Second day, last day in Pittsburgh

It was a quick trip.  We got up in the morning and headed to Bitter Ends Garden and Luncheonette.  The chef, Becca Hegarty was named a 2017 semifinalist for the James Beard Rising Star Chef of the Year award honored as one of Zagat’s national list of 30 Under 30 chefs.  An absolutely adorable diner filled with locals.

I particularly loved the array of old coffee mugs hidden underneath the counter for each customer to pick their fave for their coffee.

The food?  Delicious.  The plum and oatmeal cake sliced and heated up on the grill is the perfect balance of sweet, crust and crumble.  They make their own bread so the goat cheese and honey toast was such a treat.  I could eat this for lunch, for breakfast, and for dinner any day of the week.  The breakfast sandwich of runny eggs, aged cheddar cheese, pork sausage stuffed with thin slices of onion, and lettuce stuffed between two pieces of buttered sourdough bread from the grill is decadent.  I’d live there if this place was down the street from me.

We returned to the Carnegie Mellon Art Gallery to see their permanent art and design collection.  The atrium is incredible.

The rooms in the art museum are large and open giving each piece space and the viewer time to really appreciate it.   The collection is vast from Kerry James Marshall to Alex Katz to Joan Mitchell to Robert Gwathney to Nicole Eisenberg.

I had not seen any of these pieces before and I really like how the museum promotes sharing the works.

The Impressionist collection is impressive too.  Loved this Paul Signac piece.

I love furniture particularly the historic relevance.  This is a nod to the evolution of chairs starting in the late 17th century to the present.

The stereo cabinet, designed in 1957 by Orrin Raphael, a Pittsburgh native.

This Sol Lewitt covers the long stone modern staircase up to the art exhibits.

We tried to go to a few galleries before heading out of town but they were all preparing for the next installation.  We even tried to peek inside the Heinz Theater but it was locked up and nobody was interested in letting us in.  We got our bags and made our way out to the airport.  Thought this was the perfect last shot before leaving Pittsburgh.

The people in Pittsburgh couldn’t be nicer.  The last time I was in Pittsburgh was for a wedding in 1984.  A friend from college got married right out of college. Ends up the guy she married had a first cousin who was a good friend of mine from high school – so one degree – who then moved to NYC afterward where we hung for a few years.  The wedding was at the Duquesne Club founded in 1873, a private social club.  They had just admitted women to the club starting in 1980.  At the end of the night my high school friend, a guy, said you must go see the men’s bathroom.  Of course, two tiny rooms for the women and the most amazing men’s bathroom.  The size of a huge apartment.  It must have been a few thousand feet.  Fast forward, the club added a new facility in 1994 and has gone on to be ranked #1 City Club in the US over and over again.  Perhaps times are changing.

Pittsburgh has changed…and from the looks of it and the event we attended, it will continue to.