The Forge — Restaurant in Pittsburgh

Velour or Velvet?

As I arrived at The Forge, I walked into a room with an intimate bar with liquor bottles to the ceiling and a large lounge with inviting chairs. Almost immediately, I was greeted by a staff who were both attentive and appreciative of my entrance. I inquired about additional dining space since we reserved a table for 12 and didn’t see any dining tables. The waiter politely said “no but we are ready for you over here.” He pointed to conveniently situated arrangement of chairs and low tables. No formal table setting, it was truly a craft cocktail and Mediterranean focused small plates lounge. The space had this curious and cool ambience that you felt immediately.

As the ladies arrived one by one, we were grateful to see each other after a long sabbatical forced upon us by the pandemic. The seating layout made it easy to play musical chairs and to catch up on the past 16 months. We dived into the cocktails (no surprise here), most of us ordering the Jack’s Spring Garden and others ordering either the Highgarden or Prosecco. The drinks were beautifully prepared and tasted delicious and the server was very conscientious. As the evening continued, the Notes Pinot Noir was the drink of choice.

We ordered The Rainbow and Countryside Cheese board to launch our eating adventure. The Rainbow was a beautiful assortment of Hummus, Israeli Salad, Grape Leaves, Babaganoush, Lahneh served with warm pita bread. The pita bread was really good. For the second course, we ordered the Margherita, Fun Guy and Davey’s pizzas, the Yvelines flatbread along with the Old World Falafel. Everything was simply delicious, and the falafel was the best that I have ever had.

And for my final notes, we would definitely come back! Is it a good place for a first or second date? Oh yes, as evidenced by the Megan Fox lookalike and her equally hot date that sat near us. Finally, were the chairs velour or velvet? We may never know. However, it didn’t matter they were comfortable and conducive to an enjoyable evening with incredible ladies and...

Went here for restaurant week and the service was definitely lacking. We had a reservation but still, the staff seemed as if they didn’t have room for us. They put us at a table in the corner next to a large group so it was nearly impossible to talk to each other. Once we got seated, it took over 15 minutes for anyone to speak to us and when they finally did, they told us they may need to move us to a different table and when we asked if we were being moved, they said they didn’t have other tables for us. So we were left very confused. A different waitress finally brought us water but then we waited another 10 minutes to get waited on. In the meantime, they told the group next to us that they had to get going because there was another reservation. As they cleaned off the tables next to us, we overheard the one waiter say “this next group coming in said that they aren’t here for restaurant week which automatically makes them my favorite people.” This seemed extremely unprofessional and inappropriate since we were sitting right there and taking part in restaurant week ourselves. They rushed us to order all 3 courses at once.

We got our appetizer pretty quickly which was good but not enough pita was given with the insane amount of dips that came with it. We had to pack the dips up quickly to make room for the next course.

Next we got the brisket. The flavor had potential but there was more fat than meat. We had to pull fat out of our mouths with every bite. The chef brought our next course out and asked if we liked the brisket. We were honest and said that it was extremely fatty. He seemed very offended and explained that that is how most brisket is and that people complain that it’s too dry when he cuts the fat out and walked away. This didn’t seem like the professional response at all.

The pizza was good but honestly the pizza that I had delivered from a pizza shop last week was better. The dessert was probably the best part.

They did take off half of one of our meals which was appreciated. All in all, the food was just okay and the...

Good food, but not worth waiting 2hrs or more for your meal...

We arrived at 6:30PM (we were a party of 3), ordered our appetizers and main course. The appetizers arrived an hour later. After we were done, only one of my friends got their main course while we waited for ours. By the time she was done, we were still waiting for our main courses. 2hrs passed and we got our main course. Though it was good, it wasn't worth the wait, especially considering the food wasn't hot (it was nicely warm but not fresh out of the pan warm). By the time we got to the dessert and the check, it was 9:30PM.

I will say, the pizzas are good and they were delivered quickly. However, if their pizza guy is making about half of the restaurant pizzas and still manages to deliver them quicker than the kitchens, then the restaurant might have to rebrand or decide to forget the kitchen, because there is no point in having so many kitchen options if they do not arrive more or less at the same time as the pizza. I guarantee, had we all ordered pizzas, we would have NOT spent 3+ hours waiting. We would have had a much better food experience.

Bonus: The staff was really friendly though, empathesized with us and everyone else about their backed up kitchen orders. They only have one cook in the kitchen for all those orders and one pizza guy (maybe reduce the amount of kitchen options so the cook could actually keep up?) They offered complimentary drinks and pizzas while we waited. So 5 stars on the staff!!

Overall, The Forge is an experience. It should really not be considered a restaurant because the atmosphere and sitting arrangement is supposed to be relaxed like a coffee shop. It is not suitable however for eating, as we were often crouched to eat our plate of food which was on a coffee table. You are really not supposed to be expecting a restaurant style of seating. And the wait is too long to enjoy your time there, ehich is why I am giving it...