In a quest to find Pittsburgh’s best pierogis, we held a blind tasting of nine of the city’s most beloved Eastern European treats. While the “grandma standard” ruled the discussion, each of nine entries impressed our blind tasters with its special virtues.
What is Pittsburgh’s Best Pierogi?
Pierogis are Pittsburgh’s unofficial favorite food. We throng to the annual Pierogifest. People line up for frequent church basement pierogis sales as if Springsteen was coming to town. Giant anthropomorphic pierogis run across PNC Park during home baseball games. But why? Is a pierogis more than dough and filling? And what makes a good pierogis, anyway?
To investigate these questions and more, we brought together seven pierogis lovers for a blind tasting of pierogis from Pittsburgh’s most popular pierogis hotspots. Our list of nine sources came to us through a poll of our social followers. They nominated Apteka, Polska Laska, S&D Polish Deli, Starlite Lounge, Butterjoint, Pierogies Plus, and St. Vladimir’s Church in Arnold as their favorites.
While the mission of the tasting was originally to find the best pierogis, what quickly emerged was that the best pierogis is the one your grandmother makes. One after another, most of our crew of tasters described, with love and longing, the pierogis of their childhood. The glow of nostalgia is nearly impossible for a restaurant to replicate, though many do try.
The Pierogi Judges and Venue
Alexander Riola, Dominika Bronner, Stephanie Cravotta, Christina Homer, Jon Homer, Jackie Potoczk, and Rick Sebak are all pierogi lovers of Polish descent with their own connections to the pierogis. All the tasters assembled in front of a mural in the Bulgarian Macedonian Cultural Center in West Homestead, the table set with blue and white plates and glasses of water for the filling and fulfilling experience they were about to have.
The Bulgarian Macedonian Cultural Center is a communal space for the Bulgarian and Macedonian immigrant community in Pittsburgh. While that cuisine doesn’t typically have pierogis, it represented the multi-generational spirit of the pierogis and the combination of grit and tenderness typical of Slavic immigrant communities in Pittsburgh.
How Pierogis Remind us of Home
Riola is the General Manager and sommelier at Fish nor Fowl, and with a mixture of Italian, Polish, and Sicilian heritage, he knows home cooking. Pierogis remind him of his Babcia, who took care of his family while his mother was ill with multiple sclerosis. To him, pierogis are a symbol of strength and multi-generational caretaking. “I grew up with a pierogis in one hand and a ravioli in the other,” he explained of his upbringing in an Italian-Polish family in Rochester, New York. “My grandmother could hardly walk but still made pierogis.”
For Dominika Bronner, the pierogi is an ubiquitous part of her upbringing. Bronner was the only one in the group who grew up in Poland. She discovered that she and Jackie Potoczk have a shared heritage, though — Brunner grew up in a small city called Opole, and Potoczk’s ancestors came from that same tiny Polish town. Already, pierogis were a site of connection and shared history.
Bronner was going to judge the pierogis on their relationship to the traditional Polish pierogis, which she said got most of its character from the “farmer’s cheese” uncommon in American pierogis, as well as the consistency of the dough. When the plates of steaming pierogis started coming out, Brunner remarked: “Polish people are direct, sometimes brutally honest. This could get really ugly.” Then she laughed and took a bite.
Tasting Pittsburgh’s Pierogis
One pierogi after the other piled up on the porcelain plates. A logistical concern began to emerge: How many pierogis could one person feasibly eat?
“25 on Christmas,” Riola said.
“30 when I’m sad,” Jon Homer added.
We asked each taster to score the pierogis at hand on appearance, dough, and filling. We encouraged them to jot down their impressions of each. Even without knowing which pierogi came from what restaurant, it quickly emerged that each pierogi had its good qualities. Apteka, for example, was noted less “traditional” but stood out for its uniqueness. Butterjoint’s light-as-air filling was also praised. Overall, fillings went well beyond ordinary potato-based fare. The Church Brew Works pierogis also got points for uniqueness, with a Turkey Devonshire filling for an extra Pittsburgh touch. (Without knowing what it was, several tasters guessed “chicken” or “crispy bacon.”)
Newcomer Polska Laska won people over with its appearance, with an intricately scalloped edge. The most glaringly different in appearance of the batch was Starlite Lounge’s, a gigantic pocket of dough that would be heavenly after a long night out. In the company of the other pierogis, it looked like a behemoth, showing how the bar pierogi is in a class all its own. If you’re trying to sober up, dough and potatoes could be a cure.
The Best Pierogis in Pittsburgh Are…
But the pierogis that captured the most hearts and minds were the ones from St. Vladimir’s Church in Arnold. Everyone who tried them remarked that they were the closest to “grandma style.” Bronner noted on her score sheet that it was closest to the Polish pierogis she grew up with. The church basement pierogi is different by nature than pierogis on a restaurant plate. They’re cooked by Slavic babushkas and meant to raise funds for a community space rather than help run a business. Pierogies Plus in McKees Rocks also got a “close to home-made” from Christina Homer.
Even with the “grandma standard” in play, each pierogi got to shine in its own right. In terms of what makes a good pierogi, Riola said it’s more about the filling than the dough. Some pierogis stood out for the dough, like the admirably toothier doughs of S&D or Church Brew Works. But on the whole, tasting the pierogis offered each participant an opportunity to share family memories and reflect on what the pierogi meant to them. At the start of the tasting, everyone was quiet, trying to focus and not influence each other’s decisions. By the end, banter and laughter abounded.
Every Pierogi is Beautiful
WQED producer Rick Sebak is a beloved figure around Pittsburgh for his documentaries about regional history and culture. He happens to be Polish. His pierogi notes had a poetic bent to them – he called Gosia’s a “small beauty.” Butterjoint’s was “perfect” and Starlite Lounge’s “ginormous.” If anyone were to know what makes a Pittsburgh pierogi, it would probably be Sebak, but even he seemed to look more toward the subjectivity of the pierogi. None of his feedback was negative. He found something to see and appreciate in each one. For him, the pierogi wasn’t how close it was to Babcia’s, but what it had to offer in and of itself. This was a lovely expression of how Pittsburgh’s pierogis are as varied as the people who make it up.
“It’s cool to see people use the pierogi as a canvas,” Potoczk said. Maybe that’s what the pierogi really is, a canvas to show that love, loyalty, and connection are the glue that binds us together even during moments of hardship. And, well … it doesn’t hurt that that love is bound up in dough and cheese.
Nine Pittsburgh Pierogi Hotspots
Apteka
4606 Penn Avenue, Bloomfield
Butterjoint
208 North Craig Street, Oakland
Church Brew Works
3525 Liberty Ave, Lawrenceville
Gosia’s
5801 PA Route 981, Latrobe
Pierogies Plus
342 Island Avenue, McKees Rocks, PA
Polska Laska
1100 North Canal Street, Sharpsburg
S&D Polish Deli
2204 Penn Avenue, Strip District
Saint Vlad’s
73 South 18th Street, South Side
Starlite Lounge
364 Freeport Road, Blawnox
How to Pair Wines with Pierogis
Fish nor Fowl’s General Manager and Sommelier Alexander C. Riola, one of our blind tasters, shares wines to pair with your next pierogi adventure.
Feudi del Pisciotto, Grillo (Sicily)
Sicilian Grillo, from the other side of my Italian-Polish heritage, is a stunning pairing for a pierogi. The wine has a tamed acidity which cuts through the heaviness of the dish. Its fruit, chamomile, and gentle salinity help bring out the best aspects of a classic Polish pierogi.
Dr. Konstantin Frank, Gewurztraminer (New York State)
The Finger Lakes region brings high minerality, ripe fruits, bright acidity and rose florality to this Gewürztraminer. A good bottle also presents a fun ginger spice nuance that will bring out the best in the pierogi experience.
F.X. Pichler, Gruner Veltiner (Austria)
As fun to say as it is to drink, Gruner Veltiner is characterized by high acidity, and peppery and floral tasting notes. This lovely wine lightens and brightens the journey that is finishing a plate of pierogis.
Story by Emma Riva
Production by Star Laliberte
Photography by Jeff Swensen
Featured Photo by Dave Bryce
Shot on Location at The Bulgarian Macedonian Cultural Center
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