Habitat, the restaurant at Downtown's new Fairmont Pittsburgh hotel, is scheduled to open March 29 along with the 185-room luxury hotel. Executive chef Andrew Morrison has been busy for months overseeing every task from the essential (hiring and training staff) to the seemingly mundane (finding, purchasing, logging and storing every piece of equipment down to the knives and forks) all while the kitchen, dining room and the hotel itself get finishing touches.

As if all this weren't enough to keep anyone busy, Mr. Morrison also has been settling into a new home on the North Side, introducing his wife and young son to Pittsburgh and figuring out where to get groceries (he's already a big fan of the cheese at Penn Mac) and where to grab a beer -- a few weeks ago he and his wife went to Fatheads on the South Side.

No stranger to settling into a new city, Mr. Morrison was born in the far north of England, then at age 6 moved with his family to Cheshire, an "idyllic" English village near Manchester. He started working in restaurants at a young age, "one of these scenarios where the career chooses you," he explained.

His years as a chef have been the opposite of this picturesque childhood stability. Mr. Morrison moved to the United States and crisscrossed the country for jobs, working in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., New York, Seattle, Miami and Atlanta before the Fairmont opportunity brought him to Pittsburgh.

"I'm fed up with moving. I really am," he said. "I hope I'm here for a long while."

Unlike many chefs, Mr. Morrison cooks at home frequently, and whether at home or at work, he's inspired by the same thing: quality ingredients. One of his favorite tasks has been to find local farmers and other suppliers in Western Pennsylvania.

"I'm very passionate about food quality. If you start off with really high quality ingredients you don't have to do much to them," Mr. Morrison said. "That can be anything from beautiful radishes to a wonderful piece of fish."

People should expect to see all kinds of ingredients at Habitat, which will draw inspiration from across the globe. Mr. Morrison raved about the beautiful open kitchen packed with the latest technologies as well as an array of traditional cooking methods, such as a tandoor oven and a wok station.

Habitat will be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Guests who want to get a particularly good look at the kitchen (and Mr. Morrison) can ask to be seated at the restaurant's version of a chef's table. The large wooden table is positioned directly in front of the kitchen. While it seats 12 to 14, Mr. Morrison expects it will be at least partly used as a communal table, so smaller groups should feel free to request it as well.

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