Melting Pot — Restaurant in Pittsburgh

The Melting Pot has been the place my husband and I would go to celebrate really special occasions. In the past we had amazing experiences there. The waitstaff went out of their way to be friendly and helpful about what we ordered and how it needed to be cooked. They were always SO attentive in making sure we had everything we needed and checked back frequently to make sure we were doing well and the cooking was going okay. We visited last night (my husband and our two teenagers) for a special dinner that we had been excited about for weeks. We were seated upstairs in a corner next to a stack of high chairs and cleaning supplies. After about 20 minutes, our server finally stopped by to greet us and encouraged us to order everything at once, so we ordered the 3 course endless entrée for all of us with the bourguignon cooking style. After more than an hour of waiting (we did get salads about 45 minutes in), our server brought over one pot of oil for cooking, sat it on a burner, and turned it on high. I asked if we would be getting a second pot (I thought one pot for every two people was standard), so he brought up a second pot a few minutes later and also turned that one on high. The pots were boiling and spitting oil everywhere so we turned the burners down, and he came back after about 30 minutes of our oil heating to drop off the entrees. And I mean literally he just sat them on the table and walked away. We are accustomed to being told what was on the plates and given cooking times for everything, but our server did not do that. The oil was still probably too hot, but we never fry in oil at home and were not used to the burners, so we didn’t realize it immediately and tried to ignore the oil spraying us as we attempted to cook our food. Suddenly there was an extremely loud POP and a large amount of oil splattered out of the pot and onto me and my son. He got the worst of it and ended up with second degree burns (blisters) on his arm. We were all kind of shaken up. Someone stopped by to give us burn cream which we applied to his arm. We understand that there is a risk in cooking with oil, but after this incident my son was crying and we hadn’t gotten through even half of the first portion of our entrees and I really just wanted to leave. The woman turned off the pot that burned us, and the other pot seemed hot, but nothing was cooking and I couldn’t find our server for assistance. The kids really wanted to wait for their dessert, so we waited. And waited. And waited. Another 30 minutes passed before our server finally came to start clearing away the dishes, said he’d be right back with the chocolate. He wasn’t. Finally he dropped off the pots with chocolate and turned the burners on high again and walked away. We ordered the Original, so chocolate with a little bit of PB. In the past, the waitstaff would mix up the PB into the chocolate, tell us about the dippers, etc., but he was in a big hurry to leave (me too!) so we figured no biggie, we can mix in the PB. But the result was the most unappetizing thing I have ever seen at The Melting Pot. The chocolate was weird, thick and gritty, and the peanut butter wouldn’t mix in and turned into an oil slick on top. We couldn’t eat it. Probably 75% or more of the food we purchased ended up in the garbage. After all of that, we got the bill. We paid over $200 for the worst restaurant experience we’ve ever had. We left a decent tip for our server because we believe he deserves to be paid for the work he does, but that was the only reason we tipped him because the service was absolutely terrible. They took off $26 for “customer recovery” which seemed to surprise the server, but no one asked how my son was, how our meal was, if they could get us anything. It was a huge disappointment, and it is devastating that we wasted what is a lot of money for our family on that awful experience. I DO NOT recommend this restaurant any longer, and if you really really want to go, request a table downstairs because it is very easy to be ignored for hours in a table in the corner...

I've been to the Melting Pot nearly a dozen times between the old location and new one on dates, with friends, and for work. Between my fellow diners and myself, we've eaten almost every combination of food you can get. I'll share my perspective (positive) and my husband's (more negative). Before I start though...if you show up and are mad that you have to cook your own food, spend more money than you think it's worth, and don't want to be in the restaurant for 2+ hours...look at the restaurant website and read some reviews. If it's not for you, go somewhere else. It's your own fault if you did no research and are surprised by any of these things, so don't blame it on the restaurant.

Positive: always excellent service. If something is wrong/forgotten/confusing just ask for help because they want you to be happy tasty mixed drinks you can ask for more dippers for the cheese and chocolate courses and the basic vegetables for the main course for FREE so keep that in mind if you have a big appetite the experience - this is why I go. It's a great ice breaker because you have something fun to do while you are eating and talking vs. being at a restaurant for 45 minutes staring at each other and making small talk highly liked menu options: any cheese is great, especially the loaded baked potato all salads are wonderful, especially Caesar with pine nuts have done every cooking style except for the grill. Always get the hot oil (begins with a B) for one because it comes with batter and bread crumbs that you can use with the green goddess dip and mushrooms to make stuffed mushrooms

I must add 5 more stars so here they are!⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Melting Pot is such an incredible place! My Fiancée and I came to celebrate our recent engagement and we received an experience that can’t be beat! This was our first time at The Melting Pot, we explained this to our incredible waitress, Sam, and also our celebration reason, she explained every detail throughly to us. (If you go, ask for her!) We ordered the four course “complete experience for two”, a charcuterie board, a glass of Merlot, a Love Martini, and a pitcher of the sangria! We were suprised by how much food came with this experience from the charcuterie, to salad, entree, and dessert! Our cheese of choice was the Quattro Formaggio! What a delight! It paired well with our charcuterie and the board of bread and veg that comes with it! Our salad, the house, and the California were just so fresh and delicious that we nearly found ourselves full from that point forward! The entrees! We chose the Coq Au Vin to cook our meats in. The Pacific Rim and the Steak Lovers was our go to! The proteins on these plates can’t be beat! We highly recommend them along with the dips they come with! For dessert my fiancée chose the S’mores fondue! It was flambéed in front of us and what a show that was! This choice was also just delectable paired with the fruits and cake to dip! By the end of the evening we had to box up our food! The service here from the wait staff to the owner is second to none! We actually had the pleasure of meeting the owner, Chris, due to the fact that one of our burners was not working properly and his staff called him over to alert him of the matter. This wasn’t a big deal for us at all and actually gave us the chance to find out a little more about him and his business. Chris is a hard working and attentive owner and it shows right down to the people he hires as his staff. At the end of the night, we were given a special surprise for our engagement! Our waitress, Sam, brought out a plate decorated in chocolate writing that congratulated us on our engagement and a champagne toast! For a company and crew to go above and beyond like this goes to show that they truly care for their guests and we will most certainly be back! We undoubtedly will be asking for Sam as our waitress again and looking for the owner, Chris, to shake his hand...