Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Plate Review

Dining Out: Eighty Acres Kitchen & Bar serves cornucopia of contemporary flavors

Original Post By Arthi Subramaniam / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Roasted duck with pickled blackberries and potato-and-Gruyere gratin; lamb from Jamison Farm with ratatouille and red pepper-goat cheese coulis; and a bison burger with dill pickle aioli were what piqued my interest to visit Eighty Acres Kitchen & Bar.

On its website, the contemporary American menu was inviting, and the restaurant’s bio by owner and chef Don Winkie’s wife, Amy, tracing his 35-year career, intriguing.

As an Army brat, Mr. Winkie was exposed to different foods and flavors, having lived in various places in the U.S., Germany and South Korea, and that increased his curiosity to prepare what he tasted. He had worked with chef Mark Miller, aka the founder of modern Southwestern cuisine, in Santa Fe, N.M., before moving to Coyote Cafe at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

When their daughter was born, his wife, who is from Monroeville, wanted to move back home. So he joined the now defunct Tuscan Inn in Hampton as a chef. “Then I came to a point where I didn’t want to work for someone else,” Mr. Winkie said over the phone. “Also, we always went Downtown for quality food and so we thought, ‘Why not open a restaurant close to where we live?’ ”

They opened Eighty Acres in Plum in March 2014, naming it after his father’s farm near St. Joseph, Mo., which sits on 80 acres. Eighty Acres is beside a Burger King and catty-corner from a McDonald’s — and that doesn’t bother Mr. Winkie one bit. “Everybody has to have neighbors, I guess,” he said, laughing. “Also, it’s easy to tell people where we are.”

On my first visit, while I waited for my friend to arrive, I watched the kitchen staff at work behind the expanse of a large glass window. A chef was artfully placing freshly sliced strawberries over creme brulee in a small ramekin, and I made a mental note to save a spot for it. Another was fixing a tri-color salad plate with greens, beets and some kind of cheese.

As soon my friend arrived, we were seated in a large dining room that was pleasingly contemporary and softly lit. A large iron clock stamped with Roman numerals was on the only long wall in the room that faced the bar, and a bright red door led to the front patio illuminated by string lights. There was a second smaller dining room near the restrooms.

Service was swift and solicitous, and drinks arrived with the snacks. It was tempting to play Jenga with the beautifully stacked polenta fries ($6), but we broke the rules when we picked the golden blocks in no particular order. They were crisply soft outside and creamy inside and didn’t really need the sweetish-tangy tomato-onion chutney, which could have used an extra dash of salt to tone down the acidic stab.

Potato chips with a light dusting of jerk seasoning ($5) didn’t set the mouth on fire, but the runny buttermilk-blue cheese dip helped to clean the palate.

Starters were larger and just as prettily plated. Although it tasted like mac ’n’ cheese, a bowl of soft ricotta gnocchi ($8) tossed with cheddar bechamel and studded with bacon bits, had a delightful air about it and was pasta with a pedigree.

Another standout was the ahi tuna lettuce wraps ($10). It was tricky to pick up the fanned-out lettuce that was loaded with pieces of rare tuna, julienned jicama slaw, red pepper ketchup and pickled jalapeno, but that’s not a complaint. They all worked together as a team, with each ingredient asserting itself without shouting — even the spicy jalapeno.

Coyote Queso was overpriced at $10 and lacking in spirit. The melted fontina and poblano chili dip tasted rather pedestrian and there was hardly any trace of the promised chorizo. Its savior was the chewy flatbread wedges, made with dough from Jake & Sons Pizzeria in Forest Hills, flecked with sea salt. The same dough was used for a colorful and light flatbread, cloaked with pesto, mushrooms, roasted tomatoes and goat cheese, and that was worth every bit of the $8.

Dinner entrees that had caught my interest also satiated it. The tender roasted duck ($25) with its crisp skin was executed with flawless precision. It was surrounded by squiggles of a sensuous port reduction, rounds of toothsome squash and a creamy, crisply edged potato-Gruyere gratin, sliced to look like an accordion. A blackberry pickled in a sherry-vinegar with hints of clove packed in an amazing sweet-tangy punch.

On a second dinner visit, the results were just as wonderful for a rack of lamb ($32), which chewed like butter you can bite. The lamb from Jamison Farm in Latrobe was seared well, but at the same time moist, and delightful with a ratatouille made with eggplant, green and yellow squashes and red pepper, and a red pepper-goat cheese puree. The double dose of red pepper wasn’t an overkill; it was like watching back-to-back Oscar-worthy Meryl Streep movies.

The Argentine herb sauce, chimichurri, got a makeover in the Scottish salmon ($22) dish, and emphasis was on the sweet red chili — piquillo —instead of parsley. Redolent with garlic, spices and herbs, the deep orange sauce filled the mouth with flavor, along with a delicate quinoa pilaf and baby spinach. It even cast a spell over the fish, which was slightly overcooked and underseasoned.

Slices of Grass-Fed London Broil ($24) snuggled up against roasted salt-and-pepper crusted fingerling potatoes and charred broccolini, but the steak’s chewy texture was off-putting.

When I returned for lunch, I was glad to find the restaurant’s eponymous bison burger ($14) wasn’t served only for dinner. The meat was cooked medium and moist, and sandwiched in a toasted bun, which had a thin layer of dill pickle aioli, a slice of cheddar that beautifully melted over the patty that was crisscrossed with strips of crisp bacon. Grilled portobello ($9) came with quinoa, broccolini and an elegant swirl of lemon aioli that accentuated the earthiness of the mushroom.

Crab cake salad ($12) was among the chalkboard specials. The blue crab patty was light, moist and the real deal, with no filler or breadcrumbs to bulk it up. But what was billed to be a jumbo cake was instead petite and almost got lost in a pile of mixed greens that was tossed with cucumbers and tomato wedges and punctuated with a grainy mustard vinaigrette.

When dessert time rolled around, I did remember to get that creme brulee ($7), which was given plenty of TLC. Its thin crackly crust was golden brown, the custard divinely silky and the sliced strawberries juicy. On my dinner and lunch visits, it was the only housemade dessert; the rest came from other sources. And I was fine with that because it was worth reordering.