Restaurant Review: "Spinach" in Shadyside

Spinach, located on Copeland St. in Shadyside (right across the street from the Starbucks) is not the kind of place you're going to just stumble upon one night while out and about on Walnut St. looking for a place to eat. Hell, we were looking for it and could barely find it. It's a small and unassuming restaurant tucked in the quasi-basement level (sort of a "false" first floor) of a building that houses a few other Shadyside-esque businesses like a Yoga studio, some kind of antique store, and the very not un-assuming Italian restaurant Girasole.

Spinach's "thing" is that it serves vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free cuisine, but it also has non-vegetarian dishes as well. I got the salmon salad, which was excellent, with a nice, tangy lemon-juice based dressing, shaved radishes (and some other vegetables), with a couple nice pieces of cured salmon on it.

According to the chef/owner, who spoke to us briefly, Spinach has been around in its current iteration for about three months and has been getting some pretty vicious email complaints from the true vegan faithful who apparently liked the restaurant's former format (all vegan/vegetarian) better. Oh well, you can't please all the people all the time.

My dining partner got the gluten-free penne with some kind of delicious tomato-based sauce with big chunks of sauteed tomatoes and basil. And we each had for dessert a unique concoction that was kind of like a French tartine (open-faced sandwich) except with berries and chocolate (in my case dulce de leche) on it.

What I liked about this place mostly was the feeling of "eating clean." Everything, even the dessert, seemed fresh and not overburdened with oil and salt like at most restaurants. It had that feeling of being whipped-up lovingly in someone's home kitchen, which it basically is because -- at this point at least -- the chef is also the owner and (it seemed) only waiter.

I hope this place stays in business. I think it suffers from being right next to the bustling and sometimes obnoxiously loud Girasole and from being in a location that's not super easy to find unless you're looking for it. So...look for it!