THE SWEET SPOT
French, Italian cuisines season Sewickley in summer
Raccoon Town. That hardly seems like a compliment, much less the kind of place where you’d want to eat out, but if the Sewickley Valley Historical Society has its history right, that is the translation for the community's name.
Just far enough outside the city to not quite be a typical suburb, Sewickley has always had the feel of an upwardly mobile Mayberry. In such stately places, the dining options are often borderline stodgy — good but conservative and not necessarily-adventurous.
But a pair of young gun chefs and a wily old ranger lead a small but deep dining scene that should be the envy of any bedroom community. Considering the restaurants' location, it appears they named Sewickley for the wrong mammal.
Bruneaux and Cocothe
As classic French cuisine surges nationwide, Sewickley is ahead of the curve, with dueling French spots just a short walk from each other on Beaver Street.
The restaurant industry is a notorious back-breaker, littered with as many broken dreams as Hollywood Boulevard. So chefs David DeVoss of Cocothe and Patrick Kaderka of Bruneaux are the kinds of guys it's easy to root for.
Mr. DeVoss started his culinary career as a kitchen grunt in his hometown of State College, working at Spats Speakeasy. He'd work his way to become the head man at that town-and-gown institution before moving to Pittsburgh, where he enhanced his knowledge at the LeMont and Hyeholde restaurants.
Owner Courtney Yates opened Cocothe in 2012 first as a high-end chocolate-and-tea boutique and gradually transitioned it into full-scale food service, and Mr. DeVoss was brought on board.
The full-service Cocothe opened in August 2015 and moved to a larger space next door a year later. The tasting menu has included foie gras with a pistachio butter, veal sweetbreads with braised red cabbage, cheese ravioli with a lingonberry sauce, beef short rib with roasted heirloom carrots, and a rutabaga and turnip mash.
“What we shoot for is for everything to be perfect, from the time you walk in the door until the time you leave. Every single thing on the plate — how it eats, how it looks, the portion — everything,” Mr. DeVoss said.
Over at Bruneaux, Mr. Kaderka was quite literally a grunt, serving in the Marine Corps for two tours in Iraq right out of high school. His battalion was among the first to cross into Iraq from the southern Kuwaiti border and saw combat in the Battle of Nasiriyah, a crucial early fight in the campaign.
The 34-year-old first-generation American with parents from Canada and the Czech Republic found cooking as a second career after the military. He trained at the Pennsylvania Culinary Institute and worked in Asheville, N.C. at the prestigious Biltmore Estate and then for acclaimed chef Katie Button at Curate.
A culinary school instructor connected him with legendary Pittsburgh