Avli Taverna will "teach us how to drink Ouzo"

https://chicago.eater.com/2018/8/29/177 ... -park-ouzo

Complete with a little instruction booklet. Well, gee, I get that we're in the middle of the prairie, but we really didn't just fall off the pickle boat and have had bars here serving Ouzo for decades. It just strikes me as a little condescending. Maybe I'm being too harsh today.

1335 W Wrightwood Ave
Chicago, IL 60614

I dunno know. Knowing Louie as I do, I just took it for enthusiasm.

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I learned everything I need to know about drinking ouzo while lying at the foot of a stairway in an Athens alley in 1991.

Octarine wrote:I learned everything I need to know about drinking ouzo while lying at the foot of a stairway in an Athens alley in 1991.

LMAO - banner quote!

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“It’s a sipping drink; you pour it over ice, you add water,” Alexakis said. “You never drink ouzo without food, that’s the biggest faux pas ever.”

Dedicated ouzo (and raki) drinkers are very vocal about the right way to drink the beverage. From the little bit divulged in this article, it sounds like Louie is well versed.

Though he won’t commit to a specific date, owner Louie Alexakis is firm in saying that Avli Taverna (1335 W. Wrightwood Ave.) will open by the end of the month.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/dining/ct ... story.html

Avli Taverna, Lincoln Park’s Creative Greek Bar, Opened Over the Weekend

https://chicago.eater.com/2018/11/5/180 ... e-alexakis

No ouzo, but 13 of us (all but a couple are alums from NU, with four of them in town for a wedding, the rest local) had a very nice dinner at Avli Taverna last Friday. It was a warm but not stifling evening, they had almost all the tables in the place -- including our large group -- outside on the sidewalk, mostly under canopies.

It was definitely a weird experience, the first dining out we've done since the pandemic with a large group (all of us fully vaccinated), with cheek-kissing and food and drink sharing. Maybe not back to normal, but we could see it from there.

I don't know about other people's drinks (mostly wines), but I ordered a "Dark and Kinky" (I'll always get the Mezcal cocktail when given a choice). Tasty, but needed more lime, which the server was happy to provide.

We passed around apps -- one of each of the four spreads (tzatziki, tarama, eggplant, spiced feta), a couple orders of the tomato croquettes (basically fried non-green tomatoes, very tasty), and halloumi with honey (which I always think belongs more on the dessert menu but somebody's always got a sweet tooth).

A couple people ordered the avgolemono soup and I got a taste. Universally agreed to be an inferior variety: not enough egg, not enough lemon, weak broth. It added up to more like Campbell's chicken soup with rice. Really the only down note of the evening.

For main courses, pretty much everything on the menu got ordered by somebody, and we had a great time. SueF had the pork gyros, which came with feta-topped fries. All quite good. I had the grilled seafood platter, which was really weird: it's the only dish that arrived without a side dish or starch, it's just a big plate of grilled shrimp (relatively small ones) calamari (oddly big pieces), octopus (good sized chunks of tender tentacle) and onions. All really tasty, but I felt like it should have been marked as something for sharing with a couple sides. It's a really big plate of shellfish, I took enough home for a couple lunches.

Baklava ice cream was a nice finish: it came in modest cubes making it easy to share, we had a couple for the table.

Avli's staff remains exemplary, the location is just enough off the Lincoln Park main drags to be neighborhood-y (and street parking is plentiful).

Just a note: I'd gone through about 5 or six restaurants before settling on Avli Taverna: I'd suggested Elizabeth, but it was too pricey for a couple folks. Galit wanted us to rent a room and guarantee an over-$100/pp minimum (it's not an event, just friends having dinner), Avli handled it without a hitch, and was perfect for the folks who flew in and were staying at The Lincoln Hotel.