Avenues

Has anyone gone to Avenues recently and NOT done a degustation?

If so, what was the general impression of doing that and what is recommended?

Also, does anyone know if Avenues will allow part of a table to do a degustation and also allow others to just order off the menu?

We are going soon and at least one of our party wants a relatively light meal.

My mom and I had the pleasure of dining at Avenues. We loved it and found it to be a significantly better experience than some of the other fine dining places in Chicago (not to knock them, we just really enjoyed our time at Avenues).

I had the degustation- the Chef's Palate. My mom was interested in doing the Grand or the Seafood menu. Our servers (politely) advised us that it would be good to match number of courses, so that the meal would be properly spaced. My mom said, what the heck and got the chef's palate with me. So, I'm thinking that it might not be a good idea for some to order a degustation and some to order a la carte. Would they let you do it? Probably yes - I can't fathom that a restaurant that aspires to a high level of service and guest satisfaction would force guests to dine a manner with which they were displeased. However, I think they would probably caution you against it and I don't necessarily know how pacing-wise it would work out.

Hope this is helpful. I really would consider dining there. It was a wonderful experience start to finish.

I've loved the degustation in the past. The only concern is that one of us claims to want a smaller meal. If I recall, Tru would not allow part of the table to do degustation and the others to order off the menu.

It will be a game-time decision.

Either way, I'm looking forward to a great meal.

Answering my own question:

Avenues now has five menus. Four of them feature six courses (plus two amuses) and the other one had about 10 (I may be off on that one). That last menu also can be ordered with foie gras paring with each course.

I will post a complete review later, but the bottom line is that Avenues is absolutely at the top of its game. The food and service were both incredible and the wine parings (we started with a bottle of 1998 Dom and then went with wines by the glass) were incredible.

Another note: The room, currently very sedate, is going to be updated in July. Avenues will close for a short time in July. The renovations will make it more modern so that the room matches the food a bit better. Personally, I like the current contrast.

I can honestly not say enough good about my Avenues dining experience. The best part was....my mother and I LOVED one of the courses - their take on loaded baked potato soup. We raved about it so much that they brought out a tiny cup of the soup itself with the cheese course AND sent me a recipe that I could replicate at home. I thought not only was the food top notch, but the service was as well.

Have fun! And I'm jealous.

My wife and I and my sister dined at Avenues on May 11, 2006. This place now is absolutely at the top of its game. The service, wine and food were all completely first-class.

We started the evening with champagne. I personally like Krug and my wife prefers Bollinger. Both were available by the glass at reasonable prices. However, since there were three of us, we elected to take a look at the wine list. They had 1998 Dom Perignon for a reasonable price (under $300). Avenues staff did a great job of describing the three wines we were interested in. I liked the fact that I did not feel at all pushed to choose the Dom, although we made that choice. It had a wonderful mushroom taste and a finish that lasted forever.

The menu is structured with five collections. They have the Chef's collection (about 10 courses -- I don't recall the actual name of the collection) and then had the following four collections of six courses each: Vegetable, Seafood, Game, and Grand.

My wife and sister chose the Grand. I went with the Game.

My sister and I also had wine pairings with each course. My wife did the sensible thing and stuck with the Dom.

The food opened with a small puff pastry. I believe it featured corn. It was nice but not outstanding. The second amuse was an asparagus cream with a drop of domestic caviar. That was wonderful.

My actual menu started with kangeroo, served with eucalyptus, melon, and lime. The physical presentation was beautiful. It was served in a large oval white bowl, with circles of kangeroo along the sides. The combination of yellows, reds, and greens was great and reminded me of how Charlie Trotter used to cook, with a real focus on the beauty of the food along with the taste. The taste was incredible. The combination worked perfectly.

The second course was the foie-lipop, which is an incredibly successful dish on all levels. It featured slices of rhubarb on one side. In the middle was the foie, which appeared to be a foie pate on a stick with pop-rocks, and a rice-krispie treat also in the middle. On the right was Greek yogurt. I just can't say enough about the combination. The Greek yogurt in particular complemented the dish. Absolutely wonderful.

The next dish featured rabbit. It was the one dish that I was not thrilled with. It featured fava, carrot, and artichoke.

The next dish was squab, which was my second favorite dish. It was incredible. The squab was perfectly done. It was over a bed of falgeolet, bacon, and olive. I almost wanted to lick the plate clean. The combination worked prefectly. In addition, it was paired beautifully with an Austrian red.

The main course was lamb, over couscouse, chard, and cauliflower. Another wonderful dish, served with a nice Bordeaux.

The Game menu typically ends with fromage. I am not a huge fan so I asked for a substitution. In its place, they brought an interesting play on s'mores, featuring three different versions of s'mores. Pared with a Maderia, it was incredible.

Overall, the entire experience was amazing.

One final note: The amount of food was reasonable. I have walked out of some of these larger meals completely and uncomfortably stuffed. Although we had enough food, we did not have that uncomfortable feel. Because the portions were reasonable, I think we were actually able to enjoy the experience more.

This place is unquestionably a four star experience.

Coincidentally, I also ate at Avenues on May 11. I decided to go the whole hog, and ordered the 10-course Chef's Palate menu with the foie gras supplement, in which foie gras, prepared in a different way each time, is added to nearly every course. (The Chef's Palate itself is only twenty bucks more expensive than the 6-course menus, iirc, but the foie gras added another $100.) But unfortunately, my experience was quite different from DML's. In fact, I was very disappointed, given all the raves I've read for Chef Bowles's cooking.

I have nothing against "cutting-edge" cuisine. Quite the contrary: a 20-course meal at the Achatz-helmed Trio was one of the best meals I've had in my life, and a more recent meal at Alinea was only slightly less impressive. But a number of the dishes at Avenues just failed to work for me, among them the same kangaroo dish that DML described. For me the kangaroo was completely unmemorable, and drowned out in any case by the overpowering sweetness of the melon "noodles" and the lime. I had a similar problem with the scallops, though in this case the scallops were delicious; but when I tried to eat them together with the accompaniments (apple and something else, iirc) the taste of the scallops was overpowered.

The worst failure for me was the rabbit, probably the same dish the DML had. This was five tiny pieces of rabbit, cooked different ways; but I was unable to discern any difference in the flavors, except for the "bacon," which was chiefly salty.

For me, there were only three dishes which were really successful. The first was a frog's leg risotto with foie gras "bubbles" on top. This was delicious, though I'm not sure what the foie gras bubbles added aside from a little extra richness and saltiness. The second was a small piece of grilled turbot on a bed of polenta with raisins and other things (sorry for the lack of detail, but I didn't take notes). This was the only complex dish which really worked for me. The third was the dessert, again probably the same one which DML had. (This was not the dessert on the printed Chef's Palate menu.) Each of the "s'mores" had a different ingredient replaced by an ice cream of that flavor.

As for the foie gras supplement, I can unequivocally say that it was not worth it. By far the best of the preparations was the traditional seared foie gras, which accompanied the beef dish. The fascinating-sounding foie gras milkshake, which accompanied the dessert, was savory and not sweet; it shouldn't have been with the dessert course at all. Nor did it have much foie gras taste, at least to me. The foie gras mousse which accompanied the rabbit dish was good in small amounts--the one redeeming feature of this dish--but it was just too rich for me to eat all of it. In most of the courses, the foie gras was incorporated into the dish in one form or another. In these cases, I generally had a hard time observing any difference made by the foie gras.

I've had meals at a number of other very expensive restaurants, including Charlie Trotter's, Tru, and most of the top places in New York, and this is the first time I had such a disappointing experience. If it wasn't for DML's post, I might have conjectured that the chef had an off day, but as it is I don't know what happened. Perhaps my taste buds just don't mesh with Bowles's cuisine.

And in answer to the question, does everyone have to order the degustation if anyone orders it -- yes, unless you don't mind making a bit of a scene. I dined with 7 friends, and 6 of us wanted degustations and one wanted a la carte. She was not the kind of person to take it kindly when she was told she had to get the degustation, too. The maitre d' came over to explain the rules, but said he wanted us happy, so they caved in, and she got her three courses, and she was happy. Sure, it makes the pacing of the meal a tiny bit trickier for the staff, but not that much worse. So if you don't mind having the wait staff wring their hands over you, you can have a mix at your table, but the "rules" are all for one and one for all.

I'm new.

Where is The Avenues?

Thanks!

Avenues
The Peninsula Hotel
108 E. Superior
312-337-2888

Some past posts on it:

http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=2983

http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=5855

http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=6825

And their web page is http://chicago.peninsula.com/pch/dining_02.html

To expand a bit on what Cynthia said, they ask that everyone at the table order the same number of courses. So you could order two (or more) different six-course degustations, but not one of the six-course degustations and the Chef's Palate.

Also, to answer my own original question, Avenues does not have any real "al la carte" selections. It is simply a choice of the various multi-course menus.

Anyone been to Avenues recently?

Hubby and I are very excited about having dinner there tomorrow night. We'll probably just do the 3 courses. Anything over-the-top that we shouldn't miss?

I was there last month. It was wonderful.

DML wrote:Also, to answer my own original question, Avenues does not have any real "al la carte" selections. It is simply a choice of the various multi-course menus.

The printed menu offers three options: a three-course meal (choice of a hot appetizer or a cold appetizer, a meat or a fish entree, and dessert) for $90, a five-course meal (one of each) for $120, or the ten-course tasting menu for $160.

I also got the impression from the waitstaff that they could accommodate virtually any special request. ("Of course! After all, this is the Peninsula. You say you would like a giraffe and a rainbow? I'll return with those in just a few minutes.") I don't know if that means you could order some other way, such as an appetizer and three desserts, or how much they would charge you for that.

kithat, how was your dinner?