Alinea at Big Sky. Credit: Stephanie Lau

Alinea Comes to Big Sky for a Winter Residency

10 Minute read

14 Jan 2026

Devorah Lev-Tov

Journalist

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Part of the Alinea Group’s 20th Anniversary World Tour, the Montana stop marks the tour’s longest and final pop-up, shaped by mountain setting and seasonal cuisine.

The much-lauded Alinea Group, known for Chicago restaurants Alinea and Next and cocktail bars The Aviary and The Office, has spent the past nine months popping up around the globe as part of its 20th Anniversary World Tour. This winter, the tour brings M by The Alinea Group to Big Sky, Montana’s premier mountain ski destination, for a four-month restaurant residency that launched December 19, 2025, and runs through March 2026.

Beginning in March 2025, the Alinea Group staged pop-ups at Olmsted in Brooklyn, Faena in Miami, the Maybourne Beverly Hills, and Mandarin Oriental Tokyo. The Big Sky residency is the longest stop on the tour and also its final one.

Alinea, Reframed by the Mountains

Led by Chef Grant Achatz, the Alinea Group has spent two decades pushing the boundaries of fine dining through sourcing, storytelling, and immersive experiences. At Big Sky Resort, the restaurant pairs that artistry and precision with a Montana mountain sensibility, focusing on local cuisine and ingredients through an unmistakably Alinea lens. Each dish reflects its surroundings, shaped by winter terrain and grounded in regional sourcing.

“True luxury is finding the extraordinary in remote places, where a meal is not just served but discovered,” said Grant Achatz. “That is what we are building here in Big Sky, something rare, fleeting, and deeply connected to nature.”

Although the restaurant is temporary, you would never know it. From dramatic glass chandeliers suspended from the wooden ceiling to alpine inspired paintings and photography and the undulating copper behind the bar, the restaurant’s design by award-winning studio Fettle reflects a sense of exploration shaped by the surrounding landscape.

“M by The Alinea Group creates a space that embodies the pioneering spirit of discovery elevated to its highest form,” said Tom Parker, director and co-founder of Fettle. “We imagined Lewis and Clark discovering a hidden hot spring and pausing to savor wild bitterroot, golden currant, and native herbs that revealed new flavors and possibilities. The interiors capture that same sense of revelation, where every detail creates an atmosphere of refined indulgence born from the land itself.”

A Tasting Menu Shaped by Winter

At a preview held a few days before opening, dishes at M by Alinea ranged from vegetable forward to seafood and beef. The meal began deceptively simply with an Osetra caviar laden financier crowned with sliced almonds and a fermented blueberry jam hidden beneath. It was served alongside a warm Norland apple broth infused with spruce tips and finished with a frothy pine nut foam, immediately evoking the surrounding alpine forest.

From there, king crab from Alaska was served almost raw. A server explained that the team works with a special source to ensure the Aleutian crab is never frozen after it is caught. The crab was finished with a buttery popcorn jam that was as nostalgic as it was delicious.

Local trout arrived smoked in white birch bark and served with earthy garnet sweet potato and ruby grapefruit, an unexpected combination that added brightness and acidity.

A hearty highlight was a pasta filled with chestnuts and caramelized leeks, set atop a French onion style broth. The fanned out top of the large, singular pasta was torched until crisp, while the interior remained rich and full of flavor.

Next, a cart was wheeled tableside bearing a smoking hot iron, a reference to Montana ranchers’ iron forges. It was used to grill hen of the woods mushrooms set atop rosemary, perfuming the air with herbal and earthy aromas. The mushrooms were served with diced Asian pear poached in Madeira and brown butter, along with a chutney of mustard seed and Medjool dates smoked in bourbon barrels.

While guests were eating the mushroom course, a server circulated with a whole 14 day smoked Peking duck in cognac sauce, presenting it tableside before it was taken back to the kitchen to be sliced and plated. It returned as two slices of breast and a confit leg, accompanied by dried fruit, fig sauce, and a crisp fig leaf.

Before the final savory course, a palate cleanser of sorts arrived, though it was more funky than cleansing. A small scoop of pomegranate sorbet was made by burying a whole pomegranate in coals until it was caramelized. The resulting sorbet was deeply smoky with a tart finish and almost meaty in its richness. It was drizzled with bright green pistachio oil to cut through the acidity, then finished with shaved jameed, a Jordanian goat cheese.

Finally, a Montana Marble Ranch ribeye arrived as a single thick cut, paired with a red wine braised beef cheek wrapped in sweet onion and finished with bearnaise sauce for a striking presentation.

Dessert arrived as a deceptively simple looking ponderosa pine ice cream. It was made by submerging a burned pine log in sweet cream before churning it into ice cream, resulting in a pine flavor that was pronounced but not overpowering. The scoop sat atop Costa Rican coffee bean oil, black walnuts, and hazelnuts.

M by Alinea joins another chef led restaurant opening in Big Sky this season, Akira Back at the new One&Only Moonlight Basin resort, which opened in November. The upscale modern Japanese/Korean restaurant is led by chef Akira Back, who has restaurants around the world. Born in Seoul, Back is a former professional snowboarder who grew up in Colorado. The Big Sky outpost marks his first restaurant at a ski resort.

Both restaurants add to Big Sky’s growing profile, where Boyne Resorts has invested millions of dollars over the past decade in infrastructure, hospitality, and expanded offerings. The effort aims to position the small ski town among the country’s top luxury ski destinations, and it appears to be working.

14 Jan 2026