Fig & Ash

Fig & Ash sits at 514 East Ohio Street in Deutschtown on the North Side, and it took chef Cory Hughes three years, seven months and twenty-four days to build — a figure he counted precisely, because the site was two derelict late-19th-century buildings when he started. It opened in October 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, and made Pittsburgh Magazine's 25 Best Restaurants list for 2026, which described it as serving comfort food with a thoughtful, elevated touch on a cosy stretch of East Ohio Street. Everything comes off a custom wood-fired grill built locally, and the room is a genuine one: a reviewer described it as comfortable, professionally done but not overly designed, with a plethora of houseplants throughout and every nook and cranny filled with quirky art. There are three ways to sit — the dining room, a four-season covered patio, or the chef's counter. Burrata salad is $18, scallop toast $21, meatloaf of short rib and pork belly $36, a double-cut pork chop $38, yellowfin tuna $38.

The non-alcoholic drinks are printed under a heading that simply says MOCKTAILS, and there are two of them, both $10. Match-A Made in Heaven is matcha with strawberry syrup, coconut milk and tonic — the tonic is what saves it, because matcha and coconut alone would be a milkshake, and the quinine gives it the dry finish a drink needs before food. Celer-ous-ly, Noah? is the more interesting of the pair and the more unusual thing to find on any menu: celery juice with juniper, caraway, fennel, soda and a mint sprig. Celery, juniper, caraway and fennel are four green, aromatic, faintly bitter things stacked on each other, and the result is closer to a dry vermouth than to a soft drink — exactly the register a wood-fired kitchen calls for. Two honest caveats. This is a short list, and it rotates: an earlier menu carried a fennel-and-orgeat drink called It's The Fennel Countdown that has since gone. And no non-alcoholic beer or wine brands are listed, so the two mocktails are effectively the whole offering.