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| - Isabella's is a diva well past her prime.
When you're driving up to a restaurant and there's a ten-foot-long banner on the side that says, "Pittsburgh's Most Romantic Restaurant 2010," you know you're in trouble (nothing says romantic quite like a giant sign that says, "Romantic"). It's true the view of downtown PGH is sweeping, but the dining room felt like it was a set from the movie Network or American Psycho: time has not been kind to classy 80's interior design.
Okay, the service. When our waitress first came over she asked if we wanted to hear "the restaurant's story." My dining companion had already been there and I honestly wasn't that interested. After saying we were good on the story she said, "Well, let me tell you anyway."
And that she did; it was long-winded (the chefs cooked other places, they now cook here, etc.) and pretty boring. Throughout the rest of the meal we had to ask for water refills repeatedly and she didn't clear empty plates for ten minutes. However, she did manage to do a fancy fold on my companion's napkin the second he went to the bathroom. Whatever you do, don't let the napkin rest on the chair for even a moment! I don't know, it was like she took a Saturday morning high-end service class but got high right beforehand.
Whoever conceived the menu at Isabela's knew what they were doing, but whoever they entrusted to execute it doesn't. The prix fixe menu is 7 courses ($70 per person) and you definitely get your money's worth if you're measuring in quantity: both of us were stuffed by the end of the meal. But if you're measuring by quality of food I'd say no. The shrimp soup was just a failure (the base was waaaayyyy too tangy to make sense), the steak and potatoes were doable and the ricotta cheese cake had oddly squishy bits of almonds crunch in it. The squid and octopus entree was creamy and remarkably delicious.
If you find yourself here on a first date (as I did), or worse, if someone you've been with for any significant amount of time thinks you should spend your anniversary here, be sure to split a bottle of wine: it'll put a warm gloss on things.
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