Pittsburgh: Emporio! A Meatball Joint (September 2018)



My spouse and I dined at Emporio! A Meatball Joint for brunch on a Saturday in early September 2018. Emporio is open daily from 11:00 am until 10:00 pm (with extended closing hours of midnight on specific nights). Emporio does not appear to accept reservations. (At one time, the restaurant used the No Wait app.)

Emporio is located on Penn Avenue in Downtown Pittsburgh’s Cultural District. It is one of three restaurants on three different levels at the same address. The owners of Emporio (Burt Orange Restaurant Group) operate all three of the Sienna Mercato venues that share the same house number, including casual Emporio on the street level, finer-dining Mezzo on the second floor (where we ate in November 2016), and the retractable rooftop beer garden Il Tetto on the third/top floor. The restaurant group also owns Sienna on the Square (in Market Square, where we ate in October of 2014) and several additional locations of Emporio (in Wexford, Washington, PPG Paints Arena).

The Emporio space features industrial chic decor. Large garage doors at the front are rolled back to provide an open-air experience. Concrete floors, stacked stone, exposed brick, weathered wood, high ceilings, and wood tables, with red metal chairs complete the look. You can sit at the U-shaped bar (with 40+ beers on tap), at free-standing tables in different sizes and configurations, or at tables that share a wooden banquette on one side. 

As its name implies, Emporio features a meatball-centric menu. In fact, in keeping with the theme, the menu contains other round-shaped offerings as well, including arancini (rice balls) and munchkin-like donuts for dessert. For each entrĂ©e, guests take one of two approaches: either select one of the composed dishes, or create-your-own-combination by first choosing the number and type of meatballs (beef, pork, chicken, or vegetarian), adding a sauces (cheese, tomato, Bolognese, tzatziki, and so on), and specifying your delivery method (sauced on a plate, as sliders, panini, or a hoagie). Not wanting to make too many decisions, we ordered two of the suggested bowls: baked potato (with meatballs, mashed potatoes, tater tots, bacon, cheese, scallions) and the spicy bowl (spicy meatballs in a red sauce, cheese tortellini arrabbiata, and jalapenos). When placed side-by-side, the portions of the two bowls were inconsistent, with the baked potato bowl being nearly twice the size of the other. The meatballs themselves are a little larger than golf ball size (about 3 ounces each). 

We liked the concept of Emporio and its casual atmosphere.
 








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