Cooking Class: Butcher and the Rye's Dirty Pasta

Richard DeShantz and Tolga Sedvik found they were turning people away from their popular Downtown restaurant, Meat & Potatoes.

The restaurant partners looked for another place to take the overflow crowd and found a Sixth Street storefront that had been empty for almost three years.

DeShantz told Sedvik: “Let's do something special, something no one's done before.”

“Downtown's just changed vastly,” says DeShantz, a Sheraden native who now lives Downtown. “I see things that (the neighborhood) needs and think, ‘It needs a little watering hole.'”

The result was Butcher and the Rye, a “little watering hole” with a huge bar program, which opened in October.

Sedvik, of Beechview,� says the bar has nearly 350 kinds of whiskey alone: “It's a big list,” he says. Shelves of whiskey, rye, bourbon and other spirits fill nearly two stories. Bartenders use a library ladder on wheels to reach the highest bottles. Craft cocktails, beer and wine are also available.

In February, Butcher and the Rye was nominated for a James Beard Award for Best Bar Program, which Sedvik called “a huge honor for us.” Yahoo Travel picked the restaurant in January as one of the top seven new bars in the country.

“Everybody's really passionate here,” says Maggie Meskey of Highland Park, one of the bartenders. “No details are spared. It's very inspirational.”

DeShantz's goal was creating an array of foods to stand up to the impressive liquor selections. The menu includes small plates, charcuterie and large plates, none of which costs more than $26. Small plates like Crispy Pig Wing and Pig Candy are $8. Charcuterie selections include Pork Terrine for $12 and Duck Liver Pate with sauterne jelly and grilled bread, for $15.

Large plates include Pan Roasted Trout, with cauliflower steak, capers and beurre noisette, for $24; Dirty Pasta, with ground duck and strozzapretti pasta, for $14; and Shepherd's Pie, with braised beef cheeks, creamed peas, carrots, bacon and potato “foam,” for $20.

DeShantz considers attention to detail important in the decor and the food. He grinds meat fresh daily for 20 burgers, then sells only those.

“We want to use local ingredients, but we also want to cater to Pittsburghers a little bit. The price point matters,” he says.

Food and drink are served in an unpretentious and rustic, yet cozy and comfortable, space that spans two floors. The ground floor off Sixth Street offers a large wooden bar with rough edging, evoking the bark of a tree. The bar shelves reach up to the second-story ceiling.

DeShantz, who once studied art at Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts high school, designed interiors reminiscent of a tavern or club. He chose red William Morris wallpaper for its rabbits and birds for the bar. A private dining room at the front of the space offers seating for a dozen at a medieval-looking oval wooden table.

Upstairs is another bar, a second dining room and a room the partners call “the library.” Lined with shelves of leather-bound books, the space features taxidermy examples of a deer head, fish and a bear. Area artists painted the tops of tables; a mural on a ceiling overhang is of Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of the J.D. Salinger novel “The Catcher in the Rye,” which DeShantz always liked and which the name of the bar-restaurant evokes.

DeShantz first entered the food industry at age 14, working at his uncle's restaurant. He decided if he was going to be an artist, he didn't want to be a starving one, so he studied at the former Pennsylvania Institute of Culinary Arts.

“To me, the place is also about attention to detail,” he says of Butcher and the Rye. So he bought antique doorknobs attached to the bar where patrons can hang coats and handbags and uses dish towels as expansive napkins.

He and Sevdik, a native of Turkey, met when Sevdik was managing the Deja Vu nightclub across from DeShantz's Cafe Richard. Later, the two found themselves both working at 9 on 9 and decided to open Meat & Potatoes. Sevdik manages the front of the house and does the books; DeShantz is executive chef.

“It was supposed to be overflow space,” Sedvik says. But now Butcher and the Rye has become a destination all its own.

Sandra Fischione Donovan is a contributing writer for Trib Total Media.

Dirty Pasta

Richard DeShantz, co-owner and executive chef of Butcher and the Rye, Downtown, believes food served with whiskey, rye and bourbon must be hearty enough to stand up to the liquor. So, he tweaked the concept of dirty rice in creating a pasta dish, using firm strozzapretti pasta and duck.

DeShantz believes in using all of the bird, so he makes his own duck stock out of the duck carcass, combined with celery, onions, carrots and parsley stems. But cooks who love duck without all that work can buy the parts they need from their butcher and use purchased duck or chicken stock to complete this rich and hearty dish.

And, while DeShantz believes in making most dishes from scratch, including many of the pastas Butcher and the Rye serves, he doesn't believe in making something he can buy that he can't improve upon. One such ingredient is the firm, rolled pasta he uses in this dish. He buys the strozzapretti from Fede Pasta in North Huntingdon, Westmoreland County.

12 ounces strozzapretti pasta (available at Fede Pasta)

Olive oil

12 ounces ground duck

4 ounces duck liver, chopped fine

4 tablespoons shallots, minced

4 teaspoons garlic, minced

½ cup cognac

1 cup duck or chicken stock

6 tablespoons butter, or to taste

4 teaspoons fresh sage, chopped fine

Parsley, chopped

Pecorino Romano, grated, to taste

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Premium olive oil, to garnish

Cook the pasta according to package directions; al dente is recommended. Reserve some of the pasta water.

Heat a large saute pan and add enough olive oil to brown the duck. Once hot, add the ground duck and liver and cook until lightly browned. Add the shallots and garlic and cook for 1 to 2 minutes; do not brown the shallots and garlic.

Deglaze the pan with the cognac and reduce by half. Add the duck stock and reduce by half.

Add the cooked pasta to the duck mixture and cook for 4 to 5 minutes. Whisk in the butter, and add the sage and parsley. If necessary, add a bit of the pasta water to encourage the sauce to cling to the pasta.

Season with salt and pepper; add pecorino Romano cheese in an amount of your choosing.

Serve in pasta bowls; garnish with a drizzle of good-quality olive oil and parsley.

Makes 4 servings.