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| - Summary: My husband and I had dinner here last night and it was AMAZING! Drinks were serious showstoppers and I really encourage you to try them since they are just as unique and balanced as the food! The food was just SO GREAT, portions were perfect and filling (we each had 1 starter, 1 main and 1 end) and prices were very reasonable. I mean you're getting fresh, all natural food made with the labor of love here people! I recommend you run, not walk, and have yourself a fantastic meal ASAP. (Menu items change often based on what ingredients are fresh and ripe in the season)
Detailed review: First of all, we started with drinks. The bar here is not your standard 'watering hole' in Pgh. The cocktail menu is as intricate, unique and well blended as the food. They don't have a typical full bar although you can order some standard mixed drinks (but why would you want to? once you try one of the menu cocktails, you will see what I mean.) There is an affordable list of interesting and delicious red and white wines, 4 Craft Draft Beers (only 5 Dollars each) and a cocktail menu featuring 1 drink for each of the major alcohol categories (vodka, gin, tequila, whiskey, rum) with 1 extra one as well - the night we went it was described by our server as a 'sparkling sake'.
I started with Tequila - Del Maguey mezcal, corn, agave and my husband had whiskey - Buffalo Trace bourbon, chartreuse, Carpano. omg, we loved them! They were so smooth and flavorful (but not syrupy and watered down like some places end up doing with their 'featured cocktails'). The listed ingredients added flavor hints rather than literal giant pieces of the stuff floating around in the glass.
These drinks allow you to taste the quality of the liquor in a way you don't usually get to experience. Rum is made from sugarcane by-products such as molasses and sugarcane juice, gin is made from juniper berries and other botanicals, etc...The drinks served here actually let you experience the flavor of the alcohol's ingredient of origin and are blended with other delicate flavors, care and clever thought.
These bartenders get a kudos from me for successfully making a flavorful and effective alcoholic beverage while taming the beast that can sometimes ruin a drink.
Ok, so these libations really set the tone for our meal and we were excited to get to the next part - The Food.
We ordered 2 Starters (Brioche with blue crab, poached egg, shiso and Beef Tartare with miso, marrow, endive) Wow! The Brioche was so delicious and it was fun to 'pop' the egg yolk allowing it's yolk-y goodness to drip all over the crab and bread. Yummm.
The Beef Tartare was a generous portion and my husband loved eating it with the endive by using it to scoop up the delicate and flavorful piles of diced raw beef. We really really really loved these starters.
To prepare for our main dishes we ordered 2 more drinks. Me: Rum - Zacapa, Grand Marnier, fig and My Husband: Vodka - Boyd & Blair, ginger, bacon bitters, nectarine. (Again, they were both great.)
For our entrees, I had the Arctic Char - fig touchi, fennel, butternut and he had the Pork Belly - pretzel polenta, cabbage, sarsparilla. I had seen it mentioned in the other reviews that the portions here were on the small side...but we did not experience this at all. My husband's portion was filling and the plate was covered with plenty of pork belly, pretzel polenta and cabbage. My Arctic Char was so fresh and delicious, perfectly cooked and the skin was made crispy with what the server explained was a black bean and fig reduction. It was accompanied by a nice portion of buckwheat, butternut squash puree and fennel with a fig sauce of some kind that was spread on the plate. It was so refreshing and well balanced - I really enjoyed it.
To finish, I had the Parfait - coconut, buttermilk, stonefruit, chicory, chocolate (what a fun dessert!) and my husband had the Cheese - naked goat, crater lake bleu, quince, maple, bacon (the bacon was candied). A perfect end to a perfect meal. Overall, this place was just FANTASTIC.
The space and decor were very cool but not overdone or pretentious - just right. Lighting and seating were really great on the first floor and we sat at the community tables - which are long 'bench-like' seats that don't require reservations and are seated on a first-come / first-served basis. We actually felt comfortable and felt enough privacy to feel like we were at our own table (no one sat in the seats directly next to us) but we still felt very connected to everything around us (open kitchen with bar seating was on one side while the actual drink bar was on the other + all around us were smiling faces eating and drinking and having a great time.)
I highly recommend this place. There is nowhere else like it in Pittsburgh for sure.
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