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| - Meh. Went there last night on my friend's dime. (Payback for a big favor.) The food was very good, but the restaurant leaves a bit to be desired, especially at these prices.
The food was very good, aside from a weird over-use of citrus in several dishes.
The white asparagus with white chocolate and fish roe sounds weird, but those flavors actually work well with each other. Unfortunately, there were grapefruit pieces and grapefruit gel thrown in that distracted from the other, more subtle flavors. My friend's blue shrimp was good for the first bite, but you really, really get tired of the coconut dust by the time you finish the first rather chewy shrimp.
I'll recommend the 5' 10" egg: soft-boiled egg with ramps and mushrooms and some heavenly croutons. (This is big. I usually hate runny eggs, but it was perfect with the croutons and mushrooms.) The desserts are good, too. I had the strawberry cheesecake (nice combination of fresh and freeze-dried, and my friend had the chocolate hazelnut (i.e. Nutella) cake. I'd give the chocolate cake a slight edge, as long as you scrape the dabs of orange gel off. (They're already using banana creme, so the addition of the orange didn't help and sort of clashed with the other earthier flavors.)
The mixed drinks were excellent, too. Same interesting experimentation with them as with the food, but better execution with the drinks.
I will highly, highly recommend the ribeye, too. It was heavenly. My friend's wreckfish was good, but not great.
The biggest downsides were outside of the food. My friend doesn't eat red meat or poultry, and there's no veggie option on the menu, which seems a bit odd for an pricier, "foodie" place. I look down my nose at her, too, but you could at least accommodate her with a potato or beets or something. We asked about the tasting menu, and the meat thing wound up being an issue, because the waiter said the chef couldn't substitute on such a busy night. Several issues with this: 1.) He didn't even go ask, or even pretend to go ask, if the chef could accommodate us. 2.) It's the tasting menu. It's supposed to highlight the chef's talent. If he can't improvise, he's a cook. 3.) Again, seriously? You can't serve a veggie/fish appetizer instead? Vegetarians are usually fairly forgiving, and I doubt she's the first or the last who will walk through their doors. 4.) The restaurant was only about 60-70% full when we left. Busy, but not at full capacity. 5.) Besides, at this price point, the restaurant is never "full", even when every seat is filled. It doesn't matter how many people are there; each table gets the same undivided attention they would get as if the place was nearly empty. You certainly don't announce to diners that they're not going to get as much attention as if they'd come on another night.
It was also annoying that we had to ask to see the wine list before the meal came out. I'm really hoping they didn't think we were going to stick with a Sazerac and a berry mojito with our steak and fish. Then, it was the waiter and not the sommelier who took the wine order, and, when the sommelier did come out, he poured the wine without the usual taste up front. (I'd probably have changed my order. The syrah I ordered was a bit more astringent than I was expecting; didn't work well with the ribeye.)
We also inquired about a flavor in the rose soda that came out before the meal. It was good, but we were curious and asked the waiter. He guessed it was tarragon and said he'd check, but he never came back to us on it.
The party next to us (slightly too close, as other reviewers noted) had the tasting menu. From what I could tell, it was just small portions of the regular menu. Call me crazy, but the tasting menus I've had before were about half off the regular menu and half not - experiments or specials from the chef.
Four stars for food. Knock off another for the business. I think there's real potential here, but they need to make a few tweaks to get there. (I am genuinely glad to see someone trying to do this in Pittsburgh, but I'm not giving five stars for hope.)
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