Pusadee's Garden

Pusadee's Garden is a family restaurant on Butler Street in Upper Lawrenceville, named for Pusadee Tongdee, who still works in the kitchen, and run by her daughters Watcharee and Bootsaba Tongdee with Michael Johnson. It closed in 2017 and reopened in January 2021 after a four-year ground-up rebuild by mossArchitects, and the result is one of the few restaurants in the city that is genuinely worth visiting as architecture. The Design Pittsburgh jury that gave it an Honor Award in 2021 wrote that each space builds on the other as a cinematic experience — that this is architecture, and also an urban intervention, creating a highly inviting in-between zone. Two renovated buildings are joined by an entry arcade, a glass-box bar and an open kitchen with tao stoves, the traditional Thai charcoal burners, and a modernist courtyard garden is visible from most of the dining rooms. Chef Bootsaba "Gik" Tongdee, who learned to cook by osmosis as a child around her mother's market stall in the province of Tak, was named a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic in 2024 — semifinalist, not finalist. Khao soi with wagyu beef cheek is $48, massaman lamb shank $48, pork belly hung lay $29.

The drinks list has a section headed Spirit-Free/Non-Alcoholic and it is short, cheap and well matched to the food. Give it a Chai is $8 — chai, ginger and lemon — and it is the one the press keeps recommending, rightly: spiced tea with ginger heat is one of the few non-alcoholic things that can stand up to a red curry without being flattened by it. The house seltzer at $6 runs Thai basil, pink peppercorn and strawberry, and Thai basil is the correct herb here in a way mint would not be — it is anise-scented and it echoes what is already on the plate. AL's Classic Lager is the non-alcoholic beer at $7, under 0.5% ABV. One thing the section heading hides: The Pathfinder non-alcoholic amaro is also poured, at $10, but it is filed with the amari and aperitifs rather than in the spirit-free block, so ask for it by name. Practical notes worth knowing before booking — reservations are Resy only, opening thirty days ahead at 7am, tables cap at six, there are no highchairs or boosters, and pets are not allowed on the patio.