One Of A Kind: The Commoner

Located in the new Hotel Monaco at 458 Strawberry Way in downtown Pittsburgh, this place is amazing! The hotel itself is gorgeous and the luxurious theme sweeps throughout the restaurant, with a dark and rich color scheme. The bar and most of the tables sit up high (I love that!) with additional half  booth seating along the side wall. If you're in a rush you can pop over to the grab and go carvery window for breakfast and lunch. It was a bit crowded on the evening that we dined, so we posted up at the bar. Our bartender was a sweetie pie, plus she made a Pisco Sour like nobodies business!

Pisco Sours with Meat Board

After a few rounds of drinks we had a Meat Board for starters. Nothing fancy, just a small variety of meats with toast, mustard and pickled bits, but lovely. I then moved on to the Romaine Salad, which had large planks of romaine hearts lightly drizzled with bacon-garlic dressing, pumpernickel croutons, and frizzled ham. For my entree, I decided on Crab Shells and Cheese- jumbo lump crab meat and pasta shells with a creamy rich cheddar cheese sauce finished to perfection in a wood fire oven. Cohort went a simpler route with the PA Burger- local ground beef mixed with elysian fields lamb, PA noble cheddar, watercress, topped with smoked yellow tomato ketchup. He did share, it was very tasty!

Romaine Salad

For dessert we split the Sticky Toffee Pudding - a warm moist date cake with gooey toffee sauce, topped with a scoop of rye vanilla ice cream. I suggest that during your meal, you keep this in mind and SAVE ROOM FOR DESSERT!!!! It is to die for. http://www.thecommonerpgh.com/

 

PROS: Fabulous drinks, high end with a relaxed atmosphere

CONS: Downtown parking, gets crowded in the evenings