Casual fine dining has been one of the most significant trends this century as chefs have stripped away some of the more symbolic aspects of upscale restaurants and infused food with more personality and whimsy.
This trend is flourishing in Pittsburgh, where lately restaurant menus have been full of classic American comfort foods of the kind once restricted to cookouts, home kitchens and diners.
At Eleven Contemporary Kitchen in the Strip District, there's a hot dog on the lunch and tavern menus made in-house from prime beef and local pork and served with pickled vegetable relish, house-made hot sauce and warm potato salad ($11).
Avenue B's bacon-wrapped kobe beef meatloaf attracted a lot of attention when the restaurant opened last year, and it's so popular that it will probably never leave the menu ($21).
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