It was a complicated year for Pittsburgh restaurants. While there have been a number of high-profile openings -- Richard Chen in Eastside, Cioppino in the Cork Factory -- only a dozen or so fine-dining restaurants opened in Allegheny County this year, and that number is not likely to rise in 2009 as restaurants face more challenges than ever.

There have also been a number of notable closings this year. The dining public (as well as several critics) raved over Muriel's on the North Side when it opened in the spring 2007, but business slowed and never came back up to necessary levels. In late summer of this year, owner Steve Esherick was forced to close his doors.

A number of factors were at work, he said: a poor economic climate, the delay by a year of the opening of the casino on the North Shore, and hoped for neighborhood improvements that didn't arrive in time.

"The street there was set for some revitalization," Mr. Esherick said. "That was supposed to bring some more interest to that area and help to vitalize it. But that didn't happen either."

The North Side seems to have been particularly hard hit, given the relatively few number of independent restaurants in the area. Sassy Marie's on James Street also closed this year, and the brewery at Penn Brewery has departed, with the restaurant portion likely to close at that location by Feb. 28.

The most surprising departure to many was the closing of Cafe Allegro, a Pittsburgh institution on the South Side for 22 years. But this closing had as much to do with personal and family reasons as it did with the business.

The family-owned Duranti's in Oakland, another Pittsburgh institution that's operated for nearly 30 years, still plans to close, probably right around the first of the year.

Despite all the bad news, there were some interesting trends and many bright spots in openings. Drink-tax blues aside, most restaurants this year saw safety in a liquor license. Mirabelle in Oakmont puts as much emphasis on the variety of sparkling wines and sparkling wine cocktails as it does on the food. The Red Room in East Liberty expanded to include a new casual lounge with a rooftop deck that serves drinks and globally inspired snacks. Toast Kitchen and Wine Bar in Shadyside has a modern cocktail list, an extensive by the glass wine list (with 8-ounce pours served in a small carafe) and a gorgeous bar. In Pine, the D'Vine Wine Bar and Lounge seems to place most of the emphasis on the drinks, but the owners clearly put some thought into the Mediterranean-influenced menu as amenable to snacking as to dining.

Italian food remains widely popular -- besides Cioppino in the Strip District, other openings included Wild Rosemary in Upper St. Clair and Sausalido in Bloomfield.

Pittsburgh still doesn't have the diversity of cuisine one might expect from its large student population. This year, greater diversity came almost entirely from existing restaurants opening new locations -- Istanbul Grille has a second location in Shadyside, Nicky's Thai Kitchen now has a second location on the North Side (in Muriel's old space), The Green Mango expanded to Monroeville, and owners of the Monroeville Udipi Palace collaborated with the owner of the Kashmiri food cart in Oakland to open Bayleaf Indian Cuisine in Oakland, an Indian restaurant that specializes in both northern and southern Indian cuisine.

East Liberty still takes the cake for most notable openings per mile, with Richard Chen, 2Red (The Red Room Lounge), Dinette, Vanilla Pastry Studio (which relocated from the West End) and Tana Ethiopian Cuisine moving in just blocks from each other this year. It will be interesting to see whether potential restaurateurs decide that the market is saturated in this particular business district.

It was and is an exciting time for the Pittsburgh coffee scene, as new cafes have opened all over the city, including the Morning Glory Coffeehouse in Morningside, Big Dog Coffee on the South Side, as well as new Crazy Mocha locations Downtown. Voluto Coffee in Garfield, was planning to open late this year, but construction delays will likely push them into 2009.

We'll get a chance to see just how well Pittsburgh baristas stack up in Cranberry Feb. 6-8, at the Specialty Coffee Association of America's Mid-Atlantic and Northeast Regional Barista Competitions.

Even if new openings slow, we can expect an interesting year in 2009. Some of my favorite restaurants this year (Korea Garden, Nicky's Thai Kitchen) already had been around for a while, so I can't wait to see what hidden gems will be unearthed next year. And there should be plenty of changes in existing restaurants to chronicle as well, as they adapt and innovate to retain customers and attract new ones.