Pretty good! The space is nice and open - moreso than the West Loop location from what I remember. Makes it more conducive to pandemic regulations, which is nice. Came here recently and tried the citrus salad with burrata, roasted asparagus with sheep's milk cheese, smoke whitefish taramasalata, and hearth baked cod. Everything was great, with the citrus salad and cod probably being my faves. The smoked whitefish could have come with more bread, but I also could have asked for it. All in all the food was great and I would def come back and maybe try one of the pastas. Service was good too - albeit a little aggressive and servers were quick to want to clear plates away, etc. I guess this could be good if you're in a rush, which I was not...anyways, I recommend! read more

Fantastic small plates at this place! Incredible first experience. Definitely recommend the dates, smoked ocean trout, honeycrisp apple salad, pizza... and last but certainly not least, the pork shoulder read more

Avec River North - medjool dates - Mediterranean Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

Everything in Avec is fantastic every time we go! When a restaurant makes sure every time you go the quality of the food and the excellent service is provided they are doing something right! read more

We went for restaurant week and it was really good! The food rundown: Marinated olives - i mean, they're olives Chorizo stuffed dates - these were SO delicious 10/10 Brussels panzanella- yummy and light but a large portion nonetheless Paella - this was good but not fantastic but to be fair I'm not a paella fanatic. Even the half portion was huge Raspberry rose tart - incredible! We also did a wine flight and some others in our group enjoyed the pork shoulder and old fashioned. Good group spot- would come back read more

Thoroughly enjoyed our evening. Excellent menu. The food was superb and service top notch.

Not sure what I expected but I'd give this spot a 3.5 all told. Staff was friendly and attentive. Decor was warm and welcoming. Food was good but not quite enough for me to give over a 3.75/5. read more

While the Randolph location is original and great, the new space is just a good! Open, clean and airy, it makes for a great dining experience! Service was great. Drinks were well crafted and the food was flavorful. Some faves are the burrata cheese, medjool dates, oyster mushroom pizza and orecchiette pasta! Great space for a date, night out with friends or just because. Dress is smart casual read more

Absolutely incredible Mediterranean restaurant in river north/downtown. I have only been for brunch but can't wait to be back again for brunch and to try dinner. They are super friendly and hospitable especially when I asked if I could sit in a booth facing the bar versus a high top table facing the kitchen. It wasn't super packed for brunch during the winter (Jan) but would still probably recommend making a reservation just to be safe. The staff is very attentive to even the bartender refilling my water when the server wasn't present. They are super accommodating and there is not a pretentious air but upscale hospitality for sure. I asked the hostess her opinion on the shakshuka as that was what caught my eye and made me want to come for brunch and she said she definitely recommend it and it did not disappoint. The shakshuka here is one of the best shakshuka dishes that I have had anywhere. It is a fairly large portion and I suggest ordering with a piece of ciabatta which I did to be able to dip as it is a great pairing. The flavor and complexity that they packed into this dish was very impressive and appreciated. I definitely will be back here when in Chicago as it is one of the top places I have eaten at in my travels here. Also, stunning open concept space that allows natural lighting for a warm brunch feel. read more

Avec River North - Spiced Shakshuka - Mediterranean Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

First time and the food was amazing. My fiancé took me for Valentine's Day and I was very impressed. Great service and I HIGHLY recommend the short ribs! read more

I don't write reviews often. Avec is one of my favorite restaurants in Chicago. In fact their pepperoni pizza was my favorite in all of Chicago (Not deep dish). That is why it is a travesty they removed it from the menu! It was perfection! I feel like it should be permanent in their menu just like their focaccia bread (and some other things). Our meal was great but I was saddened to see the change in the pizza section. I can't even knock them because the other food was amazing BUT PLEASE.. I'M BEGGING.. BRING BACK THE PEPPERONI PIZZA! read more

Had the pleasure of recently dining here as part of a networking dinner. All of the food was delicious and so creative. Flavorful and gorgeous presentations. The dining room is a very beautiful space. I really look forward to coming back. read more

The pizza is always creative and very good. The pita with mussels and swordfish was great. The desserts were just ok. read more

Avec River North - Coconut almond cake dessert. Just ok - Mediterranean Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

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Absolutely amazing food and service! Always consistent, great environment! I especially love the new drink on the menu with carrot juice - at first I thought, carrot juice and alcohol? No way - but it's balanced so perfectly! read more

Amazing find with friendly, knowledgeable service and unique flavors. Fresh herbs and fragrant dishes bring everything to life read more

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Went here for dinner. Perfect for a date night if you're willing to spend a little more money. Dishes are meant to be shareable and we enjoyed all of them! Chorizo stuffed dates, roasted sweet potatoes, mascarpone ravioli, the pork shoulder and can't forget dessert! We were so full so we split a small scoop of the honey gelato. read more

Unique food options, and shareable plates if you have a smaller group. Otherwise it'd get complicated with more than 3-4 ppl

15 out of 10 experience! This was the best meal I've ever had. We got the dates, focaccia, tortellini, and pork shoulder. All were magical and had such unique delicious flavors! Joel was our server and he was so friendly and helpful! Also the cocktails are amazing! The Hibiscus infused tequila drink was my favorite. I would recommend this place to anyone looking for great food and a great experience. read more

Terrible experience! Our pizza was burnt! Not acceptable for the price charged! Poor customer service and not worth the hype! read more

Avec River North - Burnt pepperoni pizza! - Mediterranean Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

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We went to dinner on an October rainy chill night. We had reservations and were seated outside. The space outside is very underwhelming for a restaurant with such good reputation, not to mention that there were spiders crawling up the walls and it was cold because they have no heaters! Before we placed our order we were served a dish that we thought it was an appetizer on the house. The server came to take our order and realized that we had a dish on our table. She mentioned that it was clearly a mistake that we were served that and offered us to keep it "on the house". However, as I was saying "yes" she literally took it and served it to the correct table. Good thing we didn't touch it but still that's NOT hygienic!! That was not only rude toward us but unsafe to the people who actually ate it. We order 6 dishes and we were only impressed by one, the calamari. The rest were just ok. I was really excited to try Avec but now I'll never recommend it to anyone. So disappointing! read more

Fantastic food and good service. Definitely would go back. The sweet potato dish was exceptional!

Took the team here for dinner during ASCO. Food was great and the service was very good. Been to their other location pre-Covid which is also great but this location is better for group meals - larger open space. read more

Very mediocre restaurant for a high price. Ambiance is nice and restaurant is clean. While our server was good, I wasn't particularly impressed with any of the food. We had several of the shared plates including dates, burrata, asparagus, orecchiette pasta and pork shoulder. Meal was easily over $100 per person for not a ton of food. Overall a very average experience, I would recommend looking elsewhere! read more

Cute ambience but not a fan of the food. Wasn't the quality you'd expect for the price and probably more so because I was only choosing from the vegetarian options. Overall great time and good service, just not a fan of the food. read more

An unforgettable dinner! We ordered the focaccia, dates, pappardelle and salted caramel sundae. The focaccia was our favorite. The only thing I wouldn't care to order again was the salted caramel sundae, which was good but nothing spectacular. Overall, it's one of the best meals we've had! Would definitely recommend this place to friends and family -- we had an exceptional dining experience, and the staff and ambience were great. read more

Avec River North - Dates - Mediterranean Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

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Had a pretty disappointing Restaurant Week lunch here. They were short staffed so service was slow, which I could understand. However, I couldn't understand why they tended to four other tables before ours when we had arrived before them. We ended up waiting 20-25 minutes before a server came to take our order. While waiting for our food to arrive, we saw another couple leave because no one was tending to them. Also, the amount of time we had to wait between each course was way too long. I think we ended up sitting for over two hours for our whole meal. Food was decent. If I had to pick again: 1. Lentil soup over the salad - lentils were cooked well and had good texture, salad was alright 2. Paella over the cod - paella was flavorful with plenty of yummy crispy bits, wish they hadn't covered it so much with parsley, cod was crispy 3. Mint pistachio ice cream over the sorbet - the ice cream is full of big pistachio chunks (wish they were a bit smaller), you can see the fresh mint flecks, sorbet was way too sweet for my taste Ugh lastly, their bathroom was not well stocked when I was there. Food and atmosphere was good. Service and facilities not so much. read more

Was so looking forward to this dinner. But horrible disappointment. Hostess was nice and accommodating, however as soon as we were seated it was a total disaster. Disinterested service, extremely slow, disorganized experience. Beautiful space but would not recommend the rosè pairing prefix menu. The timing was completely off with pairings and food. read more

came here for restaurant week -- their lunch menu was definitely worth it, and the fried fish was absolutely amazing. the interior is very well decorated and has really nice ambiance. read more

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Interesting menu, however the primary ingredient in every dish we had turned out to be oil. The second ingredient? More oil! We ordered 5 dishes and wouldn't look forward to ordering any of them again. The excessive amount of oil left us all feeling gross. Service was good. Cocktails were also good. Ambiance was nice. But food was far too underwhelming to be so unhealthy. read more

I had the enjoyment of dining at Avec River North for the first time at an event. I was greeted by the warmth and welcoming of Jodei with a selection of red or white wine. Red for me. From then on the whole experience was really pleasant and Jodei was the highlight of the night for me. I'm vegetarian and no fault to staff who don't know that in a group setting but can we stop putting the animal parts right in front of me instead of six inches over after how many courses and asking you to shift the dishes!? (Not Jodei). I admit I'm picky as a veg. Anyway, lovely time and always great to have a positive experience with someone (Jodei) in a large group of guests because that can be a challenge for even the best restaurants! read more

Our server Bar-P was fantastic. Having never been to Avec before, we relied on his recommendations. We started with the cucumber salad and the crudo. Both were excellent. He then recommended a half order of the dates, (it was only two of us), and they were outstanding. The mortadella pizza was good, but the salted sundae was out of this world. It's feta cheese ice cream, which we were leery about, but it was extremely good. For drinks we enjoyed the Side to Side and Gamay Noir wine. Both worth ordering. Overall it was a very good experience which we will recommend to others. read more

The food is well executed. The service is thoughtful but they don't seem to have enough help even through the restaurant is not full.

What drew me to this place was its electric menu. The hummus was pretty good but way overpriced at $26 for a "small plate". The pizza was super greasy and over cooked , almost burnt. Just not great. The smoked white fish tortelloni was smaller than an appetizer but priced as if it's an entree. Maybe 6-7 pieces at most. This place had poor seating with loud music. Just annoying. Service was spotty. Not worth it at all. read more

Food - 4.0 out of 5 Service - .0.5 out of 5 Host and hostess were warm and friendly, but that is where the hospitality ended. Took approx 15 minutes for a server to come over, and she was very abrupt throughout our entire dinner (which, with a 5 pm reservation is a bit odd. The place was not busy) in addition to that, at two points a random server came over to our table and grabbed menus we had put to the side without asking if we were all set with them. Very strange behavior to grab a menu off a patron's table without asking or making some sort of acknowledgment. Food on the other hand was fantastic - don't miss the focaccia or rigatoni, both were excellent. As a final note - the menu is basically pacific standard time ...not avec. So not sure why of the new name. read more

It seems like a great place to have a girls' night out. The food and service was good, but I think their menu stays relatively the same, so since it's small you may not have much variety to try if you go multiple times. The only thing is I actually found a piece of plastic wrapping (from cheese I think)...it was pretty big and hard but baked into the focaccia, so I did not notice it until I bit down. Obviously not the worst thing I could have found in my food, but I have never had something like that happen before and it was pretty disappointing given the cost of the restaurant. Of course, they were apologetic and didn't charge us for the dish, but still affected the experience a bit. read more

Food was fantastic. Server was absent. The reputation of Avec's food convinced us to make a reservation to entertain out-of-town friends for brunch. We were immediately greeted and seated for our noon reservation---but we didn't see our server again for another half hour to place our drink order. And then not again until 12:56 to place our food order. After looking around I learned that our server was the only one working. I could see the bartender tried to help pick up some of the other tables, but I didn't see additional support. Once our server returned to take our order, they couldn't describe the fish dish to us or their eggs dish, just said everything was good without any descriptions. Since I read about the food from bloggers ahead of time, I was able to tell our friends what to expect instead. Once our order was placed, the food arrived quickly and was fantastic. But we didn't see our server again to ask us how everything was or to order more drinks. Our empty plates and empty drinks sat on our table from 1:10 until 1:52. By this point, we were just waiting for someone to come by and bring us the check---which we finally got up and asked for at 2:00. We would have ordered more drinks and food had the service been available but we were happy just to get the check and leave which wasn't until until 2:10. I understand restaurants are heavily understaffed, so, we were patient. But based on my experience, if you dine here be prepared to order one cocktail and a bottle of wine to carry you through a long wait. And yes- the date dish lives up the hype. read more

Self-described as a "wine-focused restaurant featuring midwestern takes on Mediterranean dishes", Avec is a modern-style restaurant serving bite-sized dishes in tapas fashion along with some larger dishes like pizza and pasta. A group of my friends and I went on a Sunday afternoon. We had a reservation, but the restaurant was surprisingly empty. The server was helpful in recommending different dishes to us. The cocktail menu was playful and interesting, and I ordered the 'lust for life' a pomegranate gin drink. Of the different dishes we ordered, the charred octopus was the most interesting and noteworthy - it was paired with watermelon, salted yogurt, and pistachio. The presentation of the dishes was good enough. For myself, the dishes were overpriced for the taste and quality. There are definitely some unique things to try out, but the highlight for me was the cocktail. Final verdict: OK, but nothing more, nothing less. read more

Avec River North - Mediterranean Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

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Their french toast was THE best french toast I've ever had. Mimosas were also very good

Great food and cocktails every time! I love their pasta dishes.

Great food! Busy ambience and you can see the chefs cooking in the back of the restaurant. Sharing style and food comes out when it's ready. Server was amazing and described the dishes well. read more

Went in for drinks. Wanted to go to the roof top bar, but it was full 15 minutes after it opened. Their version of an Old Fashion (I want to be sedated) was really good. Didn't see a food menu, but saw everything is cooked over wood fire ovens. read more