Chef Michele Savoia of Dish Osteria didn’t like The Bear. “It was too much screaming in that show. I don’t want to run a kitchen like that,” he said. He prefers a sustainable sense of calm in his restaurant setting. And that’s proved to be a winning strategy. At twenty-five years strong, Dish Osteria is one of Pittsburgh’s longest-running, and best, restaurants.
People flock to Dish from all over the city. When I first ate at Dish, on a Wednesday night, someone to the left of me at the bar was celebrating a family birthday. The person to the right of me was trying the restaurant for the first time. “It’s so hard to get a reservation here,” was a common refrain, but a bar seat is usually open. I often scarf down my food like someone is going to take it away from me, but at Dish, I wanted to slow down and appreciate everything. I asked for what would go with the pappardelle alla funghi, and bartender Raelynn Gigler suggested their Nebbiolo, a lighter-bodied 2022 red from Piemonte whose flavors deepened in the presence of the umami in the mushrooms.
You’ve Got a Friend at Dish Osteria
“The access to seafood is one of the perks of Sicilian food,” Savoia said. “The uniqueness of the food comes from the Greeks, the Normans, or the Arabs coming to Sicily. There’s lots of ingredients people brought to the island.” He noted that Sicilian chocolatiers produce chocolate the same way the Incans did, because the Spanish brought that recipe with them when they occupied Sicily. Chocolate di Modica has a high cocoa content not found anywhere else in the world.
Savoia grew up in Gela, a town in the south of Sicily known for its ancient Greek ruins. He spent his childhood playing on Greek temples, then moved to Bologna, then New York, where he met his wife and business partner, Cindy, who worked as a bartender. In New York, Savoia worked at Felix, a French bistro in SoHo with airy outdoor seats and an upscale, classic design. They moved to Pittsburgh, where Cindy is from, and bought the McCaan’s Irish pub building on the South Side to start Dish in 2000. The space on South 17 Street started as one neighborhood fixture and became another.
Not Just a Restaurant
Sherrie Flick, nationally recognized author of Homing: Instincts of a Rustbelt Feminist, who lives nearby in the South Side Slopes, actually named Dish in the acknowledgments of her recent book for the great meals she’s had there. Not many restaurants can say that. “Dish isn’t just a restaurant, it’s a home,” she told TABLE. “Everything, from the moment you walk in the door, is handled with care: food, service, cocktails. Michele and Cindy are some of the most gracious people I know.”
A star item at Dish is Spaghetti ai Frutti di Mare, with Bangs Island mussels that Savoia personally selected. He says once you try Bangs Island mussels, no other mussels compare. Savoia loves to cook seafood because of its versatility, at the moment he’s working on squid ink pasta and cuttlefish. Some menu crowdpleasers have stayed the same over the years, such as the melanzane e mozzarella di bufala. Savoia makes the eggplant in that antipasto just as his grandmother in Sicily did, pressing it between two boards to remove moisture and get the desired texture.
A Destination for Sicilian Wine in Pittsburgh
Dish was the first restaurant in Pittsburgh to stock Nero d’Avola, a classic Sicilian wine, and it still boasts an impressive wine list. Porticello, a Sicilian white, pairs excellently with the seafood on the menu. I spoke with Savoia at Dish’s bar over a glass of Ottoventi, a blend of Nero d’Avola and Syrah straight from Terre Siciliane DOC.
Gigler and Cindy Savoia also make an in-house digestivo, allorino, which is an absolutely delicious infusion of bay leaves into vodka. But they also have a host of amari as well as citrusy Cedro di Acqua, and chamomile grappa. Savoia prefers the less intense end of the grappa spectrum, because Sicilian cuisine isn’t as heavy as northern Italian cuisine and doesn’t require the same digestivo effect at the meal’s conclusion.
“We follow our desire to create a gathering place with good food.”
Savoia has seen a lot of change in the South Side in the almost quarter of a century he’s been in business there. When Dish first opened, a lot of the clientele were college kids who knew McCaan’s bar. The neighborhood’s bohemian centerpiece of the Beehive came and went. Bars and nightclubs replaced restaurants. When Savoia first opened Dish, he didn’t have a name for it, so he and Cindy simply taped a sign on the door that said “Opening tonight.” Except for a break to refurbish and rest, they’ve been open since.
The dining scene in Pittsburgh has expanded and developed over the years, and when you ask chefs in the city where they like to go out to eat, Dish is one of the most popular answers. Nik Forsberg of Fet-Fisk worked in Savoia’s kitchen, so Savoia enjoys going to Fet-Fisk to support a fellow seafood aficionado and friend.
Though the restaurant has changed over the years, part of what makes it so successful is not deviating from Savoia’s guiding philosophy. “We follow our desire to create a gathering place with good food, and we always improve. We stay away from trends and things that come and go,” Savoia said. He and Cindy specifically designed Dish not to have a television to encourage conversation and full enjoyment of a meal. Though Dish Osteria is a great date spot or night out destination, it’s also one of Pittsburgh’s best solo dining experiences, because with the warmth the Savoias curate in the space, you’ll never feel alone.
Story by Emma Riva / Photo Courtesy of Dish by Anderson English
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