Pittsburgh: Legume (November 2012)

My spouse and I ate at Legume in late November 2012 for dinner. We were staying at the Hilton Garden Inn Pittsburgh University Place, and we were able to walk to this restaurant (although the hotel provides a complimentary shuttle bus within a small radius of the hotel). Valet parking (indoors) is available. The restaurant moved to its current location in the fall of 2011, and also increased its restaurant hours to include dinner on Monday nights. We reserved our table using the Open Table reservation system. This restaurant is open for dinner only on Monday through Saturday (they are closed on Sundays). An adjacent/related bar called Butterjoint (with similar hours) seems to be a happening scene on the weekend and serves a more casual menu.

The menu changes daily, but the restaurant posts it online every afternoon by 5:00 pm; no matter, the menu is an interesting selection of unique ingredients and creative combinations. We had some service issues on the night that we dined - our waiter was very impatient, rushing us to order quickly. And the pace at which our food was delivered was much too fast for us - even though we ate three courses, we were finished in about one hour, although we had planned for and expected a lingering evening. The manager must have sensed that we were unhappy, because she wrapped an extra dessert to send home with us; she questioned us about our experience and tried to make things right, so we give her credit for being astute.

We will probably return to this restaurant because the alternate options for finer dining in the university area are lacking; hopefully the service will be better next time, because the food was tasty.