awesome experience at Avenues last night

just needed to write a full report. pictures will be uploaded in a day or two, but the experience was just awesome.

Wifey and I did the entire 15-course repatoire menu. everything was done well. My particular favorites were the BLT (Bowles take on the basic salad) and the venison tartare which was just mindblowing. My wife's favorite were the BLT and the Scallops with pumkpin.

The service for the meal was outstanding, everything you would expect from a five-star restaurant.

But the best part of the entire meal were our seats. We sat at the kitchen table and spent most of the night just BSing with the staff including chef Bowles, who actually served and explained most of our dishes to us. He was the most approachable "celebrity chef" I have ever seen and you can tell just an overall good guy..

So they've reopened? That's good to know! I thought they were supposed to be closed all month.

The Lobby's renovation is all done?

yup, lobby looks great.

That might be the last awesome experience with Chef GEB at Avenues...
Things are a changing.

Graham Elliot Bowles, the award-winning chef de cuisine at Avenues, has resigned, and will leave the stellar restaurant in April...

Curtis Duffy will join the Peninsula team in March and will assume control of Avenues the following month...

Now we’ll tell you where he’s going. Bowles plans to open Graham Elliot Restaurant in River North’s gallery district sometime this year, perhaps as early as this summer.

http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/ ... tar-c.html

i'll be first in line at his new place. I wonder if Alex Martinez, his sous chef, is going with him.

We will have to plan an LTH dinner at Restaurant Graham Elliott once he is up and running. GEB has been a great friend of this board and we great admirers of him, but somehow it never seemed quite right to have an LTH event at the Peninsula.

I just wanted to reiterate how grateful I am for all of your support over the past few years at Avenues. I look forward to cooking for you all soon at Graham Elliot in the near future.

Congratulations, Chef! I look forward to hearing more as the project progresses.

Good luck Chef - I am sure your new place will be even more successsful than Avenues - if that is possible - which I am sure you will make happen!

Bill B.

Thanks for my best meal of 2007. I'm excited to hear that the new place is even closer to where I live. Can't wait to become regulars.