Avec Restaurant

Recommends

bldoolit

Joined 6 years ago

Best food in town - creative, unbelievable taste, chic. Avec has the most innovative, tasty food in Chicago. It?s a great place to go with friends or on a date. The decor is incredibly understated, but trendy? much like the food.

The wait for seats is well worth it, and with 2 other restaurants next door, it?s good to grab a drink while you wait. Once you?re seated, the down to earth servers come willing to help and recommend. Bread is served, which is some of the best restaurant bread I?ve ever had anywhere. It?s made in the wood burning oven that gives it significant flavor.

We began with a cheese plate with a number of great options that all were perfect. The wine that was ordered also made for a great experience. The wine glasses are the stemless variety that seems a lot cooler while being used at Avec.

When the 4 small courses that were ordered arrived throughout the evening, we were amazed that they just kept getting better. The bacon wrapped figs highlighted the evening.

In the end, Avec has become our favorite trendy restaurant in Chicago and will probably stay that way for awhile, given they don?t change their approach.

Recommends

rchitown

Joined 9 years ago

Creative, incredible flavors. This place was fantastic! My husband and I ate at the bar as the wait for a table was longer (Friday night). Didn't matter at all where we ate-the experience was wonderful. The stuffed dates with chorizo are packed with flavors, sweet but complex with spice. We loved the fresh fish entree. What made it better was the presentation-everything was perfect for sharing with that rustic piece of bread on the side. We will return. Fun and cozy for a date.

Recommends

carlson_b

Joined 8 years ago

Great food in the West Loop. Same owner as Blackbird (and next door), they use a lot of seasonal ingredients to create sometimes unique, sometimes creative, and sometimes just basic dishes with great flavors. Also a fantastic wine list by the glass including a bunch of Spanish, Portuguese, and other wines you don't normally see but all are very good. Downsides include the inability to get in (no reservations and almost always a wait) and the communal seating throughout the restaurant so it may not be a great date place. Go for the food and wine, you won't be disappointed.

Recommends

vopinionated

Joined 7 years ago

Great food, good portion sizes, but noisy and service can be very slow!. The food was very interesting with healthy choices of grains and ingredients. Unlike most people, I enjoy a restaurant with smaller more reasonable portion sizes. Portions are still easy to share between 3 people, but not more. I was there with two other people and found the acoustics almost unbearably loud. Conversation required some degree of yelling. As far as service, we ordered 5 dishes, the first two dishes came out very quickly, one was forgotten ("I didn't hear that order" was the excuse), and the last two took over 40 minutes. We finally had to enquire as to where they were being cooked.

The waitress was very apologetic and produced more bread, this time with dipping olive oil. (Not something they do as a routine).

All said, it was still warm and cozy with excellent food, so be prepared to challenge the speed of you order and you will be satisfied.

Finally, despite the recommendations to make reservations - they don't take any!!!

Recommends

robstercraw

Joined 7 years ago

A great introduction to Chicago!. My friend and I had a great experience at Avec Saturday night for our first meal in Chicago. We got there around 6:30 and there was no wait (although when we left, a considerable crowd had amassed). Our server was very knowledgable about the wine list; however, she had a hard time making menu recommendations ("it's all good!"). The chorizo-stuffed dates were by far the best item we tried and the crispy duck was also quite good. I highly recommend Avec.

Recommends

farazj

Joined 8 years ago

One of the Best in Chicago. This is easily one of the best restaurants in Chicago. The food is consistently excellent, with simple flavors thoughtfully put together in amazing ways. We've been going since we moved here, and have *never* had a bad meal. The waitstaff is extremely thoughtful, knowledgable and contributes woderfully to the overall experience. Can't say enough good things about avec.

Recommends

illy7

Joined 8 years ago

Wonderful wine list, lovely menu. avec has good service and is a very busy restaurant. It is ill advised to walk in with a group of 5 or more after 7 pm, you will most certainly wait, but this is how it is at most restaurants. avec is great! I do miss the salumi-

Doesn't Recommend

bthome

Joined 7 years ago

Not worth waiting. I have never had such a bad experience with a restaurant before. We called in advance because we had a party of 8 and Avec does not take reservations. They told us that the wait would only be 10 minutes. When we arrived, there was only a party of 2 and party of 4 ahead of us.

While we waited, a waiter came by to take our drink orders. He took one person's order and walked away. When he returned with the drink, he didn't even ask if anyone else wanted a drink. We waited for over an hour while many other parties arrived, were seated, ate and left. All the while, no one ever came back to take even a drink order. After waiting nearly an hour and a half, the hostess came by to say that our table would be ready in the next 10 minutes. When it finally opened up, she sat a different party of 8 that had arrive more than an hour after us. When we finally walked out in frustration, they couldn't believe we were leaving.

The staff was extremely rude and pretentious. There is no way that the food could be worth the wait. I highly recommend avoiding this restaurant unless you are friends of the owners.

Recommends

eggplantlover

Joined 7 years ago

busy but worth the wait. busy any night of the week - either go early or go late. The small plates are delightful, each possessing a different flavor. To top things off, the wine selection is wonderful. Even if you don't know anything about wine, you'll get a head start here.

Doesn't Recommend

ckayaker

Joined 7 years ago

I wanted to like this place. I loved this place the first few times I was there. It was fun, the wait was never that long, and I really like the food and wine, but, in my opinion, it's really gone down hill. The hostess is just rude. How does she keep her job. Making people wait outside. And it took forever for a table to open. Service was friendly, but SLOW. It took about 15 minutes to get our first drinks. My wife and I will never go there again. Too bad, I first really like the place, but I can do without the attitude of the staff, and the ridiculously long waits for drinks, and a table.