my guess is doing up the wine selection like no tomorrow. I've been eying their list for a while

lots of booze and appetizers and there were 7 of us, 200 was probably conservative not sure of exact number

went to Quartino last night (italian tapas), it was pretty good and pretty insane value. we had enough food for 7 people, a couple bottle of wine (moderately priced), and it came out to like 360 after tip

some of the highlights of the meal were the baked clams, some of the antipasta was really good (cured meats, cheese, olives, etc), octopus was pretty good, and a few other highlights

overall nowhere near the quality of the above restaurants mentioned but still a decent meal

Quartinos is 1 of the most mediocre I've had in Chicago for a while. Everything just felt so meh, especially the pasta, which should never happen at an Italian place. The chicken was decent, but I'd much much rather go to Maggiano's for Italian at this price point.

How can 50+/person be nowhere near those other places and be insane value though? I can do a pretty good job at Avec for that much $$. Actually that's a good point, I think I'm gonna do exactly that tonight.

maybe my perspective is skewed, it was a ton of food for that price plus a couple of 40 dollar bottles of wine

and don't get me wrong, i wouldn't go back, was just relaying my opinion of the place... it's nothing special and i didn't intend the above to make it seem like it was

we ordered clams and linguine but i didn't try it, that was the only pasta dish we ordered i believe

if you liked quartino, then you definitely need to hit up antico in bucktown. Italian small plates and much much better IMO

Man Avec is so awesome. Can't say it enough.

Went to Avec last night, I enjoyed it. Highlights were the roasted pork, duck cous cous, squid, chorizo dates, and hanger steak was pretty good as well... chitarra with pork neck wasn't bad either. Would probably go back but would still go to Publican, Goat, or Purple Pig before returning there.

Oh and about my "good value" at Quartino... 8 people at Avec last night, 3 bottles of wine and enough food to fill us all and it came to $380 so I'm probably just an idiot

Yeah I mean it was insanely crowded so they must be doing something right, just was very standard and I hate the "I could've gone to Jewel and made this same thing and it would've been even better!" feeling

Haha what time were you there? You have a semi-large group right? If you were at the middle communal table then, uh, hi.

chis, I wonder if the doing something right is more just doing enough to take full advantage of the area it's located in. If I'm running a restaurant on state street in river north, I'd be making sure that my main goal was just not **** up

Probably wasn't us, we worked late so didn't get there until roughly 10:30ish which is why we didn't have a hard time getting a seat I'm assuming. So unless you were there late may not have seen me... if so, we weren't direct middle more towards back, party of 8 - 6 dudes 2 girls all under 30ish

Yeah, it was definitely you haha. I was the blond guy seated at the bar a little toward the entrance. We were some of the last people in there. I was there from 10-11:30 or so. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

That's true

Went to Sunda on Wednesday and Carnivale last night. Both were good meals and enjoyed both. Both a little overpriced