Avec?

ParkerS and I are headed to Avec today for some afterwork wine and eats. Any must-have wines or dishes? Thanks.

everyone seems to like the fig/chorizo/bacon dish; great with a carrafina of amarone or grenache. i had a fantastic beet and fresh moz salad; word on the street is that house made mozz is injected post-facto with heavy cream. it is, definitely, luscious. while i may be the biggest fan of octupus around, i found the long braised version here too heavy for my taste, although my mood was more sun drenched than slowcooked that day.

go early.

grilled chicory is a must have.

love the chicken thigh/bread salad and hangar steak from the small dish menu as well.

of all the main dishes, and i've had them all, the pork is most memorable.

enjoy,

afo

Terrence wrote: i had a fantastic beet and fresh moz salad; word on the street is that house made mozz is injected post-facto with heavy cream.

Unless they are describing it differently these days, there isn't any great secret to the cheese. It is burrata, a variant of mozzarella that is made by combining cream and fresh mozzarella curds.

I agree with you, it is quite nice.

Erik M.

I'm sure Abraus can pipe in here, but we hit Avec yesterday around 4:30, and it was great. We sat at the bar, and the bartender (i guess--more of a hostess/waitress/wine pourer) was terrific and offered us pours of wines we weren't sure we wanted to commit to. We were planning, I think, on getting more dishes than we did, but the cheese sort of ruined us.
For starters, we had the house salumi plate--comes on a wooden slab with five slices of five different kinds of meats, a thin, transparent cured pork loin, a pistachio-studded something or other (i don't know my cured meats that well), and some great other cured meats (sorry). The bread on the side comes out piping hot, as it is made all night by some guy, and it's a great white flour small loaf with sea salt on it--wonderful with the red vinagrette dijon they gave us, which was quite spicy.
Secondly we got mejdoon dates stuffed with chorizo, wrapped in bacon, and served in a spicy piquillo pepper/tomato sauce. My first bite almost made me cry it was so good. No foolin'. You get four, which we split, and i don't think you could down more than two, on account of the richness and the sweetness of the dates.
Thirdly we got the cheese plate. A blue cheese from Spain that was like getting smacked in the face at first but mellowed out into a creamy wonder, a raw sheep's milk from Italy, which was hard like a pecorino sort of, and was quite tasty, and a paprika-rubbed cheese with the consistency of a muenster loaf--this too was great. It was a lot of cheese, and thus we didn't have the energy to down more food.
All our wines were great---especially the Candido from Italy that was only 19 a bottle.
It got quite crowded, of course, as we were leaving, but this place is awesome--and if you sit at the bar in front of the kitchen, which, curiously, is behind the bar, you can see all their techniques.

The cheese we had was a toledo from Portugal, a pincon from Spain (this was the creamy strong one) and an Italian raw sheep's milk that was not on the menu. We asked our server to select three for us and were not disappointed.

Overall, I thought Avec was a good place to go for drinks and a lighter dinner. I do not think I would go there on a date though as the ambiance is lacking with tight seating and loud conversations when it is full. I thought the large plates portion of the menu was rather dull in its offerings and I presume this may be a function of the kitchen size.

I was at the University Club this evening where Chef Tony Bourdain has just spoke.
The question was asked where had he dined in Chicago the prior night, he mentioned AVEC.

As I’m heading out of the Loop on Randolph, what do I pass but avec and there is a parking spot 20’ from the restaurant. Fate for sure, so I park.

The restaurant is small, communal style seating. Looks like a large sauna room, all wood with no art. Rear wall of restaurant is composed of the bottoms of green wine bottles. Seating for about 50 people.

Seating is available at the bar, it is busy this Wednesday night, only a few bar chairs left.

Started out with a special of Heirloom tomatoes & burata cheese. Seeing as this is the last hurrah for real ripe tomatoes I chose this dish. Tomatoes were sweet and delicious, burata cheese is like a mozzarella but slightly stronger tasting, and creamy in the center, sortof like a brie. Great dish.

Next were the chorizo stuffed medjool dates wrapped with smoked bacon in a piquillo pepper sauce. AWESOME! Sauce was not needed but was delicious as I sopped it up with my just baked bread.

The wood oven roasted port shoulder with green chili sofrito was the main entree. Pork was so flavorful and tender. Served with sugared pickled garlic. A good dish.

avec has many cheeses to choose from, including some raw milk cheeses. Enjoyed the cow’s milk gorgonzola, raw cow’s milk mahon semi curado and the raw sheeps milk farmstand idiazabal. Gorganzola was my fave but all were good.

Had a Portugese red, Vinha da Palestra.

It appeared that avec has its own cured meats, the guy next to me had a plate that reminded me of Salumi in Seattle.

avec
615 W Randolph
Chicago
312.377.2002
http://www.avecrestaurant.com

Open daily at 3:30pm till 1am on Fri & Sat, till midnight Mon-Thurs, & till 10pm on Sun