One by Spork brings a big-league dining experience to Pittsburgh. The prix fixe restaurant is an elevated reimagining of the former Spork, located on the Bloomfield-Garfield border.
Trying the Prix Fixe Menu at One by Spork
There’s one seating a night for up to 16 diners, commencing at 6 p.m. with welcome bites and a nonalcoholic cocktail in the lounge. The savory dishes are served at the semicircular chef’s table that dominates the room. The evening culminates with a return to the lounge for desserts and another cocktail. The 14-course menu includes drink pairings, mainly of wine but also sake or cocktails, depending on the dishes; a nonalcoholic flight is available.
It is a highly curated event, says chef-owner Christian Frangiadis, who is partnering in the venture with his longtime backer Andrew Tepper. “We are creating an experience where guests will want for nothing, where they will be surprised, comfortable, and satiated,” says Frangiadis.
He describes the cooking as “hyper-scratch,” with many ingredients, such as honey and rye wheat, harvested from the small farm in a lot next to the restaurant. Frangiadis and his eight-person team mill flour, make koji-cultured butter, and temper chocolate. They use the equipment of modern high-end kitchens (centrifuges, rotary evaporators, dehydrators) as needed, but emphasize the ingredients above all.
More Than a Meal
Working from the center of the table, they interact with guests and talk about the menu throughout — a kind of dinner theater. “There’s no front or back house. We’re one house,” says Frangiadis. “It’s an intimate setting.”
One by Spork is a new chapter for the 61-year-old chef whose career has spanned 40 years — the past eight at Spork — and now is fulfilling his dream. “At my age I feel I should do exactly what I want to do,” he says.
The menu changes weekly, according to the visions of the team and seasons of the year. In early February, for example, the five opening bites were hatoyaki, a BBQ turkey taco, two tartelettes (duxelles prosciutto and smoked bass), and cauliflower tuille. The seven-course savory menu was lamb tartare, dry-aged fresh duck, miso Chilean sea bass, rye ramen (prepared at table), heritage chicharrones, a ravioli-like “basket” (with elk meat sourced from the hunting ranch that Tepper owns in West Virginia), and Australian A5 Wagyu beef. The two desserts were oat-milk ice cream and orange poppyseed cake. Guests are sent home with One’s hand-crafted chocolates.
Though extensive, the menu is calibrated to leave diners feeling satisfied but not stuffed, elevated but not intoxicated. The price of the evening is standard for such chef-table experiences (if you have to ask, it’s $275, plus tax and tip).
Story by Deborah Weisberg
Photo From One by Spork