Pittsburgh: Proper Brick Oven and Tap Room (October 2016)

My spouse and I visited Proper Brick Oven and Tap Room on a Saturday afternoon in early October 2016. The restaurant is open daily for lunch (or brunch) and dinner (except no lunch on Mondays). Proper accepts reservations by telephone for parties of 6 to 16 people.
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.









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