Black Metal Restaurant Review

Mr. Psycho Butcher wrote this in 2003, I think. He is out of prison again. It is worth reprinting because he has voiced a desire to continue writing these dispatches.

BLACK METAL RESTURAUNT REVIEW

By PSYcho ButchER

Avec

The Mediterranean is not populated by Teutonic hordes, but I am willing to grant them a certain dark imagination. After all, where would we be without the Spanish Inquisition, Niccolo Machiavelli, and the genius of the Borgia family? After a hard day of plotting destruction, nothing sates my dark desires more than a nice bloody sausage and a glass of DARK RED wine.

Avec (which simply means "with" in French, an unfortunately trendy name. It seems to be a reference to the way the place is paired with its older neighbor, Blackbird, to the West, or perhaps it is a reference to the way food is supposed to be shared at the place. Ahhh, blackbird, such a dark name.) is in a particularly cavernous part of Randolph Street, just on the precipice of downtown's urban jungle. Its interior is tasteful woodwork all around, much like that of a Viking ship. I found the wood soothing, and I almost cracked my corpsepaint smiling at the breezy interior backed by emerald green bottles.

The last time I went, it was on a Monday night, just as the sun was setting beneath the horizon and I could walk about under the cover of darkness. For the money, the place is one of the best "nice" restaurants in the city, so I expected the place to be crowded with the teeming hoards of foodies. I was not disappointed. The Chef, Koren Grieveson (hopefully, she is Nordic, such a powerful menu full of the Nichean ethic), designed a whole menu around small plates that are meant to be shared. To the uninitiated, this means you spend money on a ridiculously small dish and get pissed off, stabbing someone on your way out. To the culinary ubermensch, however, it means you can partake of a few small culinary masterpieces and share them, leaving with your hunger sated and yet not bloated to the point of loosing your pale, drawn figure.

If you have weak-willed plutocratic tastes, you will hate this place and you should stay away and suffer. They will make you share a table. I despise the weaklings who will not sit next to their fellow man. What are they afraid of? A dark clad figure in facepaint reeking of EVIL? The long wood tables are so that you can commune with the horde, supping together as in the great MEAD HALLS of old. This is one of the most magnificent aspects of eating in a great gothic metropolis such as Chicago or Paris. Those who are too timid to share my space should go to some horrible suburban hell or eat at the Cheesecake Factory and grow fat and stupid.

The garlic sausage on the menu is incredible to behold, savage and imbued with the spirit of the animal. The most magnificent dish is their seafood soup, an incredible and strong food that will leave you gasping for want of more. Their cured meat is excellent as well, and I liked watching it hang forlornly in the case they use to age it to perfection.

They have an excellent choice of wine at Avec, and for an elite restaurant, most of it is decently inexpensive. This is good; I like to imbibe hearty swallows of wine without wondering whether I will be able to buy the new Dimmu Borgir album when it comes out. Last time I was in, it was a MONDAY, and the first three bottles I ordered were sold out. The one I finally got was a superior bottle, however, and my fine serving wench was versed enough with the menu to keep steering me toward the BLOOD RED vintages I prefer. If you prefer to swill and waste your money drinking at Cru, to hell with you, you are weak.

If you have beer and pretzel tastes, you should have the knowledge of self and purity of purpose to stay away. This haven is not for you. If you are a plutocrat out to impress a date with your taste for luxury, drive into the lake and die and leave this place to those truly hungry to taste life before Armageddon takes all the fine food from us and replaces it with hell and turmoil.

Avec is at 615 West Randolph Street, Chicago. If you drive, you are weak, and you will have to hunt for a parking space or pay the Valet parking guys.