Chili's may be one of his favorite restaurants, but Luke Tountchev didn't use the chain as inspiration for Avant Garde, his fashionable Bulgarian restaurant/cafe. As the name implies, AG delivers post-postmodernism to the Northwest Side in the form of an ultramodern setting where refreshingly different salads and grilled foods sell.

Expect a Euro flavor and convenient site just off I-90 and the Harlem Blue Line stop. Once known as Mario’s Cafe, AG's facelift includes hardwood floors in spacious rooms of shimmering metallic greens. Candles blaze atop tables in sunken lounges book-ended with exotic plants. Flat screens play music videos while progressive dance booms.

Dark, ambiguous features easily get mistaken for Bulgarian ones; I had to politely, as enchanted as I was, relay to my striking waitress that I wasn't Bulgarian and therefore needed an English menu. Servers lack the bouncy characters as, say, those at Chili's, but perhaps because of cultural reasons versus personal ones. They open up when given hairstyle compliments.

Euro casual, the equivalent to American dressy, seems the norm. You'll manage with jeans and a sweater or button down. Flip-flops and shorts won’t flatter.

Visitors in the mood for beer make Zagorka (Bulgaria's original lager) their choice before a plate of bacon-wrapped feta. Bulgarian food fuses many ingredients and recipes from Italian, Greek and Middle Eastern dishes. Tountchev recommends the katino meze: chicken, pork and beef platter mixed with onions and feta cheese. Most entrees average below $10; the New York steak (grilled to your needs) wears the crown for the menu’s most expensive dish at an affordable $16.25.

Pregnant women and recovering alcoholics feel welcomed with a non-alcoholic cocktail menu; and for those needing a spike, a U-shaped bar houses an assortment of whiskeys and vodkas stacked before illuminated artic-blue lamps.

Average cost: $10-$20

Centerstage Reviewer: David-Anthony Gonzalez