About Trevett

Hi!
I'm a chef.  I've worked in restaurants most of my adult life.  My wife Sarah and I run a restaurant in Pittsburgh called Legume, which we opened in 2007.

In 2012, we opened Butterjoint, which is right next door to Legume.  Now we're working on a new restaurant called Pie For Breakfast, which we hope to open sometime in late 2016/early 2017. (On the back burner is another idea for an Eastern European-inspired restaurant called "Dacha," but that's a few years down the road.)

As a chef, I am a generalist.  My training is very broad.  I am good enough in many areas of the kitchen to understand that I have mastered nothing.  This suits me well in my role as restaurant owner.

My intention of writing the blog is to help people understand the food I cook and the choices I make in the process.  While part of me thinks food should speak for itself and should not require an explanation to be enjoyed, I also make a lot of choices at Legume that are based on politics, nutrition and the goal of supporting local-food ways in Western PA.  I may use a less-than-ideal product from a local producer from time to time in order to grow a relationship if I think there is potential for that producer to provide us with something truly remarkable down the road.  Taking this approach over a nine year period has resulted in an amazing small network of producers that allow us to make some of the best food anywhere in the region (if I do say so myself.)

Sometimes the approach we take at Legume comes at the cost of not being able to conform to widely-accepted standards of flavor, texture and presentation, but in the grand scheme of things, it works.  I don't mean this in an apology or an excuse for sloppiness.  It's just that for me, a great meal is a holistic experience that includes things like digestibility, nourishment, and connection to place and community, not one that mimics food trends from more cosmopolitan cities, which is what many people expect from fine dining restaurants these days.  I could care less about the later, thus, I find myself needing to explain Legume a lot.