We are going with 2 other couples to tour Fallingwater this fall and will be spending the night at the Duncan House. We are looking for a decent place to have dinner that night, and then we will probably venture into Pittsburgh to see the Warhol Museum and other sites. If you have recommendations (esp but not exclusively food recommendations) I’d be interested in hearing them! The most recent Pittsburgh threads I could find are a little dated.
TIA
Fallingwater is very worthwhile. I assume you know to reserve tickets in advance. Have fun!
Yes, we have tickets and reservations at Duncan House for the night. Looking forward to it!
Are you going to Kentuck Knob? It was an interesting counterpoint to Falling Water.
For lunch near Fallingwater, The Stone House (on Rt 40 near the Summit Inn) has a BBQ tent set out most days; great brisket. Near Confluence, we just ate at Lucky Dog Cafe on our way back from the beach and were happy with it. Make sure to make time for Kentuck Knob house and outdoor art if in the area too. I rode the GAP trail a while back (and continued on to DC) and would recommend Paw Paw Tunnel, Harper’s Ferry, and Ohiopyle too. In PGH, make sure to check out the Mattress Factory Art Museum. For fare, the best I found was The Twisted Frenchman and The Ace Hotel.
How do you wind up in Confluence on the way back from the beach?
Which Twisted Frenchman, the more expensive dining room or the bar downstairs?
Had a fantastic meal at Cure in Lawrenceville in pittsburgh. Hot Chef, Great cured meats and interesting wine list.
Bring wine, pay corkage. Good faux French in Lawrenceville at Poulet Bleu, good luck with reservations.
Go to Mount Washington for the view, Altius is the best of the “special occasion” restaurants on Mount Washington with very good views.
But in general, what are you looking for?
Just looking to have me some fun. I’ve been to Pittsburgh several times for work but had no time to do fun things. Ppl seem to think it is a great place. So I thought we’d travel the extra hour + from Fallingwater to spend a night or two there before heading back to DC
Sorry this is a little late.
During college, I was a tour guide at Fallingwater during the summer and lived in Ohiopyle/Chalk Hill for several years. Fallingwater is a special place.
For dining, the best place nearby is at Nemacolin Woodlands. There are a number of restaurants there, including their top one, Lautrec. My friends that still live in the area often recommend a place in Chalk Hill called the Maywood Grill. The Stone House has been their forever and used to be owned by a schoolmates family. It’s now owned by the son of our former neighbor – who also owns Braddocks on Rt. 40. There are also a number of good Italian places in nearby Uniontown.
Another schoolmate runs the Ohiopyle House Café.
If you have an afternoon and it’s warm, go to Cucumber Falls. All the locals know where it is and it was our “place” to go in high school. If you smell cucumbers, watch for the copperheads. If you love whitewater, they are the some of the best rapids on the east coast and the guys at Wilderness Voyageurs are great. Enjoy!
So the trip anticipated in the OP was postponed several times and did not occur until last week. I thought I would update with some thoughts:
We drove to Pittsburgh and stayed the night. After arriving we took a walk around Fort Pitt, visited the little museum on the site, and basically walked through downtown. The city has some superb architecture, and I can imagine that in an earlier time, it was a very exciting place to be. Today, as with most (all?) big urban centers, it is somewhat depressing, with empty storefronts and sidewalks. The museum was absolutely worth an hour or so; it focuses on the role of the fort in the founding story through the French and Indian War, which gets short shrift in most museums
We stayed in the Renaissance on 6th Street. Highly recommended. We had a gigantic room which was well appointed and very clean. Staff was excellent too.
We ate at Bar Marco, which I cannot recommend more strongly. A very (very) small menu, 2 courses for $45 with local ingredients. I had a tomato risotto that tasted of August. Superb. The restaurant sits in a neighborhood called the Strip which is stuffed with bars and restaurants. Worth a visit just to walk around
The following am we went to the Carnegie complex of museums in the Oakland neighborhood. We spent most of our time in the excellent art museum, but the natural history museum is worth time too. Very highly recommended.
Then off to Fallingwater. I won’t add to the reams of commentary written on the house and the property or on Wright’s genius/megalomania. We had a superb guide on a 90 minute tour, which in advance sounded to me like excess but ended up being fascinating beginning to end. He described the constant battle between Wright and the Kaufman family that commissioned the house, who had the temerity to want to choose the furnishings. The house itself and the site in which it sits are just breathtaking. You can see why it was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I was eager to visit, but came away actually affected by the experience. Again, I cannot recommend it more highly. NOTE: it is way the F out in the Laurel Highlands, and the route there is bewildering. A couple of times, we felt like the GPS was directing us to turn into someone’s driveway.
We stayed in the neighborhood at the Summit Inn. We were exhausted and it was adequate but no more. If we were to visit again (a possibility) we’d stay at the Nemacolin resort nearby.
I can’t believe it’s 5 years later. Good job finding Bar Marco.