It may not come as a surprise to you that TABLE Magazine staff eat at a lot of restaurants. We asked some of our colleagues for their best meals of 2024, and also what they’re going to miss from the Pittsburgh restaurant scene with the plethora of closures this year and the ever-changing culinary landscape. Happy new year, and we hope you eat well in 2025.
TABLE Magazine Staff’s Best Meals of 2024
Keith Recker, Editor in Chief
“This year, I loved an after-dinner drink of yellow chartreuse at Fish Nor Fowl, sipped on a dramatically rainy summer night after a wonderful meal of perfectly prepared fish. This got me started down a path of after dinner drink exploration, so it is my intention to go to Grapperia and find my favorite grappa. That’s my New Year’s resolution for 2025. If you don’t mind my being snarky…I’ll miss the many specialty food items that Giant Eagle has eliminated as they reduce the depth of their offerings. I now feel like I can’t buy all my recipe needs there.” (Though Pittsburgh may be getting a Wegman’s, so Keith may be getting some more grocery variation).
Justin Matase, Publisher
“The coconut scallop ceviche at Lilith was incredible. I wish restaurants in Pittsburgh would take more risks, though. A lot of menus are starting to look a little similar.”
Emma Riva, Online Editor
“The best meal I had this year was at Fet-Fisk, which was also one of my favorite interviews I did for TABLE. I had a wonderful bottle of wine from the underrepresented Italian region of Molise there, made from a very rare grape called Tintilia del Molise. I had oysters for the first time there, too! But also the black squid ink risotto I had as a main, then a dessert of pistachio and lemon semifreddo, washed down with a flight of vermouths, were all excellent. The food I had at Dish Osteria (and my conversation with Chef Michele Savoia) was another great dining experience. I had an amazing appetizer of eggplant and focaccia, a great mushroom pappardelle, and the Savoias’ house-made allorino, a digestivo I will not soon forget.
I’m going to miss the original location of the mysteriously closed restaurant Dijlah, a late-night Turkish coffee and falafel spot and hookah lounge in Lawrenceville that treated me very well on nights when there was nothing else open. They haven’t confirmed their closure, but their shuttered windows suggest they are no longer with us. Google seems to say they may have moved to Oakland. I’ll miss those Turkish coffees at midnight with no one else in the non-hookah section of the restaurant and a strange playlist of Eurodance covers of recent pop hits on while the staff’s children ran around in the background. RIP.”
Kylie Thomas, Online Editor
“Wild Rosemary is one of those places that once you’ve been, you just have to go back. I was worried my chance to revel in Chef Raymond Mikesell’s Supper Club a second time had passed with the announcement of their closure in November and I’d have to say I missed them here. But, thankfully, the team is back in action and ready to serve up some delicious comfort food that takes you back to your childhood.
I love the sense of comfort and outstanding food that Chef Raymond prepares. His arancini are the best I’ve ever had and the Supper Club meals I attended this year are the best way to meet others in the community in Pittsburgh.”
Corinne Whiting, Contributor
“I will never pass up a chance to savor the pineapple mango tomatillo salsa at Kaya or the salmon salad (preceded by Buffalo cauliflower bites) among friendly neighbors at the Frick Park Tavern bartop. This past year, I delighted in making welcoming Spigolo my go-to spot for oat lattes, Pigeon Bagel goodies and generous pup cups (much to my furry friend’s delight), and I savored standout meals at newer spots like Fet-Fisk and Balvanera, where I still dream of a seasonal mushroom dish I enjoyed there often.”
Zack Durkin, Sales Enablement Executive
“I would like to see bars in Pittsburgh catch up with the rest of the cocktail industry and keep up with the trends in cocktail bars that other big cities have already gotten in on, like fat-washing. (Zack also tends bar at Mi Cita in Sewickley). At Commerce Bar, I had a clarified peanut butter and jelly milk punch I loved called The Sack Lunch. Sweet potato chorizo hash from Out of the Fire Café was great. I also got a chance to go to Clifford’s Restaurant, where you can only get a reservation once a year, was also amazing. I got to have a fantastic raclette there.”
Susan Flemings Morgan, Contributor
“Restaurants come and go, and I miss some briefly, but what I really miss is two kinds of dining experiences, rather than particular restaurants. It seems that since COVID, we have lost a number of casual bistros known more for their convivial atmosphere than their inventive food—places you could drop in on a Friday night without a reservation, always see someone you knew, have a drink until a table freed up, grab a bite for under $50 and be home by 9:30. Elsa’s Place in Castle Shannon is a good example.
Conversely, I regret the decline over the past several decades of what I thought of as special occasion dining—expensive restaurants with great food where men actually wore ties without complaining—like the long-gone Colony or The Edge on Mt. Washington. We still have plenty of high-end restaurants, and I appreciate many things about our increasingly casual lifestyle. But somehow a birthday or anniversary dinner is not quite as memorable when you’re seated to someone in a Steelers sweatshirt. If I had to pick one restaurant I miss it would be Cafe Zinho with its memorable atmosphere and food. And I definitely will mourn the original slightly grungy, homey Atria’s in Mt. Lebanon if the owners, who are remodeling, make it like the other blah Atria’s or turn it into a Juniper Grill.”
We all miss…
Piada in East Liberty in the Centre Avenue shopping complex fed us many times this year. Was it fine dining? No. But it served many of our staff meetings, and when Keith generously treated us to an order of a Piada bowl or wrap, it was always a nice day.
Story by TABLE Magazine Staff
Photo by Anna Jakutac-Wojitalik
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