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Mount Washington restaurant offers the complete dining experience

Friday, May 10, 2002

By Sarah Billingsley, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

I feel compelled to award Isabela on Grandview four stars.

	Chef and proprietor Chris Frangiadis, left, and sous chef Eric Delliquadri see to it that Isabela's view of the dining experience is as outstanding as the view of Downtown Pittsburgh. (Martha Rial, Post-Gazette)

Though the pate of pistachios and pork foie gras was served a little too cold, the Muscovy duck breast was a tad overcooked and the paper rusk enclosing baked salmon, sea bass cheeks and sea scallops was so singed the waiter had to saw at it like he was fiddling Vivaldi to release its briny-sweet steam, these were tiny blips in an otherwise seamless parade of pleasure and innovation.

As a homemade end-of-the-meal truffle melted in my hot mouth, the idea of flawlessness as the standard for a four-star rating seemed fussy and obsolete.

What matters is how Isabela triumphs in providing the experience of truly good food, the wonder and surprise of savoring flavors, both strange and familiar, that are incongruous, yet (you learn by the tasting) meant to be together. Isabela captures all the beauty and romance of stealing away to a place where "slowly" is the expectation, and a word sweetened by the fact that dining out is an ideal suspension of time.

Ease is what Isabela chef and proprietor Chris Frangiadis wants his customer to feel. He wants you to take your time, relax and relish something unique.

As Frangiadis says on the menu, the format of the meal is like a dinner party, and the friendly servers seem to express an honest delight that you are there.

We are so lucky.

Since February, Isabela has offered only a $55, seven-course fixed-price meal, a small menu that changes daily, with selections that force you to make interesting choices. The seemingly steep price is actually a great value for course after course of creative food made with first-rate, seasonal ingredients.

The meal begins with an amuse, pure pleasure for your mouth: A tiny ripe strawberry on a slice of chevre one night, brie another, drizzled with syrupy fig vinegar. The taste is May.

The appetizers are glorious. Blonde morel gratin was woody and robust, the knuckle-sized ruffled mushrooms mingled with bits of thyme, tomato and crumbled bread.

The Frangiadis interpretation of a crab cake, a perfectly eggy lump crab souffle, is served steaming and golden, slashed open by the waiter and dressed with a gentle ancho-tomato sauce. Roasted beet cappellini, tangled with lobster, creme fraiche and three varieties of caviar, is served in a palm-sized seashell. The flavor of the dish is primordially earthy and salty as the sea; until now, I'd never realized the sweetness of lobster. These are signature appetizers, and have been on the menu, in some form, since February.

Some offerings for Isabela's fish course show an Asian flair. Sushi-quality tuna, crusted with sesame seeds, licked by a swirl of tangy sweet soy and buttery saffron beurre blanc, was as complex as origami, while New Zealand blue nose bass, served over rice noodles in a ginger-infused broth, was clean and simple.

Halibut cheeks, the most tender part of the fish, were served with a punchy, fresh gazpacho beurre blanc containing tomatoes, peppers and onions diced to flecks. On another visit, the same sauce graced a seared salmon.

One word describes Isabela's meat course: layered. Roasted veal tenderloin, soft and neutral tasting as milk, became rich as creme caramel in a meaty bath of morel/port reduction, stung by a sweep of fresh wasabi cream. The gamy taste of crackling, maple-glazed Cornish hen was well met by a rich, dark bitter chocolate and raspberry sauce.

Herby rack of Jamison Farm lamb, laid over a pungent truffled potato tart, was the base note for a miles-beyond-mere-meat-and-potatoes dish that the simple addition of shiitake mushrooms and caramelized leeks elevated to imperial.

And then, as if you have room, after all these courses, the fresh-baked rolls and banana bread, there is the salad of cranberries, honeyed walnuts and spring greens, and impeccable desserts: chocolate pate with toasted coconut ice cream, warm apple walnut crisp with cinnamon ice cream, espresso creme brulee. Fresh strawberries in aged balsalmic vinegar, freckled with cracked black pepper and served in a martini glass, which conjures the refreshing astringency of gin, is pert and complex.

The glory of the food is on par with the intelligence of the wine list, with bottles from boutique California wineries, Italy and France, priced from $30 to upwards of $100. By the glass, grassy, rich Jepson chardonnay or cushy Seghesio Zinfandel is a treat at $10.

Isabela also offers wine flights, priced at $45, with a wine matched to each course. It's worth doing to sample wines from very, very nice bottles on the list such as a 1999 Le Rognet white Burgundy, 1999 Calera chardonnay, 1989 Chateau Simard Bordeaux and 1997 Ca'del Baio barbaresco.

Isabela's interior is spare and blond, with a tiny downstairs dining room and a larger one upstairs, with an open kitchen at the back and a sweeping panorama of Downtown Pittsburgh at front. Upstairs, you can observe the sous chef tucking a plume of thyme along the curling thigh of your guinea hen.

From either floor, you can look straight into the gaping mustard maw of Heinz Field, see the sun settle in a pool of pink behind the Cathedral of Learning and watch barges going up and down the river as Downtown lights twinkle on.

At Isabela, you are part of that sweeping scene, and perched high above it. You are part of a dining event, and $55 begins to seem modest for that special experience.

Isabela On Grandview
1318 Grandview Ave.,
Mount Washington
412-431-5882

Hours: 5 to 10 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays; 5 to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Closed Sundays.

The basics: Complimentary valet parking; seats 40 on two floors; first floor wheelchair-accessible; no smoking; all major credit cards accepted; reservations required.

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