My spouse and I visited Or, The Whale on two occasions
(breakfast and dinner) during our two-night stay on a weekend in early November
2018. (We previously dined at this restaurant in mid-October 2017; see our
review titled “More Than a Hotel Restaurant, It’s a
Dining Destination”.) The restaurant is open daily for brunch from 10:00 am
until 2:00 pm (with an earlier opening of 9:00 am on Sundays), then again for
dinner from 5:00 pm until 10:00 pm (with later closing hours of 11:00 pm on
Friday and Saturdays). You can book a table using the online Open Table
reservation system.
Or, The Whale opened in late summer 2017 in the Distrikt
Hotel (Hilton Curio Collection) in Downtown Pittsburgh. The Distrikt occupies
the city’s former 1920s Salvation Army building, and the restaurant repurposes
its former gymnasium. (The hotel’s other bar/light fare venue called Evangeline
is named for the former women’s residence.) The restaurant’s unusual name is
derived from the original subtitle of Herman Melville’s book “Moby Dick: or,
The Whale”, so of course, the main character features prominently in the
restaurant’s logo (seen on coasters, menu covers, and receipts), on a huge two-story
mural on the dining room wall, and as the subject matter in a stack of books on
the bar. The nautical theme continues, with a series of thick boat ropes on the
two-story tall ceiling that create a sort of sculpture. You enter the
restaurant on the second-floor catwalk/mezzanine (which was the former running
track of the gym), where you can sit at small tables, at the bar itself, in the bar area (at a few
high-top tables), or at a dining counter that overlooks the ground-floor main
dining room. The true bar stools are trendy backless leather stools, but the
immoveable dining counter bar chairs look much more comfortable with backs and
armrests. Because of the elevation of the building/street, some parts of the
restaurant are at grade (such as the main entrance door and the catwalk
tables), some areas are partially below street level (like the bar tables), and
other parts are below ground (such as the main dining room). From the entryway
where the host stand is located, you descend a staircase (or elevator, if
mobility is an issue) to reach the main dining area, which was once the gym’s
basketball court and swimming pool. An open kitchen (with its wood-burning
grill), a window into the butcher room, and a small wine cellar (which doubles
as a private dining space) are featured elements. Downstairs, you can dine at
one of a few large leather booths, or at tables that share a banquette on one
side. Hanging Edison bulbs (some enclosed in loose chicken-wire shades) provide
additional light.
Like
its cheeky name, the restaurant’s subtitle is “farm and fisher to table”. The
food is creative, with unique ingredients and presentations. We thought
that the breakfast offerings were much more interesting than those offered by
most restaurants (although regrettably, the restaurant planned to stop serving
breakfast in lieu of brunch on the day after we departed). For dinner, we
enjoyed a mezcal drink, then a Tart and Tasty, to accompany our radish salad,
fish and chips, burger and salad, and pumpkin tart.
Although we don’t plan to make Or, The Whale a dining
destination, we would consider eating there again if we stayed at the Distrikt.
