Proper Brick
Oven and Tap Room is located in downtown Pittsburgh’s Cultural District at the
intersection of Seventh
Street and Penn Avenue, close
to the city's theatres, restaurants, and hotels. Proper opened 2013 in
the space previously occupied by Tambellini Seventh
Street Ristorante for 60+ years.
Proper's interior features exposed brick
walls, wood
furnishings, cream-colored seats, and unique lighting fixtures made from Mason
jars and wine bottles. The restaurant has two visual centerpieces: its brick
oven and its bar. Upon entering the premises, you encounter the delicious smell
of pizza dough baking in a wood-fired oven. (The restaurant also offers mobile Proper Pronto, an 18-foot long food trailer
housing a 5,000-pound wood-burning oven imported from Italy.) The C-shaped bar faces a
wall hung with small chalkboard plaques that describe the 30+ beers on tap. The beer selection follows a
macro-in-the-bottle/craft-on-tap rule, with 20 local beers and 10 experimental/unfamiliar beers on draft. The
restaurant also offers cocktails and wine; a collage of stained wooden panels
from wine crates serves as both wall art and wine list. Most of the seating is at a long, upholstered banquette facing the bar, but
patrons can also sit at the large bar, at high-top communal tables at the rear
of the space, or at the chef’s bar adjacent to the pizza oven.
We shared the delicious carnivore pizza, which
contained four kinds of meat (sweet sausage,
spicy sausage, bacon, and pepperoni). Our waiter grated Parmesan cheese atop
our pizza for a finishing touch.
Proper is comfortable, casual, and affordable,
and we will return.
