Ritual House — Restaurant in Pittsburgh

Original review posted October 2023, July 2024 update at bottom

I've been waiting to leave a review in the continuing hope that Ritual House will improve, but as of today I'm beginning to lose hope after 6 or 7 visits.

Let me start out with the pros, because there are definitely things they're doing right and they deserve some credit for them:

Service - the staff has always been exceptional, and have been consistently polite, friendly, and attentive. The speed suffered in their first month or two but rapidly improved after that, so I can comfortably attribute that to teething issues.

Ambiance - this one might be debatable for some, but there's definitely a notable "wow" factor when you walk in that can't be denied regardless of personal preference.

"Innovation" or "Iteration" - having been multiple times since opening, they seem to be making positive changes - service time has improved dramatically, and they've made some smart adjustments to the menu.

Despite all of this, my biggest complaint and the core reason behind my rating is the overall quality/ consistency of the food - I've ordered a few different items multiple times, and it's amazing how wildly the experience can vary. The truffle fries are sometimes hot, crispy, and generally amazing, but others they've been cool and bland. The short rib was ok once, but the second time I ordered it it was dry and bland with undercooked vegetables and cold grits.

The single biggest failure in my book, particularly on the lunch menu, is the salads - as my S/O eloquently summarized, "How do you mess up a salad???". I've ordered them multiple times, and every time they're a disappointment. Most of it comes down to consistency - sometimes there's too much dressing, sometimes too little, sometimes they're missing ingredients, and sometimes they come with extra ingredients. However, the cardinal sin is the proteins - every time I've ordered one with chicken, it's been served with a colorless, flavorless, dry piece of chicken breast that looks (and tastes) that it was pulled out of the freezer and defrosted. I genuinely think I've had better chicken in a McDonald's or Wendy's salad, and that's about as low of a bar as I can think of. That may seem like a hyperbolic statement, but the chicken was genuinely that bad, and I'm astonished that the kitchen consistently seems to feel like it's an acceptable level of quality.

It genuinely feels a little bad to write this review - I've been waiting months for Ritual House to improve, and while they've made some progress, they still have consistent issues with the most critical component of their business. I work directly across the street, and it pains me to not be able to recommend a restaurant that's so close and seems so glamorous on the basis that they just don't have good food.

July 2024 update

I recently came back for the first time in ~9 months for some happy hour drinks with some folks from out of town who really wanted to check it out and in the hopes that they'd improved since my last visit. Unfortunately, I was disappointed - the cocktails were solid, but our truffle fries came out lukewarm, they never brought the second order of them, and we were given spinach dumplings instead of shrimp. Anecdotally, they seem to be leaning in even harder to the "Instagram appeal" at the expense of the food and service.

I will also note that my original review appeared to no longer be publicly visible, which to my understanding means it was reported. I'll leave the reader to draw their own...

Table of 5 for daughter's BDAY. Atmosphere was nice, however very loud. It was very hard to hear the person across the table. We sat upstairs close to the open kitchen. Seats were comfortable. Our waitress was not great, never smiled once, and just had a salty attitude the entire time. Drinks - Ordered Regular Basil Hayden Old Fashion - It had a very large ice cube and a very small amount of actual drink, with zero orange, zero cherry, and couldn't taste the bitters. If you charge $18 for an old fashion you better be able to make it properly. 4 Sips and it was gone. I also mistakenly gave them a second chance and ordered the Campire old fashioned (seen in pic) and the best part was the toasted marshmallow, the drink itself was not good. My wife ordered the Girl Crush drink and it was WAY too sweet, massive amount of pomegranate juice. Daughter got the Strawberry Shortcake Mocktail and liked it. The food was ok. Sashito peppers very good. Tuna Poke had a healthy amount of tuna but way too much sauce making it too sweet and the avocado mushy. Also the colored chips you see that came with the tuna are just strange - they taste like a flavorless Funion. Not a fan. Shrimp and Crab cocktail was very mediocre, wouldn't recommend it, also not much to it. Tomato flatbread was very good. Pork dumplings were also mediocre, wouldn't order again, and slightly under done. Ceasar salad was poor, not served on a cold plate and wilted lettuce, with too much dressing on it. The she-crab bisque was a joke - literally maybe a teaspoon of crab, which had shells throughout it, and a TON of bisque. You ended up not eating 90% of the soup because there was simply no crab, don't get it. Branzino was solid. Filet's were mediocre, its clear they are not prepared to deliver top end steaks cooked at high heat to provide that great crust and soft center like Mortons and other places. Would not recommend getting the steaks here. They came on a small amount of mashed potatoes and rosemary twig you had to remove from the plate and put on the table so it wouldn't interrupt your mashed and meat. No reason for that to be there. Teriyaki salmon was good but noodles again were again just smashed with too much peanut sauce so no one ate them. For dessert we had the sorbet (tangerine and blackcherry) both very good, but not a good sign when the sorbet, sashito peppers, and tomoato flatbread are your star dishes. We also ordered the enchanted chocolate cake - extremely rich and heavy, but expected. And we had the tropical delight which was underwhelming. All in all we were not thrilled with the service or food or cost. Dinner was over $600 for 5. Would go again if invited and order sashito peppers and flatbread and beer. Would not book here again...

I have been following this place for so long and was so excited to finally try it with some girlfriends for my 26th birthday. The food, drinks, and atmosphere were absolutely amazing. You can tell they put their all into making everything so aesthetically pleasing and I appreciate that and see why so many people rave about this place. The only downside was the service. I see all the reviews about the impeccable service and it honestly makes me sad because we just didn’t experience that last night. Our server was so pleasant in the beginning but this shifted throughout our dinner. Firstly our first round took around 20 minutes to hit the table. (Friday night 7clock and busy which is could understandably be why) but with the apps coming out so quickly it kind of had us looking around for our server. Once we got our drinks we put in our salads and more apps. From that moment after it was very hard to get our servers attention and because of how long drinks were taking we decided to not order more. She seemed kind of frustrated when we asked her to order. Then we ask for boxes and I ask about dessert and got the bill. My friend noticed they charged me for my dessert and knew the supervisor so asked him if they did complementary desserts because most places do. (Obviously fine if not) and he said he’d be happy to take care of it. He was so friendly and sweet and personally came over to wish me a happy birthday and said anything I needed he had me. Once this happened we visibly heard and seen her talking about us not even a couple yards from our table. As the entire table that has and currently works in the restaurant industry we completely understood that when it’s busy it can be hard to stay on top of things and things do take a while sometimes I felt like she could have made a bigger effort to be present and certainly talking about customers where they can hear you is just so cringy and unprofessional on so many levels. With that being said I had a great time and most likely will be back. Just kind of disappointed with the service we...