Willow is a perfect summer destination. New chef Andrew Lise has renewed the Ohio Township restaurant's commitment to local ingredients and seasonal cooking, and he's making the most of the current bounty.

Summer also is the season when the restaurant looks the most beautiful, its setting most in keeping with its name. The sprawling, wooden structure is framed by a lush forest with brilliant, glowing green leaves. Eating and drinking takes place in multiple rooms on several levels, each with slightly different decor and ambience. Curved iron candelabra and light fixtures evoke tree branches. A large patio decked out with bright floral arrangements and a covered, second-story porch allow for outdoor dining in almost any weather. Inside, shades of green, brown and black give the restaurant the quiet elegance of a woodland escape.

Willow is justifiably popular with the locals, many of whom treat it like a neighborhood clubhouse (since when do so many people wear shorts to an upscale restaurant?). At the same time, the restaurant sends quiet signals of its serious intentions. While some restaurants design nightly specials to use up extras, at Willow they are inspired by whatever's freshest, most seasonal and most exciting to Lise (pronounced lease).

---

Willow

Food:

2 1/2 stars = Very good+
Ratings explained

Service:

2 1/2 stars = Very good+
Ratings explained

Atmosphere:

3 stars = Excellent
Ratings explained

Overall:

2 1/2 stars = Very good+
Ratings explained

634 Camp Horne Road, Ohio Township
412-847-1007
www.willowpgh.com

• Hours: Lunch, Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.; dinner, Monday-Thursday, 4-10 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 4-11 p.m.; Sunday, 4-9 p.m.
• Basics: New American cuisine, casual fine dining atmosphere, attentive service; growing emphasis on local ingredients and seasonal cooking.
• Recommended dishes: Brazilian calamari, chilled summer salad, zucchini veloute, cod with couscous, tomato broth and calamari; Park Avenue strip, spicy shrimp, key lime parfait.
• Prices: Appetizers, soups and salads, $5-$15; entrees, $15-$34; desserts, $5.50-$7.
• Wine: 22 wines by the glass, $7-$14; about two dozen white wines and four dozen red wines by the bottle, about 15 options for $40 or less; organized loosely by varietal with separate categories for "intriguing whites" and "venturesome reds"; listings include vintages and detailed tasting notes. Small selection of half-bottles. Most bottles cost 250 to 300 percent of retail, with some better deals at the higher end.
• Summary: First-floor dining rooms and patio wheelchair accessible; credit cards accepted; reservations suggested for weekends; corkage, $15.
• Noise level: Low.

---

A zucchini veloute made splendid use of an overabundant vegetable ($5), enhancing the flavor ever so slightly with onions and herbs. Every so often I'd get a lovely, bright bit of tomato with a hint of red wine vinegar sourness -- a clever garnish for a surprising summer soup.

Pan-seared cod emphasized a Mediterranean richness of flavor. Intensely sweet roasted roma tomatoes, briny caperberries and tender calamari ensured that every bite was interesting. A shallow pool of tomato broth kept the fish moist and hinted at a play on fish soup or stew.

The chilled summer salad ($7) is an exceptional option on the regular summer menu, a vibrantly colored heap of tomato and watermelon chunks and crumbled good-quality feta cheese in a lightly sweet sherry vinaigrette. The element that took this dish from trendy to special was the abundance of herbs -- intensely aromatic mint, parsley and basil.

A number of dishes that seemed ordinary on the menu still managed to impress. Brazilian Calamari ($9) was crispy and light without a hint of grease -- and the serving was reasonable. The house-made aioli that accompanied it was worth eating with a spoon -- about equally as caloric as dipping bread in olive oil and 10 times more delicious.

Spicy shrimp pasta ($18) immediately stood out with a sauce that was genuinely spicy -- a rarity no matter how the menu is marked. It was well-balanced, with plenty of that umami tomato flavor smoothed out by the richness of a generous measure of cream. The sauce and sweet, firm tiger shrimp were the focus of this American-style pasta dish -- American in that the strands of linguini were cooked slightly past al dente and were more generously sauced than in an Italian-style pasta dish.

Although Willow has too many other options to be considered a steakhouse, it could substitute nicely. The Park Avenue New York strip steak ($29) is an eye-catching dish, crowned with two magnificent onion rings in a beer batter so beautifully crispy and salty it's reminiscent of potato chips. The steak was grilled to a perfect medium-rare, rested, yet kept hot. It was served with silky-smooth buttermilk potatoes whipped to an airy lightness and a pomegranate-shallot steak sauce that was sweet without being too sugary or fruit-flavored.

The three steak entrees on the menu probably explain the use of steak in the Thai beef lettuce wraps ($9). The flavors of this dish were spot on, especially the addictive pickles, but the steak was too chewy for this preparation.

The ginger-sesame pork tenderloin ($19), which is one of the restaurant's signature dishes, could use a little reworking. The coconut-scallion rice is mouth-watering, but its sweetness couldn't conceal the fact that the lemon-soy butter was too salty.

The menu could also benefit from the addition (and more careful treatment) of some vegetables, even just as optional side dishes. The general's duck ($22), a refined version of General Tso's chicken, was one of too few options (besides the salads) that made substantial use of green vegetables. While it showcased excellent meat-cooking technique, the steamed broccoli was soggy and the shiitake mushrooms weren't fully incorporated into the dish.

The cocktail list, however, was a pleasant sight on the main menu -- a sign that the restaurant takes cocktails seriously. The use of fresh juices is a great start, and the elderflower champagne cocktail with St. Germaine and pineapple juice is a lovely, balanced aperitif ($10), but if management wants to avoid a dated list they'll cut some of the flavored martinis and add more classic cocktails.

Careful, professional service is one aspect of the meal that will never go out of style. Although servers could still use a little more culinary training (they occasionally mispronounced specialized terms and had trouble answering some questions), basic tasks were executed almost seamlessly and servers even adapted to unspoken requests -- for example, after noticing that the table was sharing many dishes, a server added a steak knife to every place setting, saving us from having to pass it back and forth.

While Willow is large enough to invest in a separate pastry chef, Lise is doing a very credible job. A chocolate volcano cake tasted a little raw in the middle, but this is more a flaw of an over-tired concept than Willow's kitchen. An unexpectedly gargantuan slice of carrot cake was a little overwhelmed by thick, sweet cream cheese frosting ($6.50). The strawberry shortcake was much more tempting, lush berries soaking a sweet scone-like biscuit in their juices topped with real whipped cream ($7).

A special one evening was another product of Lise's love of seasonal produce, peach granita topped with a bit of chambord-flavored whipped cream. The granita was fluffy and light with an intense peach flavor. A sweet taste of southwestern Pennsylvania to end a modern, American meal.

2 1/2 stars = Very good+
Ratings explained

3 stars = Excellent
Ratings explained