Top Chef's Michael Voltaggio: Lost in Seattle

If you spend all your free time following chefs and food writers on Twitter (which, um, we totally don't do, by the way) you may have noticed an awful lot of big food names in Seattle last weekend.

There was David Chang, of course. Dana Cowin, editor of Food & Wine magazine flew in, shopping for honeydew vinegar at Chef Shop, and dining at Revel. The Zagats were here, as was Top Chef champ Mike Voltaggio who ate at Spring Hill and Spinasse and apparently got a little turned around while wandering the streets.

The reason? The first of several preview dinners for Nathan Myhrvold's Modernist Cuisine, a five-volume, $625 manifesto that's about to set the culinary folk of our entire nation (and beyond) aflutter upon its release next month. Serious Eats scribe J. Kenji Lopez-Alt (who visited Zig Zag during his stay) just posted a breathtaking slide show of all 30-plus courses. Dishes included fried pear and pickle chips, foie gras eggnog, and spaghetti noodles made from geoduck with a "bagne cauda based broth made from centrifuged brown butter and anchovies."