry-bitter chocolate ice cream balls, white chocolate-vanilla ice cream balls, and superfine graham cracker crumbs. My favorite dessert for texture variety, and the chaine-operatoire was evocative of an Eastern writing system.

pumpkin pie tamale - a perfectly seasonal and unshowy pumpkin tamale, solidly prepared and cooked in a corn husk, drizzled with sweet cream and caramel, and accompanied by a single cookies-and-cream packing peanut, which would have been quite addictive if available in quantity.


The only picture I took all night: enjoying the two and three dimensional truffles. The apple and pear soda is the low glass in the foreground.


Full paired beverage list ($50 per person)*

grapefrut rosé - strained, chilled pink citrus with mineral water served in a red wine glass. Semi-sweet.

mango and lime - thick, very sour, new green mango flavor, surprisingly and deliciously dry. Bit through the earthiness of the beets and bacon. Served in a white wine glass.

pineapple and yuzu - sweet, pulpy, lovely. An explosive pairing with the octopus on the second Greek salad course. Served high in a deep martini glass.

apple-pear club soda - chopped, skin-on bits of good ripe apple and pear, stirred into club soda with lots of chipped ice. Served in a large tumbler; lasted through many courses and just got better as elements melted together. Very autumnal. Matched the "Battleship" caramel-apple pork and the five-spice pork and beans nicely.

faux mojito - house-made sugarcane syrup and lime juice with strained muddled mint juice and topped with whole spearmint leaves. Served in a short-stemmed, deep flute. Medium sweet.

thai tea with thai-tea-and-cream pearls - in a deep snifter, beautifully aromatic, sweetened Thai tea, cooled by frozen ice cream balls of tea and cream which looked like white tapioca pearls but gradually dissolved into a suspension at the bottom of the snifter. Eye-opening pairing with the quail in the "mac and cheese."

faux ice wine - Moto's brandy-barrel aged maple syrup mixed with white grape juice in a chilled apertif glass. Ideal with the "fruit and cheese" course of carbonated watermelon, white chocolate-tempered gruyere, freeze-dried walnut crumbs, and vanilla bean and cinnamon-scented apple slices under an apple-vanilla puffed chip.

aloe fizz - milky, large-bubble carbonated aloe, medium sweet, in a champagne flute. Refreshing without coating, excellent with raspberry, olive oil, and graham cracker crumbs and with the pumpkin pie tamale.

apple champagne - poured over the dregs of the aloe fizz, excellently dry and amazing fresh fruit nose

*since we received three extra food courses, I'm not sure if the number or style of beverages is standard, nor if the non-alcoholic pairings come in three "sizes" and prices as with the wine pairings.

*****

I am convinced that we saw Moto in full bloom. Service, flavors, room ambience, music selections, imagination, lack of pretention, sense of humor, quality for price, special-event amenities, ingredient quality; everything was there. I saw no evidence of earlier-reported fussiness, upcharges (we had omnivore/vegetarian couples on either side and the staff was happy to oblige and excited to describe), or dishes 'missing.' The staff was engaging and enthusiastic, but quickly disappeared to allow guests to share and explore the sensations of the cuisine. Tables that did not have a prior connection or special arrangements with the staff or kitchen were having as indelibly memorable meals as we were. My expectations were high, and splurging for Moto is a somewhat self-fulfilling prophecy, but the special experiences Kathryn and the staff arranged for us, and the sheer delight of the food itself, made for a joy that surpassed preconception. The restaurant is firing on all supercooled, compressed-air cylinders, and I have LTH to thank for the recommendation, and for cultivating such a rich and rewarding relationship with a visionary young chef.

Thank you, Santander, for my favorite post of the year.

Seriously, what an excellent post. You definitely have a way of describing things well. My husband wants to spend a couple days in Chicago next month and I was wondering whether to consider Moto as a place to eat. You've definitely pushed it up to the top of the list for me.

I felt our experience at Otom was very friendly, though, and I'm pleased to hear you had an equally great experience at Moto.

Great post, Santander. Funny thing - I think my position on Moto has been stated before: great place, great time, always enjoyable if not always great tasting food - but despite the fact that I have had some of the dishes you posted on and not been transported, your words made me want to go try them again and see what I missed.

But then, to be clear, I do love Moto and Chef Cantu. Need to go back.