PHOTO VIA DIANOIASEATERY.COM

While a surge in the omicron variant of COVID-19 has once again disrupted operations at a slew of local restaurants, a few Pittsburgh eateries are offering ways you can bring the dining experience home. 

These are some of the places that offer meal kits that can turn your kitchen into your favorite restaurant.

DiAnoia’s Eatery

DiAnoia’s Eatery, in the Strip District, is an Italian deli and cafe by day and full-service restaurant by night. It specializes in homemade pastas, pastries, breads, sandwiches and more, and has been a regular on our Best Restaurants list since 2018.

It offers a handful of different make-at-home meal kits, which can be picked up at the shop and include all the ingredients you’d need to cook some of DiAnoia’s most popular dishes yourself.

At $17, the cacio e pepe kit includes pecorino and parmesan cheese, black pepper and 8 ounces of DiAnoia’s fresh spaghetti. It comes in a gluten-free variety for $20. 

PHOTO VIA DIANOIASEATERY.COM

You can also make an “old-world style” pizza like the ones you’d get at one of Pizzeria Davide’s three locations, both owned and operated by the DiAnoia’s Eatery family, with the make-at-home pizza kit. 

With the guidance of a tutorial from Alex Blinn, kitchen manager, the kit includes two 12-ounce dough balls, a pint of sauce, 8 ounces of provolone cheese and parmesan cheese and oregano for garnishing. You can take home a cheese pizza kit for $20, or a pepperoni kit for $24. 

The restaurant also usually has a kit and virtual class through which at-home chefs can make their own mozzarella in partnership with Caputo Brothers Creamery. It’s sold out now, though, but check the website often to grab one when it’s back in stock.

Each of DiAnoia’s kits is one serving that typically feeds one person, according to its website.

For your DIY pizza needs north of the city, you can check out The Oven Pizza Company in Wexford. The family-owned restaurant’s take-and-bake pizza kits have been around since early in the pandemic and are still on the menu. The Oven offers “Take and Bake Tuesdays” as one of its specials, where you can grab two specialty pies with up to three toppings and a side of either four meatballs, 24 ounces of greens and beans, a dozen wings or one specialty mac and cheese. The special costs $42.

It also has two additional take-and-bake meal options on its menu to support a fundraiser for Blessed Francis Seelos Academy. The first meal option includes one take-and-bake pizza with two toppings, two take-and-bake breadsticks or “sweet sticks,” and one large salad, all for $37.

The second meal option includes two take-and-bake pizzas with two toppings per pie, two take-and-bake breadsticks or sweet sticks and a family-sized salad, for $55.

According to the menu, anyone who wants to purchase these meals for the fundraiser ought to schedule the order for Jan. 17 between 5 and 6 p.m.

PHOTO VIA BABYLOVESTACOSPGH.COM

Baby Loves Tacos

If you’re having a taco craving, look no further than Baby Loves Tacos. The location in Bloomfield, which also accepts donations to help “pay it forward” and provide hot meals to those in need, offers a wide variety of DIY taco kits available for pickup. Most kits cost $35 and feed three people.

The sweet potato kit includes ¾ quarts of sweet potatoes, ½ quart of brown rice, ½ quart of black beans, salsas, queso, shredded cheese, sour cream, cilantro, lime, 18 soft corn tortillas and a small bag of chips. 

The meats kit comes with ¼ quart of chicken, ¼ quart of chorizo, ¼ quart of ground beef, ½ quart of brown rice, ½ a quart of black beans, salsas, queso, shredded cheese, sour cream, cilantro, lime, 18 soft corn tortillas and a small bag of chips. 

You can also purchase kits for beef tacos, chicken tacos, buffalo cauliflower tacos, veggie tacos, mushroom tacos and more.

It isn’t exactly grill-and-cook-out weather right now, but you can still grab a DIY burger kit from Burgh’ers in Lawrenceville. The burger joint and craft brewery opened its doors for the first time in 2010, though the brewing component was added on in 2017 when head chef and owner Fiore Moletz invited his engineer-turned-brewer friend Neil Glausier to join him as his partner and the head brewer. 

All ingredients used in the restaurant are purchased from local farmers within a 200-mile radius, and it implements a no-paper-napkins policy to maintain its focus on local, ethical and sustainable food and drink. 

For $17, its at-home burger kit includes two raw beef balls — or balls of the vegetarian-friendly impossible meat for an additional $4 — American cheese and all the fixings: lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, Burgh’ers sauce and seasoning blend and Martin’s potato buns. It also comes with french fries and a four-pack, touted on the menu as an “adult happy meal.”

PHOTO VIA MORCILLAPITTSBURGH.COM

Morcilla

For a high-end dining experience in the comfort of your own home, Morcilla offers a selection of kits, too. The Lawrenceville restaurant offers Spanish cuisine by chef Nate Hobart, with a focus on traditional pintxos — or small snacks — craft cocktails, wines and vermouth from Spain and an extensive sherry selection.

For New Year’s Eve, the restaurant had duck confit kits for two for $100, which came with one leg of crispy duck confit per person, bitter green and citrus salad, artichoke and idiazabal gratin and flan for dessert. It also offered a conserva kit for two for $20, and a charcutería kit for two for $30. 

While these kits sold out fast and are no longer available, Morcilla will have new kits in stock this week, according to co-owner Hilary Prescott Severino.

In an email, she said Morcilla will offer a different kit each Saturday starting this weekend, with a pickup window from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. 

This week’s upcoming dish will feed two and cost $100. It will include a citrus and fennel salad with bitter greens, blood orange, Cara Cara orange, meyer lemon vinaigrette, fennel and goat rodeo chevre; a six-piece baby back pork ribs entree with harissa honey, labneh and za’atar; salt-roasted sweet potatoes with tahini verde, pomegranate molasses and peanut dukkah; and basque cheesecake for dessert, served with Morcilla’s cherry membrillo.

It is available for preorder through the Morcilla website.