I’m not really into restaurants of the moment, although sometimes I hear about a place that shone bright and brief until something fell apart in the delicate balance supporting it, and I wish I’d gotten there before it snuffed. But usually it’ll take me a few months to try out something after I hear about it. When it comes to Chicago, where my parents live and where my once-or-twice-a-year visits usually last only a few days, that lag time is considerably longer. I’ve been wanting to go to the casual, wine-and-small-plates Avec for years, and its more traditional sibling Blackbird for longer still. Finally, I had the perfect opportunity — an evening concert at the Symphony, just down the street, with my food-loving friend Alberto.

Avec doesn’t take reservations, but we thought we’d be fine walking in around 6:30 on a Thursday. We were wrong. The standing tables outside were full, and there was already a short list. But we lucked into a pair of counter seats right in front of the chef’s station.

He introduced himself, and it took me a while to realize that the four-burner stove that he was manning and the prep counter before us was where all the food for the restaurant was being made. One guy, one stove for the entire restaurant. Granted, the place is like an alley with seats (a very warm, chic alley), but watching his hands fly was a great show.

We started with a charcuterie plate. Wait, no — it’s Italian influenced, so this was salumi. Believe me, coppa by any other name tastes just as good. This was a really nice spread, and I was intrigued by the garnish of sliced cornichons with parsley leaves and slices of red onion. It was like a mini salad.

Crostini with English pea puree and watercress-and-arugula salad piled high, plus ricotta salata and lemon zest, was a recommendation I’d seen again and again on the local Chowhound board. It was simple, refreshing and delicious. There’s something really appealing about pureed peas, and they’re almost painfully simple. A few nights later I had dinner at a friend’s house, and she made fillets of salmon, beached on pea-puree islands in a sea of lemony broth. I’m also becoming fond of pureed pea soup (those frozen petits pois from Trader Joe’s are excellent) with mint.

Alberto and I loved the idea of olive-oil poached salmon with melted lardo, but I couldn’t make out the lardo itself by taste or texture. I’m not sure what I expected from thin slices of cured pork fat. Perhaps I was remembering the wildly flavorful lardo pizza at Pizzeria Mozza in L.A., but when I think of it, most of the flavor credit was due to the rosemary and the crust (it’s a glorified flatbread, but an amazing one if you like that), with the lardo just supplying an alluring richness. This was certainly a succulent piece of salmon.

We were swayed on dessert by the excitement of having the orange-and-cinnamon-scented cannoli made before our eyes, but it was kind of like, squirt, dip, plop. I preferred the grapefruit sorbet (right), which came on shortbread wafers like I’d had at St John Bread & Wine. I thought the palate-cleansing sorbet an odd match for buttery shortbread, but it turns out shortbread is an adaptable thing. Next thing you know I’ll be eating it with beef stew.

Still on my short list: Hot Chocolate and a return visit to Green Zebra.

Avec
615 W. Randolph St
Chicago
(312) 377-2002