PHOTO COURTESY 40 NORTH
A new restaurant is coming to Alphabet City on the north side.
It’s called 40 North in Alphabet City and is headed by Bethany Zozula who previously worked as the executive chef of the now-closed Whitfield at the Ace Hotel. Sam Suter, formerly Ace Hotel and Union Standard, is the company’s beverage director. According to Zozula, the entire kitchen staff and almost all employees in front of the house are Ace alumni. The building’s previous restaurant, Bruges in the north, was closed in June.
“It all happened quickly. You contacted me in March. I checked that out [City of Asylum] Space and was immediately fascinated, ”says Zozula.
Zozula took inspiration from the various stories and culinary influences in her life to put together her opening menu. She will serve a homemade falafel in a tortilla made from a recipe she made with her mother since she was a child. There’s a chicken sandwich based on a staff meal that’s served every Saturday at Eleven Contemporary Kitchen, where Zozula was a chef for six years before moving to Whitfield. Khachapuri – a dish she learned from an early mentor, David Kadagishvili, chef / owner of Chef Datos Table in Latrobe – is something she looks forward to.
Zozula says there will be significantly more dishes than the Whitfield menu, which focuses on the butcher shop.
“I’ve found I’ve been home for more than a year because I kept cooking non-stop. I continued to express my feelings through food in order to find joy in eating. I just love to feed people, that’s what matters, ”says Zozula.
To that end, while the menu will likely be put together in a conventional format of starters, salads, mains, and desserts, she believes that its execution will allow for a mix-and-match arrangement of dishes that will suit everyone from solo to Solo guests are suitable for special occasions in order to create a rewarding experience.
“It’s not about showing someone how good I can make food. It’s about offering someone food that feels good. I don’t want to dictate the experience. I want to repeat the feeling of being looked after by someone at home, ”she says.
Community has long been a focus of Zozula’s culinary perspective. To that end, she plans to use her experience at the multi-faceted Ace Hotel to make 40 North’s dining experience more coherent with City of Asylum’s events (if resumed indoors) than has been the case in previous restaurants . On the flip side, she plans to revive the collaboration with Pittsburgh’s cooking and producer community, much like she did with the Sharing Knives and Sharing Farms series at Ace.
According to Zozula, 40 North is expected to open in late June, but an official opening date has not yet been set.
40 W North Ave, north side; 40northpgh.com
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