Restaurants in East Pensacola Heights

Beneath walls the color of warm ghee, the clarified butter used in Indian cuisine, street vendor–style wooden carts brim with thick curries. Taste of India’s waiters pour from the kitchen, arms stacked with plates of lamb with house-toasted spices, rice dishes, and chicken and prawns steeped in the sweltering heat of a tandoor. After scooping up the last chickpea with a piece of warm naan, guests relax on the outdoor patio, which is lined with red parasols. There, they click glasses of wine or imported Kingfisher and Taj Mahal beers in a toast to celebrate getting promoted or successfully assembling a team to prank-call a casino.

At Arlene Williams Bar-B-Que, smoke sinks into sausage and sauce seeps into slowly roasting cuts of pork, beef, and chicken. In the dining room, the spicy sauce drips from ribs, drawing nervous glances from the novelist writing the last line on their 432nd napkin. Steam and the sound of clattering pots drifts from the kitchen, conjuring images of the steamed okra, collard greens, and blackberry cobbler within.

One could say that the only thing husband and wife team Mark and Mary Beth Bentz love more than cooking is their hometown of Pittsburgh. When the duo opened their pizza shop in 2006, they decided to create a space dedicated to providing quality American eats to go or while catching the night’s Steelers game. The pair man the kitchen seven days a week, packing dough into a menu full of pizzas, calzones, and hoagies. To give clients a bit more of their Pennsylvania homeland, the pair also pour pints of local Iron City beer and sell cookbooks of classic Pittsburgh recipes divided by category and the Monongahela, Allegheny, and Ohio Rivers.