About avec
Avec opened on West Randolph Street in 2003 and has never needed to change its formula because its formula was perfect. Paul Kahan and the One Off Hospitality Group built a long cedar-clad room with communal bench seating, a wine program oriented entirely toward small Mediterranean producers, and a menu of sharing plates inspired by the sun-drenched regions of southern Europe. Two decades later, avec remains one of Chicago's most reliably pleasurable evenings out — and one of the most copied dining concepts in the American Midwest.
The menu operates on the sharing principle with commitment. Dishes arrive for the table, not for individuals, and the format is explicitly designed to create conversation and generosity. The bacon-wrapped Medjool dates stuffed with chorizo and served in a pool of piquillo pepper tomato sauce have been on the menu since opening and remain the dish most first-time visitors remember longest. But avec's greatest strength is the seasonal vegetable cooking: roasted asparagus with za'atar buttermilk, chickpea hummus with sautéed oyster mushrooms, and long-cooked legumes with herbs and lemon that taste as if they came from a grandmother's kitchen on the Ligurian coast.
The wood-fired preparations — rotisserie chicken shawarma, slow-roasted pork shoulder, whole fish — anchor the heavier end of the menu and justify avec's perennial inclusion on best-restaurant lists that typically reserve space for tasting menu destinations. The wine program features natural and low-intervention producers from Catalonia, the Rhône, Friuli, and the Eastern Mediterranean, curated with both scholarly depth and genuine drinkability. A meal at avec can be assembled at the bar alone, with a glass of orange wine and a plate of dates, and still constitute one of the best evenings in Chicago.
The avec Philosophy
What separates avec from the dozens of Mediterranean sharing-plate restaurants it inspired is the relentless coherence of its vision. Nothing on the menu is there for novelty. Every dish has been earned through repetition and refinement. The cedar-clad interior, intimate and warm even when full to capacity, was designed to make strangers comfortable sitting close together — and it succeeds. The noise level is lively rather than deafening. The service is knowledgeable and unhurried. At avec, the communal format is not a trend; it is a conviction.
The restaurant has since expanded to a second location in River North at 640 N LaSalle Drive, occupying the eighth floor with its own distinct character. The West Loop original at 615 W Randolph remains the one that matters — the room with two decades of accumulated energy and a wine cellar that has been curating since before natural wine became fashionable.
Why avec for a First Date
avec solves the fundamental problem of first-date dining: it gives you something to do with your hands and something to talk about that isn't each other. Ordering shared plates requires negotiation, preference-sharing, and small acts of generosity — all of which accelerate intimacy in a way that staring at a prix fixe menu cannot. The room is warm and intimate without being hushed. The wine list gives a sommelier-shy guest a framework for a confident choice. The dates with chorizo, specifically, have likely contributed to more second dates than any other dish in Chicago.
Why avec for Team Dinners
The sharing format transforms a team dinner from a series of individual meals eaten in proximity into an actual communal experience. Avec accommodates groups naturally — the bench seating and long tables are built for it. The menu's breadth means dietary preferences are easily handled. The price point makes it possible to eat generously without requiring executive approval for the bill. And the wine list gives whoever is managing the drinks enough interesting territory to keep everyone happy for the full evening.