Bloomfield's Apteka makes top 50 restaurant list by The New York Times

A Pittsburgh restaurant has landed some national love.

In a list of its top 50 favorite restaurants in the United States, The New York Times recognized Bloomfield’s Apteka restaurant for its Eastern European cuisine.

The restaurant, which serves a fully vegan menu, opened in 2016.

“The co-chefs, co-owners and life partners Kate Lasky and Tomasz Skowronski build depth, texture and flavor with fermentation, ingenuity (don’t miss the celeriac schnitzel) and cultured nut milk as lush as crème fraîche,” Brett Anderson wrote for the Times. “Their produce-driven food is shaped in part by Mr. Skowronski; a son of Polish immigrants, he grew up visiting relatives with abundant gardens in and around Warsaw.”

The article touts the restaurant’s vegan menu and the fact that “you won’t notice anything missing.”

To create their list of their top 50 favorite restaurants nationwide, Times’ writers “traveled widely and ate avidly,” the article said.

The newspaper’s food reporters, editors and critics traveled around the nation from Oklahoma City to Juncos, Puerto Rico, to Orcas Island off the coast of Washington state and included on their list everything from “revelatory Ethiopian barbecue, innovative Haitian cooking and possibly the most delicious fried pork sandwich in the United States.”

Apteka’s owners thanked the “incredible team of people who show up to make this happen with us every day” in a social media post announcing the restaurant’s spot on the Times list.

“There’s a lot that goes into getting food on the table for every service, and everyone on staff puts so much effort and attention into each part,” the owners wrote. “The work is a real grind — but the energy and good vibes from the crew is what keeps us afloat.”