On Thursday, July 9th 2015, 37 celebrated chefs from around the globe swapped restaurants for one night in a dining experience dubbed The Grand Gelinaz! Shuffle. In this worldwide musical chairs production, the chefs not only swapped restaurants, they swapped lives, residing in their colleagues’ homes, working with their staff, dining with their friends and families, and feeding their cats.

The Shuffle was sponsored by S. Pellegrino (you’ll notice that many of the participating chefs are also on the prestigious World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, sponsored by S.Pellegrino and Acqua Panna), and orchestrated by Gelinaz!, a collective made by chefs for chefs, whose mission is to explore the unknown by creating collaborations between chefs, artists, musicians, scientists, thinkers, and producers. As described by co-founder Andrea Petrini, “The line-up for this performance is a family of chefs, who take risk as a starting point, that are neither fearful of creativity, nor driven by ego, but are fueled by a desire to explore.”

Tickets for the event were sold based on what the usual tasting menu price would be at each restaurant (at the three participating Bay Area restaurants – Manresa, Coi, and Atelier Crenn – we’re talking upwards of $270 all in), which diners blindly paid for the chance of experiencing an 8-course menu crafted by the likes of Rene Redzepi, Massimo Bottura, Albert Adria, or Alain Ducasse, just to namedrop a few.