A Guide to the New Shadyside
Robert Isenberg
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
726 Bellefonte Street has a storied – some might say cursed – history of hosting restaurants. In years past, it has housed The Gaslight, the Cheese Cellar, Pasta Piatta and Bikki’s Lounge. Late last year, it enjoyed the brief but splendid eatery known as Plate 736, where the kitchen provided heaping plates of fusion cuisine and the service won accolades from all kinds of restaurant critics. And then, in early 2006, Plate tanked.
The brave new tenant is Flair, an expansive two-dining-room establishment that boasts all the dim lighting, potent cocktails, flavorful entrees and slick minimalist decor that a foodie could desire. And with the opening of its subterranean doors (it’s tucked into the basement, at the bottom of an elegant steel staircase), Flair brings more than, well, flair: It speaks volumes of Shadyside’s ever-evolving culture scene, where the more things stay the same, the more they change.
Shadyside has always been a classy little neighborhood, a quaint little wedge of well-kept Victorian mansions, manicured lawns, brick facades and tree-lined side-streets. Its proximity to Carnegie-Mellon makes it convenient for well-to-do students, who can depend on well-managed apartments. And while Shadyside is a nice place to live, it’s an even better place to visit – if only for its two main commercial streets, Walnut and Ellsworth, whose merchants quietly compete for the attention of visitors.
Unlike other Pittsburgh neighborhoods, Shadyside has a tradition of slow, comfortable evolution – the luxury of a former “streetcar suburb” that has never been significantly hit by fire or financial crisis. While Lawrenceville has hurried to install galleries and cafés, and Downtown arts organizations have tirelessly labored to create the noteworthy Cultural District, regular visitors to Shadyside barely notice the subtle additions – a new hookah bar, an Apple computer store, a homey back-alley bar, and an entourage of new restaurants, which are gradually changing the face of Pittsburgh’s most fashionable neighborhood.
Extra-Fine Dining
If you’re looking to sink your teeth into a good burger, Walnut Street is a good start. There’s Max & Erma’s, Cappy’s, Doc’s, Shady Grove – literally enough places to eat a different chef’s burger every day for over a week (and if you decide to do this, UPMC Shadyside is conveniently close by).
But for a particularly nice date, or birthday, or classy business meeting, Shadyside has become just as crammed with cloth-napkin restaurants. Bikki is an all-American restaurant that claims “innovative modern cuisine, prepared meticulously and presented by true culinary artists.” Café Zinho offers Portuguese fare in a beautiful little space – which, not long ago, was a garage. Casbah is built like a stuccoed North African bazaar and houses one of the finest wine selections in the city. And then there are the new kids on the block: Typhoon, Soba and the Walnut Grill aren’t just exceptional restaurants; they’re also designed like mini-art galleries, with special attention given to color, lighting and every piece of furniture, like architects hoping to win the cover of Domus Magazine.
Fine dining can start in the early morning at Crepes Parisiennes, or end in the early morning with Eno Paninoteca’s “relaxing contemporary atmosphere,” where the bar menu keeps the kitchen open until 2 a.m.
And of course there’s Flair, which, with any luck, will survive the curse of 726 Bellefonte Street.
New Neighborhood, New Pastimes
Shadyside has long been a magnet for artists, coffee-lovers and, especially on Ellsworth, gay culture. But every few months, a new pastime is added to the neighborhood: La Havana, the hoppin’ little martini bar, hosts regular Latin dance parties; no matter where you’re headed if you’re passing by La Havana and see the salsa dancers bouncing inside, it’s too enticing to pass up. The Pittsburgh Deli Company has never been a mere sandwich shop, what with the second-story bar, but it has recently come alive with live bands, invited DJ’s, open mic nights and variety shows, including stand-up comedy. Local musicians frequently share bills with bands from Philadelphia and New York, and hip-hop artists have made regular appearances on the Deli Company’s improvised, speakeasy-like stage.
The most exotic new addition is Om Shiva, an upscale hookah bar that occupies the second story of 731 Filbert Street. Hidden at the top of a clumsy elevator, Om Shiva is like a souped-up, hangar-like coffee shop, where every flavor of tobacco can be smoked from shisha water pipes (the shisha craze began in Southside, with the arrival of the Sphinx Café and HKAN, but Om Shiva has a character all its own – and prices to match its quality).
Health and fitness are longtime Shadyside traditions: X Shadyside and the Fitness Factory vie for bodybuilding patrons, while Jacques Dessange, Tantrum Tanning, Salon Destefino and the Skin Center can sculpt every muscle, hair and patch of skin to the customer’s desire – and last month Shadyside added another to the list, the Studio Bleu Salon, advertising itself with a massive banner hanging over the Ann Taylor store.
If Pittsburgh were just slightly bigger, it might have a full-fledged gay district, akin to Philadelphia, New York and, of course, San Francisco. En lieu of this, Ellsworth has a certain welcoming vibe, mostly as a result of New York New York, one of city’s premier gay bars. As it happens, New York New York has fallen, replaced in name and tone by 5801, which has joined the name-your-establishment-after-the-street-address fad (the trend travels as far as Uniontown, with the super-swank 30 East Main Restaurant). The eastern end of the street has an East Village flavor, thanks to Gallerie Chiz, the Dancing Goat café, and a row of vintage clothing shops.
The Discriminating Shopper
Shadyside is a shoppers’ hub that has resisted becoming a chain-store neighborhood. Walnut has its GAP, J. Crew and Starbucks, but they’re rivaled by independent shops like the Peruvian food and crafts store, La Feria, or The Dress Circle, Jitters and Coffee Tree Roasters – and Ellsworth boasts almost entirely independent businesses. Some novelty stores have fallen by the wayside, probably because their wares were a little too novel (Asian antiques, stone statuettes), but for the most part, if a business can sustain itself in Shadyside, it’s there to stay – even specialty gift shops like Kards Unlimited, the Eureka! chocolatiers, and Journeys of Life, where shoppers can stock up on crystals and Tibetan statuary. As the Southside Works cultivates its generic retail stores, and the Waterfront continues to push theirs, its nice to know that Pittsburgh’s most fashionable neighborhood can be satisfied just being itself.
Robert Isenberg is a freelance writer, actor and playwright. Originally from Vermont, he lives in Polish Hill.
Photos:
Flair (main dining room)
Walnut Grill
Café Zinho
Cafe Mocha
Coffee Tree Roasters
all photographs copyright © Jonathan Greene