When we got down to the South Side I was expecting this place to be in or near the South Side Works, it was not even close. It was extremely hard to find parking down there on the side streets. I ended up taking my chances parking in a permit only section. If your not looking you would never find Dish, it is on some side street and just looks like it would be an apartment building other than the small sign on the wall.
The first thing I noticed when we walked in was how small it was, it probably seats 30 people 40 tops. There is a bar when you first walk in and the restaurant is in the room behind the bar, it has a very homie feel to it. Our waiter came over and told us the specials for the day and took our appetizer order. All of the appetizers sounded great and we finally came to agreement on the bruschetta. The bruschetta was three slices of toasted cibatta bread topped with sauteed mushrooms, fresh mozzarella and basil on top of prosciutto. I am not a huge fan of mushrooms but if you can make mushrooms taste like that I would eat them all day long.
For our main dishes my wife got the Linguine ai Frutti di Mare and I got the Grigliata Mista di Pesce. My wives dish was excellent, a very simple sauce of white wine, olive oil, garlic and parsley over linguine. There was seafood tossed with the pasta and included shrimp, calamari, scallops, mussels and cockles. All of the seafood was sweet and salty, the sauce was present but not overpowering. This dish felt like something I would imagine you could get at any house in Italy. My dish was a bit different, I don't want to call it bad because it wasn't it just had one consistent flavor. My dish was grilled seafood with a saffron risotto and eggplant caponata. The risotto was excellent, very creamy but not mushy, the saffron gave it the beautiful golden color along with the unique taste and fragrance that is so hard to describe. The eggplant caponata was alright, a bit too many tomatoes for me but cooked lovely and really paired well with the risotto. Where this dish really died for me was with the seafood. All I could taste was the grill, it wasn't like they were charred or anything but everything tasted the same. The calamari was the only thing that tasted different, it was really salty but it went well with the acid in the tomatoes. The shrimp and scallops were cooked perfectly but the fish was overcooked and a bit on the dry side. In the end all of the seafood on my dish just ended up tasting the same.
We did get desserts while we were there but we forgot to take pictures, my wife got the chocolate bread pudding and I got the cannolis. The bread pudding was so rich and chocolaty if you are a chocolate lover this is the dessert for you. The cannolis were great, they were filled with a sweetened ricotta, pistachio and candied orange peel filling. It was a perfect paring the saltiness of the pistachio with the sweetness of the ricotta and a hint of orange all in a little crunch cannoli shell. I would have to say dessert was the best part of the meal.Would I go back? I don't know. Everything was good, service was good, price was right in line with everyone else. I was just disappointed with my main dish. If they can make the seafood so good for my wives dish and then all of my seafood tastes the same it makes me question, did I get a bad dish or what exactly happened? I am going to have to go back so that I can get some answers. I am not going to say it was great there are better restaurants around but this is a solid place.
Price 8 of 10
Food 7 of 10
Service 9 of 10
Overall 7.5 of 10
128 South 17th St.
Pittsburgh, PA 15203
