We were in Chicago for the holidays, and like everyone else in the country moved around huddled in a clump as a cold front settled in. The sky was blue only for a few hours in any given day. The rest of the time gray clouds tossed down snow, sleet or rain in sloppy indifference. Naturally we longed for warmth. We burned a synthetic log in the fireplace and admired the neat regularity of its flames. We thought of Miami, which also suffered from a cold snap. Then we went to dinner at two restaurants that welcomed us in with warmth and bustle—places that reminded Aldo of Dickens’ old Mr. Fezziwig, the kind soul who never stinted on hospitality at Christmas.
I don’t know why Aldo gets so worked up about Mr. Fezziwig. Sometimes he cries at Martha Stewart’s holiday shows.
Avec and the Publican are both owned by local celebrity chef Paul Kahan, with Koren Grievesonheading the kitchen at the first and Brian Huston at the second. Avec, which is on the same block as Kahan’s flagship establishment, Blackbird, is a handsome oblong room in blonde wood that, on a winter’s night, looked as if it should be filled with good-looking Swedes eating medallions of reindeer. For all I know that is who was eating there that night. The menu, described asMediterranean wine cuisine, is strong on meat, which is not a problem with us. Aldo’s father, before becoming independently wealthy due to the lottery, was a butcher. And the food is conceived more along the idea of tapas, small plates brought out as soon as they’re ready in the kitchen. We liked everything we ordered: chorizo-stuffed dates, fennel-and-pork sausage and an exceptional salad of prosciutto with roast quince. With it we had a bottle of Luis Cañas rioja that was perhaps too even a match for so much deep-flavored pork: Wine and food faced off and fenced, blade to blade—which is not the way these things should go.
Our server looked like Sally Hawkins from the movie Happy-Go-Lucky, which was a plus.
There was some frustration about the food arriving “family style.” It’s probably an efficient and economic way to run a kitchen, but the phrase “family style” always makes me shy nervously, like a horse reluctant to be saddled. You can’t really relax and be yourself as you’re forced to tuck into a quick succession of plates, and it’s hard to gauge how much food will make sense for the group’s appetite.
To me “family style” means my grandfather is still at the head of the table, throwing boiled potatoes at anyone who doesn’t listen to his very long list of enemies of the state who should be deprived of cooked meals.
But the experience was strongy good—very positive. We would go to Avec again.
The Publican? Mmm. The emphasis is, again, on meat—the menu doesn’t neglect fish, no, but the enormous portraits of Botero-scaled pigs tend to draw the unconscious to the wonderfully rich lineup derived from four-legged wildlife, especially pork. We ordered pork belly (excellent—pink and moist), beef and oyster pie, pork-and-duck rillette, with sides of brussels sprouts and escarole. Food was, again, served family-style, which means you can wind up glutted on meat if you don’t order carefully. But all that we ate was robust and unstintingly rich—Aldo, frankly, was in heaven, although my own tastes meant that we ruled out tripe and boudin noir.
We drank a tempranillo reserva, El Retiro 2005. It was fruit-forward but, beyond that, not terribly interesting. However, I appreciated the wine stewardess bringing me samples of several wines so that I could taste before ordering a fresh bottle for the table.
Unlike the much more intimate Avec, though, the atmosphere at the Publican didn’t really agree with us: It’s designed as a beer hall, a cavernous space with most diners seated at long communal tables. There are also some booths, which may very well be comfortable, but looked oddly like stalls, and so made the diners in my mind resemble cattle at the trough. I’m not sure this setup would work in Manhattan, where people are almost maniacal about turf—especially in restaurants. I think Midwesterners, in general, are less worried about sharing open space: Chicago itself, after all, feels like a great level plain across which the towering buildings give each other breathing room. In fact, Aldo says the city makes him oddly vertiginous. He says he’s not used to seeing so much sky between such tall buildings.
By the way: Here’s a question someone from the Windy City can answer. What and where is Chicago’s best wine store? We haven’t solved that yet. Thanks.
