One Night, the Ultimate Feast in Chicago..

We have been in Philadelphia for three years and we'll be returning back for a wedding in August. Before the wedding night we have one day we'll be checking out Hot Dougs for lunch but haven't decided where we'll go for dinner. Some choices we came up with are: Avec, Blackbird, Moto, and Alinea. Any recommendations for a great dinner in the city?

Way too many choices. Start with this list - viewtopic.php?f=28&t=20908

There's no way to answer this without more clues as to what you'd find the ultimate experience, personally. Everything you name would be very good, most are very different.

Blackbird is WAY overrated.

jpo wrote:Blackbird is WAY overrated.

Why do you think that?

Some information that might be useful: price range, types of cuisine you like, what kind of atmosphere/service is important to you, what types of cuisine are you looking to explore, where you are/what kind of transportation you're using.

Threads on those specific restaurants: most of them are mentioned several times, if you do a search you will come up with even more information:

Avec (I took the liberty of jumping you to a more recent post with photos, since the original pictures are gone)
Blackbird
Alinea
Moto

jpo wrote:
Blackbird is WAY overrated.


Why do you think that?


I've only been there once, but my husband has been there twice, and we have both found the food to be pleasant and nicely done - and that's it. Nothing memorable. Not worth the money. It's funny how I always see Blackbird lauded in the posts, but all my friends who have been there are lukewarm about it. I liked Avec much more.

I would definitely recommend Avec. My friend and I went there after work on a Fri. a month or so ago. We got there around 6:00 and had to wait for about 20 minutes. It was already jumping! We opted to sit at the bar, which was a lot of fun, since we could watch the chefs in action.

We started out with the shaved brussel sprout salad with fennel, dill, parmesan, red onion and brown butter vinagrette. I was skeptical of the brown butter vinagrette, but the salad turned out to be crunchy, tangy , slightly rich and all around delicious. Next, we had the chorizo-stuffed bacon-wrapped dates with piquillo-pepper tomato sauce. The chorizo packed some heat, which complimented the sweetness of the dates and sauce beautifully. I had a Jamie-from-Top-Chef-Season-5 moment, because I kept exclaiming, 'These dates are HUGE!' over and over again. We finished off the savory part of our dinner with the roasted monkfish with tomato-braised chickpeas, a true winner. The monkfish was mild and juicy and I loved the addition of the chickpeas.

For dessert, we shared the chocolate shavings - just 'meh', nothing to die for. I could've shaved up some high-quality chocolate myself. But then we got to the buttery ricotta cheese pound cake, which made up for the chocolate course.

We topped off our meal with a few carafes of wine and very friendly and attentive service from the chef behind the bar. I really enjoyed the casual/boisterous atmosphere. All in all, a great experience!

Without knowing what the OP actually means by saying "ultimate feast", and just going by my own personal choice, I will say Alinea hands down, no ands, if, buts.

Good luck and have fun!

jpo wrote:Blackbird is WAY overrated.

I disagree.

fusionfan wrote:Without knowing what the OP actually means by saying "ultimate feast", and just going by my own personal choice, I will say Alinea hands down, no ands, if, buts.

I agree. In fact, I'm surprised the opening post hasn't sparked a whole lot of agreement on that point. Heck, Gourmet named Alinea the best restaurant in the country, and Restaurant magazine recently named it one of the ten best restaurants in the world (topped in this country only by Per Se in New York).

There are several highly descriptive topics about Alinea on this board. However, there are two things I think are often overlooked by those descriptions. First, dinner there is tremendous FUN. Second, everything they serve is not only creative, but STRIKINGLY DELICIOUS.

There are a lot of restaurants in Chicago where you can get an excellent meal, from haute cuisine to cheap eats, from ethnic to conventional. However, for the "ultimate feast", only one place can be the best of the best, the best place in town. In Chicago, that's Alinea.