Why Did Alinea Start With an Empty Table?

Nick Kokonas built the opening of Alinea on the concert Stop Making Sense. David Byrne walks out alone with a boombox, starts playing guitar, and the stage fills in around him. He then wears a bigger and bigger suit, so stagecraft makes him look smaller as the world around him grows. The meal was built to open the same way, on an empty stage.

Fancy restaurants cover a bad table with a tablecloth and lay out 18 different forks and knives. The pile is stressful for anyone who is not a 19th century French aristocrat, and a server still reprimands a guest over the fish fork. Alinea wanted tables worth seeing and feeling, and none of the silverware routine. A guest arrives to a bare table. Something lands with a callback saved for later: a honeycomb, or a piece that looks like a flower arrangement and hides edible things until hour two.

The details were intentional. Lots of restaurants do the same kind of service now, after Alinea and other places pushed the idea. The hard work was honing the small things that make a person feel something.