The attention the Pittsburgh food scene received several years ago might have been a mirage.
Starting in 2013, national food publications started to notice the Steel City and included Pittsburgh in several rankings for top “foodie” cities. By 2015, nationally renowned restaurant ranker Zagat named Pittsburgh the best food city in the nation.
While the region’s food scene had made leaps and bounds from its economic nadir following the collapse of the steel industry, part of the reason Zagat chose Pittsburgh was that it was poised “for even more exciting things in 2016.”
Instead, the scene settled in from there. Some restaurants made a splash and are still wowing diners, while others didn’t have much staying power.
Bon Appetit magazine made 11 recommendations about Pittsburgh in 2013. Six of them closed, and most before the pandemic. Most of Zagat’s 2015 recommended restaurants remain, but Chaz & Odette closed in 2017 and Whitfield at the Ace Hotel — described as “perhaps the most robust symbol of Pittsburgh’s ascent” — never returned after the pandemic.
Most notably, controversial chef Kevin Sousa repeatedly started new endeavors during this era, receiving headlines and praise claiming his food could revive struggling towns like Braddock. But all of Sousa’s well-publicized restaurants closed and then Sousa decamped for New Mexico.
To some local chefs, like Jamilka Borges, it showed that the Pittsburgh food scene had improved, which deserved some attention — just maybe not as much as was being advertised.
Local restaurants started to offer more inventive menus, deliver more ethnic food options and use mostly local ingredients, but Pittsburgh was still far away from competing with food city goliaths such as Los Angeles and New York City.
“I have always said that all that attention in 2013 was definitely a little premature,” said Borges, who is opening a new restaurant called Lilith in Shadyside soon. “It feels like every freaking year there is a small city that gets the same attention. Media plays a bit of a role — it is cool to have a small city and a good story to tell.”
But 10 years on, is Pittsburgh’s food scene still in the same place?
Borges said the scene is finally coming into its own. She said organic demand for inventive, high-quality food is showing up at pop-ups that are packed with people, and those pop-ups are growing into full-service restaurants.
The industry also is adjusting as it comes out of the pandemic, with persistent staff shortages and demand for take-away meals, but local restaurateurs say the desire for gourmet to-go meals is still there.
And while the 2010s saw some foodie false starts, the current food scene has experienced a true explosion of authentic Asian restaurants that doesn’t appear to be slowing down.
“We have a lot of places that are doing a great job. I feel excited,” Borges said. “We are never gonna be New York or San Francisco, and that is OK. We don’t need to compare ourselves to them.”
Massoud Hossaini | Tribune-Review
Executive chef Jamilka Borges (left) and pastry chef Dianne DeStefano are preparing to open their restaurant, Lilith, on Spahr Street in Shadyside.
Evolving tastes
Popular regional chains are still king in the Pittsburgh food scene. Even through all the national accolades for independent Pittsburgh restaurants, it’s still the chains that are winning readers’ choice awards and filling seats.
The growth of locations for restaurants like Condado and Burgatory are testament to that, Borges said. She also noted the pandemic shifted priorities for diners, and that chains with their consistent menus and quick service took priority over full-service dining. She cited the closing of upscale pizzeria Dinette in East Liberty, which was replaced in 2021 by fast-casual chain Piada Italian Street Food.
That doesn’t mean chains should be looked down upon, said Borges, especially during an era when indoor dining came with risks of catching covid. And even though Borges wants diners to come to smaller, independent restaurants that she has worked in, she recognizes the appeal of the successful chain.
“Regional concepts and chains, they are doing something consistent — the majority of people are going to love that,” she said. “I completely understand.”
But Borges said a growing culinary scene is competing with popular chains as the city emerges from the pandemic, and it’s building a self-sustaining clientele that might finally be living up to the hype Pittsburgh received several years ago.
She said young chefs are holding pop-up dinners at restaurants when they are closed on Mondays, and these events typically are packed with patrons.
Some of these pop-ups have become so successful that chefs have been able to leverage them into full-fledged restaurants of their own, like Scandinavian-inspired fet-fisk, which plans to open in Bloomfield at the former Lombardozzi space.
She mentioned that Dish Osteria, the popular Italian restaurant in the South Side, returned from a pandemic-era absence and has been met with much fanfare.
“The places that are doing full service in a somewhat upscale, somewhat casual atmosphere, like Dish Osteria, are packed every night,” Borges said.
Borges also notes that some critically acclaimed mainstays born in the 2010s, like Justin Severino’s Morcilla and Kate Lasky and Tomasz Skowronski’s Apteka, continue to earn national award nominations and are pushing the food scene forward.
She said a difference between the food scene now and 10 years ago is the clientele: Ten years ago, the city didn’t quite have the population of foodies to sustain the growth in restaurants it was seeing. Now, with the growth in the tech industry and locals’ evolving tastes, Borges feels differently.
For her own restaurant, Lilith, which is taking over the former Cafe Zinho location in Shadyside, Borges said she believes diners are ready to embrace the burgeoning food scene more robustly this go-round.
Borges hails from Puerto Rico and is partnering with Dianne DeStefano to open Lilith. She said the farm-to-table restaurant will combine Puerto Rican fare with Sicilian flavors and will have a strong focus on full service.
“We want to go back to a place that you feel taken care of 100%, without being pretentious or fine dining,” Borges said.
Pandemic shifts
Like every city in the nation, the pandemic took a wrecking ball to Pittsburgh’s food scene. Trends changed, chefs adjusted and a lot of restaurants closed, never to return. Food and drinking establishments in the Pittsburgh region lost more than 31,000 jobs between October 2019 and October 2020, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
One of those casualties was Spoon, owned and operated by chef Brian Pekarcik. He opened Spoon in 2010, joining a wave of upscale yet casual restaurants like Cure in Lawrenceville and Meat & Potatoes in Downtown.
He got a one-year extension on his 10-year lease just as the pandemic hit, and Pekarcik said he and his wife started to make prepared foods and deliver meals to stay afloat. A federal small-business loan helped for a bit, but it wasn’t enough.
“The pandemic hit, and everything changed,” Pekarcik said.
But hardship spurred innovation — and the growth of a different food-service market.
Massoud Hossaini | Tribune-Review
Owner Brian Pekarcik at Local Provisions in Fox Chapel Plaza.
Pekarcik said he started to see the upside of prepared foods and delivery. He said he saw the demand for chef-inspired meals was still there, just not necessarily at full-service restaurants.
That’s when he decided to open Local Provisions, a combination market/cafe/caterer in Fox Chapel Plaza in O’Hara Township. Local Provisions opened in October, and the cafe menu includes items such as Southwest Shrimp Salad, Parm + Asiago Crusted Grilled Cheese and a Spoon Burger.
Pekarcik said his market is filled with products from local producers, including meatballs from DiAnoia’s in the Strip District, baked goods from Driftwood Pizza in Lawrenceville and pita bread from Pitaland in Brookline. He said there is demand to increase access to Pittsburgh’s foodie treasures.
“Why can’t we get a lot of these local great products that are made here in Pittsburgh and bring them in?” he said.
The limited-service food scene, like Local Provisions and other casual establishments, has grown in Pittsburgh coming out of the pandemic. Full-service restaurants are rebounding, but many restaurateurs are still lamenting staff shortages. But that doesn’t appear to be a problem for limited-service establishments.
June employment in full-service restaurants was still 2,000 jobs below its January 2020 total, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. For limited-service establishments, June employment was 2,500 jobs higher than in January 2020.
Pekarcik said this shift was two-pronged: Customer demand for take-away meals grew during the pandemic and was sustained in a new, remote-work era, and restaurant operators like himself wanted to find a better work-life balance.
He said when running Spoon, the restaurant often wouldn’t close until 11:30 each night. Now with Local Provisions, he is home by 9:30 p.m.
Pekarcik said limited service, but with gastronomically created food, is leading a part of Pittsburgh’s food scene growth. He said it shows customers are demanding creative meals but in different outlets than before.
“People appreciate the food you put your heart and soul behind, regardless of location,” he said.
Asian acceleration
One part of the Pittsburgh food scene that appears to be living up to the hype is its Asian restaurants. In 2015, Saveur magazine declared “America’s Next Great Chinatown” was taking root in Pittsburgh.
Mike Chen has been running Asian restaurants in Pittsburgh for 35 years, and he is seeing the growth. He said there are now 50 Asian businesses in Squirrel Hill. And they are continuing to grow in the neighborhood, with a Korean BBQ buffet slated to take over the former Eat’n Park location on Murray Avenue.
He said for many years, when Pittsburgh diners talked about Chinese food, the list started with egg rolls and ended with General Tso’s chicken, but that is changing.
Massoud Hossaini | Tribune-Review
A dumpling at Everyday Noodles in Squirrel Hill.
Chen opened Everyday Noodles in Squirrel Hill 10 years ago. It was one of the first restaurants in the area to offer authentic Chinese dishes like soup dumplings, and it regularly has lines out the door of diners waiting for a table.
And that’s in addition to the growing number of joints in Oakland serving Korean fried chicken, Taiwanese boba tea and other specialties from East Asia — not to mention the packed tables at establishments such as Korean restaurant Soju in Garfield, sushi specialist Mola in East Liberty and the consistent popularity of Squirrel Hill’s Szechuan staple Chengdu Gourmet, which recently opened a second location in the North Hills.
Saveur noted the region’s fast-growing Asian population, driven by a boom of international college students, was leading the charge. Allegheny County’s Asian population increased by more than 71% between 2010 and 2020, according to census figures.
But Chen notes it is not just Asian students demanding authentic flavors from back home. It is native Pittsburghers, too.
“When we first started Everyday Noodles, over 70% of our customers were Asian. Now it is over 70% American,” Chen said.
Chen said he believes people are traveling more and trying authentic Asian food around the globe and falling in love with the flavors. He also believes an influx of young adults to Pittsburgh are hungry for Asian cuisine that goes beyond broccoli beef.
To fill that demand, Chen is partnering with Mola owner Alex Tang and bringing Pittsburgh its first Asian food hall. Called Novo, the concept will be in the Terminal in the Strip District and include a Korean bakery, a bubble tea cafe, a stand serving Cantonese roast meat and others.
Asian food halls like Urban Hawker in New York City and Pike Kitchen outside Washington, D.C., have become popular foodie destinations.
Chen said the concept fits perfectly with Pittsburgh’s evolving food scene.
“The change is now. They are ready to try something new, that is a bit different than before,” he said. “But they don’t want it too fancy or complicated. They want it to be simple.”
Ryan Deto is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Ryan by email at rdeto@triblive.com or via Twitter .
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