On Monday night, the folks at Three Floyds Brewery killed it — dinner that is.
Ukrainian Village brewer Nick Floyd successfully converted his namesake brewery into a fine-dining joint called Dorsia — which for one night only was, well, a restaurant to die for.
“Top Chef” alum Edward Lee, a consulting chef at Three Floyds brewpub in Munster, Ind., plated a sexy and violent culinary adaptation of the cult classic horror film, "American Psycho."
Dorsia is the name of the fictional restaurant where serial killer Patrick Bateman, played by Christian Bale, took his drugged-out victims before brutally murdering them.
Themed brewpub dinners are all the rage as the craft brew industry continues to explode. But Nick Floyd and his band of merry brewers wanted to host one that followed the company’s mantra, “It’s not normal.”
“Instead of a boring beer dinner with light beers and light fare that’s riddled with speeches that crescendo into a huge pat on the back for brewers and chefs, we wanted to do something bizarre,” Floyd said. “We copied the infamous nonexistent restaurant from 'American Psycho' that we always made fun of but also wished we could have gone to, Dorsia.”
The event sold out in a day.
“I was shocked,” Floyd said. “And before anyone arrived, I thought it would be too much and people wouldn’t embrace the idea.”
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
The dinner guests came dressed in '80s business glam complete with side-pony tails, crimped hair and tiger-print T-shirts. A few diners took date night at Dorsia to the extreme.
Veteran beer geek and foodie Steve Patterson showed up for dinner with his wife wearing a Patrick Bateman-inspired suit complete with a red power tie and red suspenders covered by a clear plastic parka and accessorized with vintage headphones.
“I wanted to go with a look that would give people an idea of Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction. Maybe it was the headphones and Robert Palmer tape that did it,” Patterson said. “I won’t wear that outfit again. Not unless I’m returning videotapes.”
Floyd was so impressed that he honored Patterson’s “not normal” fashion choice with a limited edition Three Floyds Dorsia T-shirt by graphic designer Jim Zimmer.
As "American Psycho" played on big-screen TVs, Three Floyds’ tattooed staff, dressed up in '80s gear, served up Lee’s tasty offerings matched with Three Floyds brew, including Dorsia, a full-bodied amber ale made special for the night.
The beer and horror fans dined on decadent small plate courses perfectly splattered with blood reds and crime-scene tape yellows.
The six-course supper opened with a raw starter — beef tartar with buckwheat pancake, fried nori, beets and kimchi.
The main course — a seven-day aged duck breast atop fermented raspberry coulis and carbonated raspberries — made blood splatter delicious.
Oh, and the octopus bacon. Who knew?
Lee ended the night with a glorious dessert — cherry balsamic ice cream, toasted marshmallow, cherry chutney, hopped vanilla wafers and bourbon chocolate ganache served with Three Floyds’ blood-thick barley wine, DeLorean.
There was so much beer flowing that a bathroom break (or two) was certainly required and, as you might expect, the john, had undergone what looked like a post-massacre makeover to further accentuate the beer dinner’s murderous theme.
“I was shocked. Most of the people who came loved the movie and showed it by dressing up, and they were beer geeks,” Floyd said. “I was happily surprised. … So look for another themed Three Floyds dinner in the future.”
And whatever theme Floyd picks next, you can count on this: It won’t be normal.
