I think of pairing drinks with dishes like this…

In a “wine/food” pairing, the wine (as far as the restaurant is concerned) is simply a finished product they are adding to the dish, much as they might us a particular type of lettuce in a salad.

In a “cocktail/food” pairing, the cocktail is essentially being a “side dish” in it’s own right, with full creative/culinary control in the hands of the restaurant.

This type of pairing can be both more difficult (because the flavors involved are more dynamic/unusual), but also full of hidden creative potential because the chef is able to make adjustments in either “dish” in order to fine-tune their compatibility, something you can’t do with wine.

Licorous, a bar here in Seattle, has a wonderful cocktail/food pairing menu in which they serve an “amuse bouche” size of their normal appetizers with a particular cocktail which they have chosen. It works really well, and is a popular item.

I recently had to create a cocktail pairing for a prix-fix meal at a restaurnat, and one of the courses was a choice between trout and beef (tournedos). While I could have selected two different cocktails, I chose instead to use one, which posed a difficult problem if you just focused on the meat being used. But by instead leveraging a slightly light profile drink, with a flavor which played well against the sauces being used, I was able to create a “martini-style” drink which I feel worked quite nicely.

-Robert

Actually the idea of a cocktail dinner (analogue of a winemaker dinner) is already long time spooking in my head! However I don’t know yet, how to make it to a star event…

I think it is a better to use another attempt as mentioned: create (or assign) cocktails and build the dishes around…

Additional to say is, that I find it better to have snack sizes oppose to conventional dishes.