PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA

When Andrew McCutchen returned to the Pittsburgh Pirates before the 2023 season, it felt less like a baseball transaction and more like a homecoming.

While the former National League MVP hails from Fort Meade, Florida, he made Pittsburgh his home over eight seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates — literally, as McCutchen kept his house in the North Hills even after he was traded to the San Francisco Giants.

McCutchen spent time with the Giants, Yankees, Phillies and Brewers during five years away from Pittsburgh — but, as he told writer Cristina Rouvalis when Pittsburgh Magazine named him the 2023 Pittsburgher of the Year, Pittsburgh is “where my heart is.”

Now in his 12th overall season in black and gold, we wanted to know: What is Andrew McCutchen’s Best of the ’Burgh?

What’s your Pittsburgh “hidden gem,” a place that you love that doesn’t get the attention it deserves?

Napa Prime Chophouse

If you could only eat one local meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Hotcakes from Pamela’s. “I can crush those — then I have to deal with the after effects.”

If Pittsburgh had a theme song, what would it be?

Wiz Khalifa, “Black and Yellow”

What’s the annual tradition that you wait for every year?

Taking his four children to the “Merry Lights” drive-thru holiday light show. “[Light-Up Night] has become way too packed, now. We went to try to do it two years ago; we were right there in Market Square … I had Steel right here, I had Armani on my shoulder; I couldn’t turn around … I was like, ‘We’re never doing this again.’”

Favorite Pittsburgh appearance in a movie or on television?

“The Dark Knight Rises.” “I was living Downtown when they were filming … I got to see the little BMW trucks with the cameras on them following the Batmobile through the streets.”

What’s your unpopular Pittsburgh opinion? What is something you think about the city (or a famous aspect of it) that won’t win you any friends?

“Pierogies are not good.”

Where’s the first place you take out-of-town guests?

PNC Park — and driving into Downtown through the Fort Pitt Tunnel

You get one incline ride with any Pittsburgher, living or dead. Who is it?

Roberto Clemente

If you could bring back one Pittsburgh place or restaurant that’s no longer there, which would you pick?

The Wexford location of Nakama