When planning my trip to Seattle, I ran across an article that talked about molecular cuisine techniques and Seattle restaurants. One of the restaurants mentioned was Mistral Kitchen. When I visited their website, I saw they had a couple of ways to dine – a la carte and a restaurant experience called The Jewel Box (I discovered later that they also had a Chef’s Counter experience, which I will discuss later). The Jewel box seating is a separate room in the restaurant with a quiet, more elegant setting. In that setting, they offer a couple of testing menu options only. Given my general dining objectives, I went for The Jewel Box, which was available as a separate entity for booking on OpenTable.com.
When I arrived, I was taken to a small alcove in the back of the restaurant that had two tables. It looked out on a relatively quiet part of the restaurant. However, it did not look like the pictures I had seen for The Jewel Box. My primary server (who handled my seating) said that originally, I was the only one who had booked a seat in The Jewel Box, and he thought it might be a little awkward being the only one in there, so they thought it was better to seat me out in the main restaurant (they subsequently seated two walk-ins in the Jewel Box).
My menu options were to have 4, 6, or 8 courses. I went with the longest menu. No preparations were described. The menu just listed the ingredients for the evening with which the chefs would feature during the meal.
For the full write-up, click here.
Adventures in Molecular Cuisine 