TOC's Julia Kramer Gives Next Five Stars, Says Chicago in 2011 is Lucky

In one of the most-balanced reviews we've seen so far, Time Out Chicago's Julia Kramer awards Next with five stars. She comes at the experience with honesty, humor, guilt and a realistic sense of what Grant Achatz and Dave Beran are trying to achieve with the restaurant that will morph every three months.

Kramer points out what she loved ("tender, faintly grassy, perfectly cooked and seasoned slices of lamb"); what she didn't (the diamond-shaped chicken: "If you turn the plate 90 degrees from how the server sets it down, it looks like a happy face ... this was just about the only exciting part of this dish"); and that she wouldn't want to travel back to 1906 ("That night, I stayed in 2011 Chicago, and I felt no city in no other year could be luckier.")

We'd like to see what she says when Next experiments with Thai food.
· Restaurant Review: Next [TOC]

Next dining room [Photo: Martha Williams/TOC]