Butcher and the Rye — Restaurant in Pittsburgh

3.5 stars ... Good service and fun vibe place but the food was a bit more miss than hits for me.

Looking for an restaurant that had an interesting menu and great service in the downtown core, yelp quickly pointed to a few restaurants and Butcher and Rye popped up with its near perfect score. I can see it being one of the more popular downtown Pittsburgh places... it has a fun vibe.

One thing I noticed when we arrived was that the restaurant was only 75% filled but there's no reservations left available online. So for anyone thinking there's no seating even on a Friday night, you probably would be pleasantly surprised if you called in to see if there is a table available. When you walk in, you immediately notice the bar area and the incredibly huge wall of bottles. There's 3 levels to the restaurant and each level and spot has an unique and arresting visual to keep you looking around. You can spot the large antler chandelier or tall standing bear or even the head of a pig. Think of it as a hunter's man cave who happens to like their rye... correction: LOVES their rye. Possibly bathes in it.

The staff here is friendly and informative of all items on the menu. It was recommended to look at the menu as a sharing plate style and to have a few small plates and one or two large plates depending on how starved we are. We ended up ordering their special crispy octopus, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and dirty pasta.

Crispy Octopus - It was offered on their special menu and seeing how I will miss the Tako octopus, this sounded like a good option. It came with two medium sized tentacles with a nice crispy shell on it. It was pretty easy to cut through with the butter knife and it was nicely tender. The sides that came with it had great texture.... crispy shell covering a tender creamy block, soft chick peas, and perhaps a wilted grilled leek. Compared to the octopus, i found the sides to be quite light on flavour and underseasoned. The leek or spring onion had flavour but the creamy block (polenta?) had very little flavour. I think the octopus was very good but the sides kinda left the dish a little underwhelming. 3.5/5 (4 for the octopus though!)

Brussel Sprouts - Super deep bronzed crispy sprouts were under a mountain of Parmesan cheese and dill. There was an aioli on the bottom that was supposedly flavoured with lemon. This was another great textural dish but could be seasoned a bit more. Even the parmesean didn't quite save the dish from being light on flavour. 3.5/5

Cauliflower - This looked super spicy as it arrived with a nice red colour but there wasn't any heat to it once you took a bite. The cauliflower was crispy and was accompanied with farro grains, pine nuts, and a smear of harrisa. Overall, I loved how you got crunch, crispy bit, and a tender cauli. I wish the harissa was a bit stronger as I found the flavour not very strong. 3.5/5

Dirty Pasta - Al dente long open tubes pasta carrying a rich sauce of pecorino, ground duck, and finely diced carrots. The sauce was very rich texture and lovely but opposite of the previous 3 dishes, it was incredibly salty. I'm not sure if all the salt arrived from the other 3 dishes or the pecorino was heavy handed. 3/5

Overall, the service was good and had a great atmosphere. Just unfortunately the dishes and kitchen wasnt quite wowing us. The other odd thing was that they delivered all 3 small plates within minutes of each other and we didnt have any room for the 3rd plate. They had to remove our drinks to fit it. So I wish I could say its a 4 stars but not quite for...

Keep all this in mind, we went on New Years Eve 2019. We had a reservation for two at 10pm. So they were pretty damn busy, to say the least.

We ordered drinks, and it took about 15 minutes for them to show up. Our waiter did warn us that the bar was busy, and it might take a while. I didn't mind waiting and we even got a free drink out of it. The waiter felt bad our drinks took so long so he comped one. The cocktails were incredible though.

The appetizers (small plates) were very good. The tartare was great and the bread it was served with was incredible as well. I don't know if they always do this, but they gave us two cut pieces of bread (one for me and one for my girlfriend). I appreciate little touches like that.

The actual meals were pretty good as well. Maybe not worth the price though. My girlfriend ordered the New Years Menu Venison dish. She wasn't too happy with the portion size and the presentation of the dish was pretty poor. Very sloppy without much care as to how it was plated. It's not the biggest deal in the world, but I'm trying to be critical here. I ordered the Strip Steak. It was cooked fine, little less marbling than I prefer but pretty decent. The biggest problem I had was the 'bone marrow salad' that was supposed to be included with the meal. I don't know if they got too busy, and it was forgotten about. Or the couple of leaves on the top of the steak were it. I didn't taste any bone marrow, but I was a bit intoxicated.

Overall I enjoyed our experience and we will most likely be back. I might stick to just some drinks and a couple small plates though. I don't mind paying for quality, but from what I've seen with some of the large plates, they simply aren't quite at the level they're charging for.

TLDR: It was worth it. Nobody is perfect. Get...

I would have given 5 stars but the 3 young hostesses were horrible and unfriendly. There's no such thing as a second 1st impression. They had no interest in trying to accommodate a table of one and said to take a seat at the bar which was filled to capacity and the bar upstairs (which they didn't mention) had a private event. I asked for a table and they said no seating available until after 9:00pm. (I arrived at 6:30) and there were plenty of open tables available. I would have walked out and taken my business elsewhere had it not been poring down rain outside.

A seat at the bar became available and my experience improved. There was a new and friendly bartender who was very pleasant and willing to take my order. His recommendation m-- a glass of Malbec wine was prefect. The bread was amazing! (disappointed I was charged $5-- its bread) it was freshly baked, warm and came with whipped butter, sea salt and a side of gravy. As an entree I ordered the pan seared halibut with toasted almond gnocchi, artichoke, raisin and olive marmalade and burnt lemon curd. It was a perfect portion size and not too heavy. For dessert I had the pumpkin pie with gingerbread, cranberry, Pepita meringue and buttermilk ice cream. It had a lot of different flavors competing against one another. I was surprised the coffee was really lackluster for a restaurant that prides itself on refining details...