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In what may be the first time a music festival had a pop up by a Michelin-starred restaurant, Graham Elliot and his team set up multi-course dinners inside a VIP tent for the three days at Lollapalooza last weekend. The tent was stationed deep inside the backstage area near where the C3 Presents producers and Perry Farrell had his on-site compound.
The tent, created by local outfit Kehoe Designs, reportedly cost tens of thousands of dollars and was luxuriously outfitted with wood-paneled walls with paisley black and white fabric, hand-laid dark brown wood floors, three large chandeliers, leather chairs, taxidermy and even had five large LCD flat-screens streaming live sets from various stages in Grant Park.
The GE team, which included exec chef Merlin Verrier, would open up the bar at 11 a.m. daily and start serving canapes (watermelon gazpacho, summer fig, Carolina shrimp) around 3 p.m. They would cook for the headliners—Foo Fighters, Muse, etc., as well as Farrell and a bunch of celebs and professional athletes who were on hand.
Each night saw the team serving the rockers a three-course meal at a 30-person table made out of a huge slab of wood. Each night was different, but included dishes like the signature deconstructed Caesar salad, corn and spiny lobster bisque, tomato panzanella salad with baby arugula, king salmon with blis roe, local whitefish with a potato confit, Alaskan halibut with leek brandade and various desserts.
If all that wasn't enough, they also prepared a separate buffet-style dinner for Eminem and about 40 people on Saturday that included chicken parm, wagyu beef, fingerling potatoes, peach cobbler and more. Apparently Eminem also sampled the lobster corn dog GE was serving in the park and liked it so much he texted Dave Grohl to tell him he had to try one.
So while you were chowing down in Chow Town, this is how your favorite acts were dining in style over the three days of Lollapalooza:
