102 Mike Ambeliotis of Mediterra

We sit down with Mike Ambeliotis of Mediterra Bakehouse and Mediterra Cafe to talk about what it really takes to grow a family business without losing the craft, the standards, or the relationships that built it in the first place. A local bakery that still sells at Pittsburgh farmers markets is also baking bread for Whole Foods across the country, and that tension is what makes this conversation so good.

We go upstream to the ingredients. Mike breaks down their heritage grain work, including Red Fife grown in Arizona, natural pest control with ladybugs, and why milling their own flour gives them control from field to finished loaf. 

Then we spotlight Mediterra Cafe, the thoughtfully designed spaces in Sewickley, Mt Lebanon, Lawrenceville, and Cranberry, plus the in-house pastry program and chef-driven food that turns the bakery’s bread into full meals. 

Later in the show, wine expert Catherine Montest spotlights Ruby’s Wine House, and makes the case for wine flights as the fastest way to expand your palate. From exotic whites to bouquet-forward pours and horizontal flights that compare terroir across regions, you’ll leave with a clear plan for your next night out. 

Subscribe for more Pittsburgh food stories, share this with a bread or wine fan, and leave a review with your favorite loaf or wine flight pick.

Transcript

Doug 0:01

Welcome to The Pittsburgh Dish. I'm your host, Doug Heilman. How has One Family Business struck the balance of successful growth while maintaining meaningful touch points and hometown connection? Mike Ambliotis shares his family story of MetaTerra. And later, why are wine flights a great way to expand your palate? Catherine Montest shares the praises of Ruby's Winehouse. All that ahead, stay tuned. If you have a food-related business or upcoming food event, advertise with us here on the Pittsburgh Dish. We guarantee that you're getting a local food-focused audience for your message. Just DM us on Instagram at the Pittsburgh Dish or use our contact form at our website, Pittsburgh Dish.com. Now onto the show.

Meet Mediterra’s Mike Ambeliotis

Doug 0:57

Well, thank you so much for coming over and for being on the show. Would you introduce yourself to our listeners and what you have going on right now in the world of food?

Mike 1:08

Yeah, appreciate it. Um my name's Mike Ambeliotis, one of the family members and partners at Mediterra Bakehouse, Mediterra Cafe. Um, and it's a family business second generation. Yes. Right. Um amazing how it all kind of just transpired. I I graduated from Ohio State in 2007. Never really thought about um or never really planned to come into the family business. It just kind of happened that way. We would come home on summer breaks or holidays and we would work. Uh, and then just felt an attraction. And and I graduated. I came into the business uh and to, like I said, 2007 with my dad. Uh and you know, obviously 2008 happened. And so I was I was able to kind of navigate those rough waters of of the 2008 crisis with my dad, taught me a lot, learned a lot. And and subsequently, one after another, my brother came in in 2000, 2009, and then Anthony, and then and then Nicole, my sister, and Nicholas, my brother. So we're all there. And and it's taken it's taken 10 years to figure out roles and responsibilities. But I will tell you, we have an amazing team. I think everybody's embraced what they do well. Uh, and and we've learned that there's bound, you know, natural boundaries. I know that my brother excels at certain things, so I trust him and he does it. Uh yeah.

Doug 2:34

And Mike, what do you like? What's your focus? What do you do at the the bakery or the cafes?

Mike 2:40

Yeah, that's uh a good question. It's usually a little bit of everything. Everything. But I would say I I I I run I run business operations. Okay. Like logistics and things. Logistics. I mean, we've brought people on board. I'm running, I would say I'm running the business. Okay. Uh my two brothers are are running production. Uh, and together we all work together. Now, once the cafes began to open, it that's a whole story in itself, but that was kind of my father's past was food importing and specialty products and traveling to boulot, you know, boulangeries in France. And he he had this this passion for what you see in our cafes. Yes. So him and my sister, my sister was at the bakery, kind of like as an uh admin role. And and when the cafes opened, it was her opportunity to go out and kind of spread her wings and work with my dad and learn the family business. And that's where she's at.

Doug 3:35

So yeah. And it's a whole new world, really, in the more recent years. Can we just back up for a second? For listeners that maybe somehow are not familiar with Mediterra bread yet. Uh, the bakery was established in 2002.

Mike 3:52

Yeah.

Doug 3:52

We're coming up next year, will be 25 years in business.

Mike 3:56

It, you know, so my father grew up in the retail business. His his grandparents and then his parents had a grocery store, a specialty food store in Little Warren, Ohio. It was, it was a fabulous store. It was in the you know, the 70s, 80s, and early 90s. It was before there was Whole Foods. It was written up in the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times for this up-and-coming, you know, food market.

Doug 4:22

Yes.

Mike 4:23

And he he had gotten to a point where it was he wanted to he wanted to spread his wings. He was with his father, and he decided he was gonna go and work for a company out of Cleveland, Ohio called Euro USA, especially food importer. At the time when he joined, they were a very small company. They were doing maybe five or six million dollars a year. And they were repackaging products that were here in the United States and they were reselling them. And he he went to his bosses and said, you know, I think we need to go out and find our own lines. So they kind of made him this food forager. He did this amazing job, amazing job. You know, he would go to Spain and spend five days in Spain on eight different anchovy boats and handpicking which anchovies they were going to bring back to the United States. It was incredible. Incredible, incredible. And he did this uh in in every aspect of food, pasta and candies. And in the company when when he ultimately left, it was doing like 50 or 60 million. And I think, as he would say, he saw the writing on the wall. He had helped build something, and he realized that he wasn't going to maybe be a part of it. So he he thought to himself, you know, I I've done retail, I've kind of done distribution. He wanted to do wholesale, and it was you know, he we laugh now because it was between bread and it was between goat cheese. Oh, and and and yeah, I know. He loves all things fermented, wine, bread, uh, his newest hobby, cigars, tobacco, okay, which we'll we could maybe touch on.

Doug 5:59

He's got such a great curated palette, by the way. I mean, and it's reflective. It's reflective. The the line of products you have at at all of your locations.

Mike 6:07

So 2001, he decides he's gonna leave this corporate job. He sells his house, you know, has four young children. There's four of us at the time we were young, and we moved into an apartment and he he opened this bakery, and everybody told him he was crazy.

Doug 6:20

And was that here in Pittsburgh?

Mike 6:22

It was here in Pittsburgh, yeah. Yeah.

Doug 6:24

Has it always been in the near the area that the bake house is now?

Mike 6:28

It's always been there. It started off with one parcel of the building. Right, small.

Doug 6:32

It was like this small corner of the building. And you guys have taken over the whole thing.

Mike 6:35

And now we have the whole building.

Doug 6:36

Crazy.

Mike 6:37

Yeah, yeah. And and we're at a kind of a crossroads, right? Where we are looking for a larger facility because we've just outgrown where we're at now.

Doug 6:46

My goodness. Yeah. I mean, that's actually one of the upfront questions I had is, you know, what's going on right now at Mediterra at the bakehouse, you know, or even the cafes. Yeah. Um, so expansion. Expansion. Yeah, yeah. So we're working on that. Let's let's stay with the bake house. Yeah. I was looking on the website this morning. Can you tell us how many products, how many different uh loaves of bread are in your product line now? Yeah.

Mike 7:14

I I would say we have about when you look at when you look at doughs, different, different variations of doughs, we probably have close to 30. It's a lot. Wow, yes. It's a lot. And then from those different variations, there's my goodness, there's spin-offs of of different shapes, sizes, and variations.

Doug 7:33

Yeah, Pullman loaves or rustic shaped loaves. Yeah. So some are better for probably slicing a sandwich or you know, just having at the table. Yeah. All those things.

Mike 7:42

And and and one thing we we've stayed true to is we genuinely feel like we're still that small startup bakery. And people say, My goodness, why don't you consolidate your your product offering? And we'll look at it and we'll say, uh, we're making 10 of these loaves a day. It makes sense, but I don't want to lose that customer. I mean, we're we're that hands-on and and and caring. I mean, we're we're still producing bread the way we were almost 25 years ago. We've just found different ways to scale.

Doug 8:18

Yeah.

Mike 8:18

I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I I think that's the common misconception we'll get from time to time, not a lot, but we'll we'll get people that say, I want to buy from this bakery because you know, you guys have maybe grown and it's and there's there's not that that touch on it, which is which which I can understand, uh, but it's not the case. Right. It's not the case. I mean, we're still doing cold water, very long fermentation times. Uh, and you know, the touch point on bread, on our bread, is still, you know, anywhere from five to eight people throughout the process to touch that bread before it goes out.

Doug 8:59

Even though you've scaled and you've found equipment, I I saw on your website, yeah, you know, just like how you mentioned your dad sourced all of these things from across the world, even the equipment has come from across the world, but in order to keep the touch and the quality where it has always been. Exactly. Right. What I also love is you've scaled so much, you really are more than a local and regional bakery, but you still pop up in farmers' markets. Yeah. And so it feels like it's still a small family-run business, and the heart is there, which I think why it still feels so good.

Mike 9:39

Yeah. We love the farmers' markets. I mean, we love getting out into the community and being in front of people, and that's something we've we've been doing for almost 25 years. And it it's it's grown into we have a small community of people that that's all they do with Adria and myself. I'm still involved in in the farmer market. We have a kind of like a director that she handles all of them.

Doug 10:00

So it's been great. I I do want to mention Adria is your marketing director. She's here with us, she's off mic, but she's listening in the wing. So she is, she signed me up for this. I love it. Yeah. Um, you know, in addition to the farmers markets, well, uh, let me ask this as a side question. Are we the only area that gets farmers market access? It is. You're not doing farmers markets anywhere else in the country. No. Again, so special for the Pittsburgh region. Yeah. But let's remind listeners as well, well beyond Pittsburgh, where is your bread and your products?

From Pittsburgh To Whole Foods National

Doug 10:37

Where are they showing up?

Mike 10:38

So outside of the Pittsburgh market, we work with we work with in Pittsburgh fabulous family-owned mom and pop shops. Um and and we're we're blessed to have that footprint because we feel that that kind of keeps us tied to the community. Right. Uh, we started in 2001. One of my one of my dad's big breaks was Whole Foods opened their first location.

Doug 11:02

Over in East Liberty, East Liberty, Shady Side, East Side. I remember seeing your bread when that first opened. Yeah. Yeah. And I thought, wow, this is a local company in this like.

Mike 11:13

He had to fight for that. Yeah. He had to fight for that. They they weren't gonna do it, and he fought for it, and and he got the business. And that store ultimately ended up being one of the best performing stores in their mid-Atlantic region. So it was performing just out of this world, and it it it caught the eyes of the executives in that region. Yeah. Uh 2013 is when we started doing some of the regional frozen business with the Mid-Atlantic region, and that program took off and excelled. For Whole Foods. For Whole Foods. For Whole Foods. We put together kind of a fresh flash frozen program where the bread is frozen a particular way to maintain the integrity. And you know, you thought and you pop it in your oven and refresh it, and and through the f this specialized freezing process, it's like nothing has changed. Yes. Um it did well. And in one executive would go to another region and they'd say, I know a bread guy, and they'd reach out, and one by one, we started adding different regions until ultimately in 2023, uh, we we got some national business that that we're grateful for.

Doug 12:26

Incredible.

Mike 12:26

Yeah, yeah.

Doug 12:27

So if I go to Whole Foods in California, yeah, am I gonna find Mediterra bread?

Mike 12:32

Yeah, you will. And and it's the same product that people buy at the farmers markets. And we've found a way through you know my brothers Anthony and Nick, who do a fabulous job. I mean, I give them all the credit uh to scale that and maintain quality.

Doug 12:48

So we're saying that Mediterra bread is found in any location uh for Whole Foods across the continental US. Correct. Is it all baked here? It's all in baked up in Pittsburgh. Yeah, yeah. Well, congratulations on that distribution. That's incredible. I think the other thing that I read, which also goes back to keeping the heart and sort of also the control and the scalability, you've made known how grain is important to you and some of that relationship. Can we talk a little bit about that scaling and and how that's

Heritage Grain And Milling Control

Doug 13:24

all happened?

Mike 13:24

Yeah, so this is my father's foresight, right? What this is one of the things he's amazing at. It was around 2013. And at the time, we had a much smaller bakery out in Phoenix, Arizona.

Doug 13:38

Oh.

Mike 13:39

He had uh semi-retired at the time. Okay. And he was he was spending most of his time out in Arizona, close to a monastery that's near and dear to the family, and an opportunity arose to start a bakery.

Doug 13:53

Wow.

Mike 13:54

Out in out in Arizona. And and he did, and it did very well. It just got to be too much with the cafes, this bakery. But during that time, you know, 2013, 14, 15, bakeries kind of started to become hot again. Yes. You know, for so long, grain had this bad rap that was giving everybody allergies. Yeah. But around that time, you started to see the different bakeries in Pittsburgh starting to pop up in different neighborhoods. And it was really, really trendy. And and you had small bakeries that were doing really cool things and still are with different flours and different grains, like heritage grains, things we hadn't heard about way beyond just white flour.

Doug 14:38

Yeah. Yeah.

Mike 14:38

Yeah. So so he knew, you know, albeit we're producing bread the same way that these small bakeries are, you know, it was it was probably our time to tell our story. And that was at the time we we met up with this amazing farmer out in Arizona, and we're still working with this farmer. And we worked with him to grow. We're growing heritage grain, red fife, which is you know, one of the older grains. Uh, and we grow, we're now we're growing close to 150, 200 acres this year. Amazing. So we're it was a really it's it we we're passionate about it. It's a it's a process that we control. We're controlling grain going in the ground, how it's grown. There's no there's no pesticides. You know, our farmer releases millions and millions of ladybugs that act as a natural form of pesticide.

Doug 15:30

Is this farmer in Arizona?

Mike 15:32

He's in Arizona.

Doug 15:33

Okay.

Mike 15:34

Because Arizona offers one of the best growing climates, not only in the U.S. but in the world. 90% of the Durham flour for Italian pasta is grown in Phoenix and shipped back to Italy for pasta. What? Yeah, crazy. Crazy.

Doug 15:50

That is crazy.

Mike 15:51

Yeah.

Doug 15:51

I think I did watch that video, and Noah is correct. Farmer, I had no idea that they were growing any grain in Arizona. Yeah. I would think it would be the Great Plains, Midwest. And I heard them mention the Durum wheat.

Mike 16:07

Yeah.

Doug 16:07

So that's incredible.

Mike 16:08

It's incredible. It's incredible. And we get we get amazing yields. Wow. And and so we're growing the grain, right? Well, then we added in milling. So we we started milling our own flour. Yes. So we're we're literally controlling every step of the process.

Doug 16:25

Yeah. So the quality is so high. And uh beyond the the red fife and the Arizona grain, you're you're also partnering with other folks, right? Growing some more local and organic.

Mike 16:37

Exactly. So we have we have some amazing partnerships in Ohio that do some of our specialty grains and our corn. We we're we're with an amazing, we've been with an amazing Amish family for my goodness, it's uh 15 years where they're growing, you know, our our open air-pollinated corn that we that goes on at almost every loaf of bread on the bottom. That's incredible. It's incredible. But we take every step to make sure whether it's water coming in, right, that it's filtered and treated properly. Yes. Or if it's the corn or the flour. I mean, we're we're do we're trying to select the best of everything, and we feel that that that plays into what you put in your mouth. Right. It's so hard to get a true organic certification. It is, and can I tell you, I think, and this is my personal opinion, uh, but others have shared it. I think trends come and go. Yeah. I I think now the sexy word is regenerative. Yes. Organic still cool, but regenerative farming, just a process by how you handle the soil. That's something that's that we that we do. Right.

Doug 17:46

And can keep using it, prolong life forever and ever, doing things the right way. Yeah.

Mike 17:53

Hey, this is Mike Ambeliotis from Mediterra Bakehouse and Mediterra Cafe, and you're listening to The Pittsburgh Dish.

Best-Selling Breads And Favorites

Doug 18:01

Can I ask a couple other little product things? Um from a product perspective from the bake house, do you have that top seller or that bread that's been in production since day one? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about some specific.

Mike 18:17

I would say much to much to the demise of whether it's the sales team or the marketing team, there's it there's nothing. I mean, we occasionally do some new pop-up things, but it's been, I mean, I think what we've found is we are making the same bread that we were making 25 years ago. And every year, flower crops are different. There's variables like weather and humidity. Of course. We spend all of our energy, and this is my brother, we spend all of our energy making sure that that farm bread or Mount Athos bread that we were making in 2021 is the same or better than it was 25 years ago. And and that takes a lot of energy. Yeah. Um, I think the last thing we'd want to do is develop something and and we start to see our core line of products falter. Fade a bit. Yeah. No, we want to keep those in the front. Yeah.

Doug 19:15

So the farm bread and the Mount Athos.

Mike 19:18

Mount Athos. I would say we have tiers of bread, right? That are that we would classify as maybe our best sellers. And then we have we have breads like our Sesame Semolina that is absolutely unbelievable.

Doug 19:30

It's got that great crunch on the top and bottom.

Mike 19:33

Yeah, it's amazing, but it just for some reason it's never really taken off. But anybody anytime you introduce it to somebody, they love it. They love it. Yeah.

Doug 19:40

But they go back for probably that first loaf that they always bought because they trust that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have personally a new favorite? Something that's more recent? Uh, you know, it changes.

Mike 19:54

Does it? It changes. I would say my my if if I had to tell you what what are my two favorite breads, it would be our Mount Athos, okay, which is like our flagship bread, and our paisano, which, you know, two different applications. Paisano is the bread for ripping and dipping, pasta sauce, olive oil, soup. And I'm so good. I love cleaning the plate.

Doug 20:18

So that's yeah, yeah. Uh well, I love that. Yeah.

Why The Cafes Opened And How They Run

Doug 20:23

All right. I I do want to pivot a little bit. We've been talking about the bake house, which really is the core of the business uh nationally. But a few years back, I think 2018, you decided as a family to open the Mediterra Cafe in Sewickley. In Sewickley, that was our first location. Beautiful, by the way. Thank you. I mean, everything, the design, yeah, and then the food. If someone hasn't visited, we're talking about some breakfast sandwiches, pastries, salads, sandwiches, pizza by the slice, right?

Mike 20:57

Yeah.

Doug 20:58

So good.

Mike 20:58

Thank you.

Doug 21:00

What went into that decision? Was that again back to we love finding products and curating and let's do something else?

Mike 21:07

Well, it was a combination of many talents from a handful of people, the family and and and our corporate chef. You know, we came to a point as a family where we said, you know, we've been opened almost almost 20 years at the time. And you'll have conversations with friends or with colleagues. You'd find people that still did not know who Mediterra was. So it, you know, it was an opportunity for my dad to go back to his roots, the retail component, kind of foraging these amazing foods that you see in the stores. The stuff that he loves.

Doug 21:43

Because it is, I think you also say it's almost a foraged market kind of curation of products.

Mike 21:48

And that's that's a hundred percent him. So we said we we should do this really high end cafe. Mm-hmm. And we were fortunate enough to find this amazing. Location in Sewickley, right in the heart of this beautiful quaint town. And in 2018, yeah, it it opened. You know, much to its success, uh, all family members were involved. And at that time, we were blessed that we we were able to find our corporate chef partner, and his name's Anaseto Sousa. Okay. Was from the Boston area, moved to Pittsburgh, relocated to Pittsburgh, and was kind of at the time looking for a job. And it was kind of like our paths crossed. I mean, amazing talent. When I tell you, he was at 11 Madison Park. He helped with Danny Meyer, you know, when the Shake Shack opened. He was part. So he's he has everything you see from a food perspective is from him. We roast all of our own meats and the salmon is roast or smoked in cold smoked in-house. I mean, everything is done in-house. It's amazing. And I think that comes through too. It totally does.

Doug 23:03

Yeah. Well, then also the bread is the support of everything. Yeah. And you alluded to it earlier. There's this huge pastry probe, isn't it?

Mike 23:14

Right. One of the things we realized early on in the bread, in the bread world, was, you know, we would approach customers like the Renaissance downtown, or and this would have been early on. These hotels downtown, and they'd say at the time, well, you know, if if you make us our morning pastries, we'll buy bread from you. So we we kind of got thrusted into this, yeah, we're gonna do it because we want the business. Right. And that's how that started. And then and then it it evolved from there. I I married my wife in in 2009. We were married, and she moved from Canton, Ohio. And she is the type of individual that anything she wants to do, she will be the best at. And so she decided she was gonna uh dip her toes into into the cake world. And then that evolved into kind of spearheading our pastry program. Oh, okay. And she developed a lot of what we see in the cafes today. And then subsequently, now we've built this amazing team from our production manager, Shannon, who's been with us, my goodness, for 15, 16 years, and other well-crafted people now that do all of the beautiful, delicate pastries you see in the shop. So it's turned into another, another kind of sub-monster within the bakery.

Doug 24:32

Yeah, it's this whole other arm to the business.

Mike 24:35

Yeah.

Doug 24:35

Is that centralized the pastry making?

Mike 24:39

It's it's I mean, it's got its own designated room, but it's all under one roof.

Doug 24:42

And is that in the bake house?

Mike 24:44

It's in the bake house. Yeah.

Doug 24:45

Amazing. Yeah, you can kind of sneak over there and see what's going on. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, perfect. Yeah. You're so thin. I don't I'm I'm like thinking you guys, I don't know. Yeah, and it's difficult, right? I know.

Mike 24:54

It's difficult.

Doug 24:55

Bread is my weakness. Yeah. You know, this sort of leads me to ask, you know, this is a family business. You mentioned your dad's origin story of, you know, loving great food and products, traveling the world. What was food life like growing up as a youngster? Who cooked in the house? What did you have? What are some like family favorites?

Mike 25:19

We we grew up with, you know, Sunday dinner at grandma's. Yeah. Um, I grew up with my father's parents who were Greek and my mother's parents who were Italian. So I had two of the best cultures, in my own opinion, two of the two of the best cultures from a food standpoint.

Doug 25:34

Yes.

Mike 25:34

And and so we would have those those experiences. You know, there would be, you know, almost close to 20 grandchildren all under one roof. We'd be eating. Uh if I had to pick, I might my grandmother made these traditional Greek meatballs. Oh. And that that I would I would eat 15 to 20 of them in a sitting.

Doug 25:56

Amazing.

Mike 25:56

Yeah. I have never, I don't think I've ever had those.

Doug 25:59

Yeah. What makes those um a little different than like uh an Italian meatball? Different spices that use cinnamon, a little cinnamon in there.

Mike 26:08

Yeah. You're gonna have to try that on your next show. I will. Yeah.

Doug 26:11

Well, maybe we'll have to get a recipe from it.

Mike 26:13

Yeah, yeah. That's no problem.

Doug 26:15

That's incredible.

Mike 26:16

So, so I I guess I don't have many hobbies. I mean, I have my family.

Doug 26:20

Yeah.

Mike 26:20

Um, I'm not a golfer. My spare time is spent with with all of the family members. And we love eating. I love that. Yeah. Do you cook? I I would say that I do the proteins. Okay. Yeah. My wife, my wife handles everything else.

Doug 26:39

And your wife is into baking, clearly.

Mike 26:42

Yeah. Wow.

Doug 26:44

If you are all getting together for a holiday, is it all hands on deck?

Mike 26:49

It kind of is. Yeah. Yeah. It's chaos too, but that's good.

Doug 26:52

Yeah. Little yelling in the best.

Mike 26:54

Yeah, there's my my my parents have uh now 13 grandchildren. You know, all my my oldest is the oldest, so she's uh she's gonna be 11, so 13 grandchildren under 11 years old.

Doug 27:08

The next generation. The next generation, yeah. I have to say it.

Mike 27:11

Although I think they're all gonna migrate to the cafe. Well, maybe that's okay. The bake house is not for some people is not sexy. The cafes are, yeah.

Doug 27:20

You never know, these young generations, they uh they they do strange things sometimes, but it'll all work out. Yeah, it will. It will. I love the family story. Thank you so much for sharing all of those aspects that I I know maybe some of us know a little bit about here or there, but putting it all together, yeah. I'd love

What’s Next Plus The Cigar Venture

Doug 27:40

to ask. You mentioned earlier expansion is on your mind. What else is up next? Is there anything on the horizon? Any new goals or or things happening?

Mike 27:50

Yeah. Well, I I I'll say this. We were working to identify right the expansion at the bakery. That's something that we want to do. We never thought we would have four cafes, although we said early on it'd be nice to have four to five in Pittsburgh. I think you you had mentioned off-air, right? We're in these amazing centralized uh each cafe is in these amazing neighborhoods. Yes. We never actively go out and say, okay, it's time to open up number five. We kind of let things slowly evolve.

Doug 28:23

Time and opportunity sort of happen.

Mike 28:25

So could a fifth happen at some point? I would say it's not off the table. The other thing my father's recently developed a passion for, as I mentioned, are the cigars. So we opened a private lounge above the Sewickley Cafe three, four years ago, and just recently it's celebrating its first uh anniversary, is in Seven Fields Cranberry, right next door to the cafe. He's opened his first retail shop. Wow. And I mean, it's beautiful, it's all custom woodwork. You go in, you feel like you're in a jewelry store. And it's it's done. We were just at the PCA, which is the national convention for cigars, last two weeks ago in New Orleans, and he won the best new cigar lounge in the country. Your father can't stand still. No, no, no, he won't. He won't. He won't. Yeah.

Doug 29:16

But the family has such a design sense. I don't know who's doing it for you, but the the stores, everything is just so beautiful. Even like your marketing, it hasn't changed since day one, but like the websites, the cafes, and now the cigar lounge. Yeah, it all looks incredible. It's an experience.

Mike 29:31

Thank you. I I think we try to put, I mean, I I can say for myself, put people that I trust that I know do a good job. You know, Wildman Chalmers, I'd be remiss if I didn't give them a shout out. We worked with them on the first cafe and they helped us with the with each one after. Um, you know, Adria and marketing, people that can really attach to who we are fundamentally and do a really good job of putting that out to the public.

Doug 30:01

Yeah. Yeah. I do want to remind folks, since we we've talked about it, but I don't think we've mentioned it. The cafe locations are Sewickley, Mount Lebanon, Lawrenceville, and Cranberry. Correct. Which I've never been to Cranberry. I need to make it up there. You gotta go. They have a beautiful outdoor patio too. So when the weather's good, you can sit outdoors, it's nice. And the bake house is actually close to where we are recording today, right off of Campbell's Run Road. Correct. Out towards the Robinson area.

Mike 30:27

Up in an industrial park. Yeah.

Doug 30:29

You wouldn't know it.

Mike 30:30

You wouldn't know it.

Doug 30:30

It's kind of like a cool secret. It is.

Mike 30:32

It is a cool secret. Yeah.

Doug 30:34

Let's remind listeners to find and follow you. It's Instagram. You guys do a lot on Instagram. Correct. And Facebook. Is it at Mediterra Bakehouse? Yeah. And Mediterra Cafe. Cafe.

Mike 30:49

Correct. Two separate handles. Yeah.

Doug 30:51

So you can see the goodies from both. Yeah.

Mike 30:52

Yeah. You'll get in for the for the bakehouse, you'll get updates on farmers markets. We're at a lot of them, but if we're not going to be at one or when one is starting, you'll get a lot of great information.

Doug 31:03

Yeah. Can you remind us of the websites as well?

Mike 31:06

Yeah, it's mediterrabakehouse.com and mediterracafe.com.

Doug 31:11

Perfect. You guys kept it simple.

Mike 31:13

Kept it simple. Love it. Yeah, I appreciate that.

Doug 31:16

Mike, the name of the show is The Pittsburgh Dish. What's the best dish that you've had to eat this past week?

Mike 31:25

Oh boy. This past week, huh? Well, I'll I'll tell you. One of my my favorite restaurants is the original Il Pizaiolo in Mount Lebanon. And my wife and I are fond of of Ron and his restaurant, and we frequent there often. And I get I get his uh his lemon chicken. I I had that last week. Okay. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of got a little, it's the little the Mediterranean with tape tapers on it and lemon potatoes.

Doug 31:58

So see, that sounds so good. When I go there, I always default to pizza.

Mike 32:02

I know. Well, we get the pizza as the appetizer. Okay, you're smart. Get the DOC as the appetizer. Okay. Right? Yeah. If it's the winter time, I'll get the uh the bolognese. Yeah. So good. I know. Yeah.

Doug 32:14

That's my favorite.

Mike 32:15

But there's listen, there's a uh a million restaurants, and I I usually try to support the restaurants that support us. So I could go go on and on, but I'm a I'm a meat guy too, so I love Gaucho.

Doug 32:27

Oh, yeah. They have a new head chef. I just was watching that over all of the draft postings. But the latest bite was the OG.

Mike 32:35

Yeah, that was the late. That was the last bite I had. Yeah.

Doug 32:37

We could probably keep talking about other things. Yeah, we could.

Mike 32:39

We could. Yeah.

Doug 32:41

Mike, thank you so much for sharing your story, your family's story. We're wishing you and the family all the best with everything that Mediterra has going on. I appreciate that. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for being on the Pittsburgh. Thank you for having us. Yeah. Up next, have you ever

Ruby’s Winehouse And Wine Flights 101

Doug 32:59

tried a wine flight? Our wine expert, Catherine Montest, takes us to Ruby's wine house for the perfect experience. Hey Catherine, nice to see you again.

Catherine 33:09

Happy to see you again too, Doug.

Doug 33:11

I always like to ask about your wine knowledge. And this week I thought I would ask if you've stumbled upon any new wine places in the area. Oh, I have a favorite wine place and it's not far from home.

Catherine 33:24

Okay. Ruby's Winehouse. Ruby's Wine House. I can't say I've heard of it. Tell me more. So if you go just past, if you're coming from Pittsburgh and you go just past Robinson and you take the Montor Run Road exit.

Doug 33:37

Yes.

Catherine 33:37

It's right off that road. It's on Cliff Mine Road. Okay. It is the cutest little place. It's owned by a couple, Lori and Gino. And once upon a time, it was kind of a run-down hole in the wall sort of bar. Okay. And after that closed up, Lori and Gino purchased it and turned it into the coziest, most delightful, wonderful little wine bar. It's called Ruby's Wine Bar, and it's named after one of their five dogs. Oh my goodness. A standard poodle named Ruby Ruby. Yeah. And you can see Ruby's picture when you come in there. Um their wine list is really thoughtful. They've got reds, they've got whites, they've got domestic, they've got international, they've got sweet, they've got dry. And it's laid out in a way that makes it really easy to navigate and to find something that you like. And they've got a lot of wines available by the glass as well as by the bottle. Their food is mostly kind of Italian and it's delicious.

Doug 34:41

So you said, is this a wine bar or a full restaurant? Or how would you characterize it?

Catherine 34:46

It's a wine bar that serves some really yummy Italian foods. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Doug 34:50

Now you've really intrigued me even more.

Catherine 34:52

That's my job. That's what I'm here for. Um one of the things that I think they do an exceptional job with is their wine flights. Oh. Do you know what a wine flight is, Doug?

Doug 35:04

Well, isn't this a sample of like three or four like shallow pours, if we will?

Catherine 35:10

Um, I wouldn't call them shallow pores. Okay. But a glass of wine at a place like that's typically going to run you in the neighborhood of, oh, I don't know, $15 or so.

Doug 35:19

Okay.

Catherine 35:19

And a flight at Ruby's is going to be under $20, and you're going to get to enjoy more than just a splash or a mouthful of three different wines. Oh, this is good.

Doug 35:32

Yeah. It's the best way I always think to learn what you like, what you don't like.

Catherine 35:37

Well, and by doing a flight, you're going to end up with slightly more than just one glass of wine.

Doug 35:42

Right.

Catherine 35:43

And you're going to get to have an experience that you couldn't have by just having one glass.

Doug 35:49

And do they curate them for you, or can you pick your own flight? How did it work when you were there?

Catherine 35:54

Oh, that's a really good question. They've got it laid out in their menu. There, there's a variety of flights that are pre-designed for your enjoyment. So you don't have a whole lot of decisions you have to make. Okay. We can start off with the exotic whites. Oh. Yes. Everybody's heard of Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio. Yon Yan. Okay. Have you ever tried a white Malbec?

Doug 36:20

No.

Catherine 36:21

No. How about even a white Temperanillo? No. Those are grapes that we typically think of as being red wines. Yeah. But they make beautiful white wines too. Yeah. And those are included in the exotic white. I like this. Yeah, isn't that fun? Yeah. And um they've got another white flight called the bouquets. And the bouquets are wines that have a lot of aromas and a lot of floral notes. And you really kind of want to explore what are some of these different things that people are smelling in wines.

Doug 36:53

These alleged notes that we hear about.

Catherine 36:55

Exactly. The bouquet flight is a really fun flight to kind of challenge yourself. Can I pick out honeysuckle? Can I pick out peach?

Doug 37:05

Yes.

Catherine 37:06

So it's really kind of a fun way to go, hey, can I tell the difference from one wine to another? Ah, I like this. Another type of thing they have on the flight list are what's typically referred to as a horizontal flight. Okay. So by that, we're talking about one grape, but grown in three different parts of the world and made by three different winemakers.

Speaker 37:29

Okay.

Catherine 37:30

So you can explore Chardonnay from America, from Europe. And I can't remember if the third one was from South America or from Australia.

Doug 37:40

Distinctly different terroir, right? Yep, that's the word for it. Okay. Uh and you think, oh, a grape's a grape, but it's not. It imbues all those other things that happen in the soil and the climate and wherever they come from. You're exactly right, Doug.

Catherine 37:55

And they offer that for Chardonnay, and they also offer it for Pinot Noir. Oh. They have a couple of other red flights also. You can take a taste tour of Italy with red wines. And then they also have what they like to call their flight of favorites. And this is wines that were selected by uh Lori and Gino. And they update the wines every so often based on what's good and what's available right now.

Doug 38:20

Like what they're currently crushing on. This is what they like. Exactly. I love that.

Catherine 38:25

So that's my hot take right now is to give the wine flights at Ruby's Wine House a try.

Doug 38:31

And so we're talking about Ruby's Winehouse. It's located, is it technically like Coriopolis address out your way?

Speaker 38:37

I think it is, yeah.

Doug 38:38

And it's on Cliff Mine Road.

Speaker 38:40

It is. Catherine, thanks so much. You're most welcome, Doug.

Doug 38:45

You can learn more about Catherine and her services on her website, your fairywinemother.com. If you enjoyed the show, we would love you to become a monthly monetary supporter. Just follow the link at the bottom of this show's description, or visit our website at pittsburghdish.com and click the support tab. And if you want to follow my own food adventures, you can find me on social media at DougCooking. That's our show for this week. Thanks again to all of our guests and contributors, and to Kevin Selecki of Carnegie Accordion Company for providing the music to our show. We'll be back again next week with another fresh episode. Stay tuned.