Pino's — Restaurant in Pittsburgh

I’m visiting from out of town. Tonight I ordered the fish special in parchment. After waiting for our food a 90 year old man in our party got impatient and told the waitress if our food wasn’t out in 5 minutes, we are leaving. The waitress said she’d check on it and let us know.

In a few minutes a man came to our table screaming, “Who got the fish” over and over. I couldn’t imagine why it mattered as we all thought he was there to tell us when our food would be out. Finally I said, “I did?”. He screamed at me, “Do you know how long it takes to cook Branzino?” I said I didn’t. He (literally) screamed nonstop about fish and time and I said, “I have no problem with that.” Then he puts the fish dish down in front of me which I hadn’t noticed he was carrying, and he starts cutting the fish skin up with a sharp knife two inches from my face while he’s still screaming at me. Then finally the man said the issue is we said we would leave if the food wasn’t out quickly, and we said only one person at the table felt that way. So he then gets into a screaming match with the right person I suppose which escalates, and then he calls the 90-yr-old by name, which was shocking. Then the server comes back, delivers the rest of the food, and asks me how the fish is and I said “this part looks a little raw and the risotto is crunchy but this part of good,” thinking maybe the screaming chef (I assumed) didn’t finish cooking it since he felt rushed. Then a woman came to me directly and said, “What are all your complaints…let’s get them all out in the open.” I said I had no complaints, thinking she meant about time. She then started lecturing me directly about how food takes time etc etc, and I said I’m a guest at this table and I have no problem with that. Then someone said the 90-year old man had the issue with time. Then she lectured the whole table about fine dining food taking time especially in parchment so I shouldn’t have ordered there fish if I was in a hurry. One person in our party pushed back, and the woman said to her, “I know you [name], you’ve been here before, you’re ok.” (Huh?) Then she looked at me again and said, “What are your problems with the fish.” And I said, “Do you really want to know?” And she said yes, and I said it seems raw here and the risotto is crunchy. She asked me if I’ve ever had Branzino and risotto before and I said yes and she said well I’ve never had this kind and it’s cooked perfectly and the dish is just not for me, and she or someone took it away.

Note the server brought the fish back in a to go box and said she didn’t charge for it. Also the decor is wonderful and the neighborhood is cute.

I’m out of space for this review, but some professionalism and diplomacy by the staff could have nipped this in the bud and made my vacation family meal delightful instead...

Last night, the owner of Pino verbally attacked and threatened my wife and me. It was extremely hostile and truly felt surreal.

My wife and I are a same sex couple and have been married for a number of years. We are in our early 60's, have wonderful jobs and love dining out. We enjoy the diversity of Pittsburgh restaurants and are as open to an elegant dessert at the Twisted Frenchman as we are to Page's delicious soft serve.

We have been in Pino's before and enjoyed the time there. Last night we had a very pleasant server and looked forward to our meal. We were enjoying a glass of wine and artichoke fritters. I had ordered a dish with orecchiette, one of my particular favorites. When the meal arrived, it was a different pasta which I pointed out to our server. She said that the kitchen had run out of orecchiette and another pasta had been substituted. I was disappointed but said that I was more than willing to give it a try.

Within minutes, the owner was standing at our table. He berated me for not understanding that kitchens run out of things. I noted that I understood that and went back to my meal. The owner's action was to return to the kitchen and then come back to our table - multiple times - escalating his words with every return. His statements included, "I don't like people like you here", "No one wants people like you here", "If you don't leave I'm calling the police", "You're dismissed from this restaurant" and finally, "Get out".

At one point he grabbed our plates with unfinished food and said we didn't deserve to eat there. Our server looked mortified and told him to let us eat our food. At this point, we were honestly afraid and both of us left the restaurant. We even left without a bill because staying there one more minute was impossible.

When I returned home, I called the restaurant and asked for our server. When she came to the phone, I explained who I was and that we had no intention of not paying for our meal and gave her my credit card number for payment.

I also made a police report due to the aggressive hositle behavior of this person because the situation was terrifying and we had no idea what action this person would take against us once we were gone.

And we were simply a married couple out for a pleasant meal and conversation.

I share this because I have been a member of the Pittsburgh dining community for many years and believe that people need to be aware of...

Food is pretty good. There is thought that goes into the dishes. We would return if friends mentioned it, but not a five star place.

First part is minor but shady in all. 1)Pictured below is the basil aioli that is served with a french fry appetizer. We asked the hostess who was also helping wait on tables if we could BUY some of this aioli. In a roundabout way she basically said no but they could give us a couple dressing cups of it to take home. We asked our waitress to box our FF and to pack a few extra sides of the aioli. Then not our waitress, but the hostess comes out with our FF boxed and in a bag. We get home and this is literally how much she gave us. We cant help but think she did this on purpose. Im not sure what point she was trying to prove or what she thought we would do with the aioli other than....eat it. Im also not sure why we couldn't buy a few sides or a tiny container 🤷.

2. I order the chicken del sol. Description says "tomato basil cream sauce" and it was as pictured below. When I asked the waitress she said they only add a splash of cream. Its fine if thats how they want to make it, but I figured it would be a CREAM sauce. The pasta was also very over cooked

3. They had the front glass open and it was a very humid day. A bug fell on my husband and there were a couple dead bugs on the floor. A spider was also found crawling on the wall right behind my husband. I get this happens when the front windows are open but Im TERRIFIED of spiders.

Pizza is delicious Our waitress was very nice and on top of everything. We still tipped more than 20% because we liked her so much. Overall the restaurant is not bad and don't let this deter you from going but these are the...