It’s a warm Saturday night in mid-September, and Barbara McKenna is making the rounds at The Hyeholde Restaurant in Moon. The energetic 88-year-old floats from table to table, dishing about the latest goings-on with a few of her generations-younger former neighbors and reminding some long-standing regulars about her upscale restaurant’s forthcoming anniversary party.
In an era where celebrity chef culture dominates how we talk about restaurants, McKenna is a reminder of a bygone time when the owners working the front rooms were celebrated every bit as much — or even more — as the person running the kitchen.
“I haven’t cared much about marketing. I’ve always hated to sell the space. I don’t like advertising,” McKenna says. “But I love to work. I love to schmooze with people. I love to make the interior beautiful.”
She also knows how to run a restaurant: Hyeholde celebrates its 85th anniversary this month, and McKenna was there at the start.
“I can remember shelling peas in the kitchen when I was 5 years old,” she says.
As McKenna approaches this monumental marker, she’s also preparing for big change: She’s selling the restaurant she more or less grew up in.
For the unfamiliar: The Hyeholde is one of few remaining vestiges in Pittsburgh of an epoch of restaurants characterized by the rendezvous of fine dining and a romantic setting. However, the restaurant isn’t a throwback encased in a glass bubble (though many of the windows in the establishment are beautiful). Instead, with a menu that intertwines the centuries-long crossroads of Continental cuisine and rustic American, now intermingled with contemporary techniques and quality sourcing of ingredients, the Hyeholde is as relevant today as a dining destination as it has been throughout its long history.
“It’s a classic staple that hasn’t let itself get forgotten about. We’re not doing the same food we were 25 or 30 years ago. It’s not protein, starch, veg. It’s seasonal components that compliment each other very thoughtfully. We continue to challenge ourselves every day to get better,” says Hyeholde executive chef Chris O’Brien.
O’Brien’s end-of-summer menu included dishes such as venison gravlax with apricot purée, honey walnuts and frisée; elk strip loin with roasted cauliflower purée, currant demi-glace, pickled chanterelles and Swiss chard; and duck confit torchon with pistachios, quince jam and macerated cherries.
“I’ve watched restaurants come and go in this town,” McKenna says. “Some of them are trendy, and some of them are wonderful. But there’s always a need for fine dining.”
There are no indications the Hyeholde will make any significant shifts to what makes it work as destination fine dining as it moves into its wine and moonstone year. That’s because its soon-to-be owner is O’Brien.
“He knows what he’s getting into. He’s been there so long, and his work ethic is phenomenal,” McKenna says.
A 'castle in a cornfield'
McKenna’s parents, William and Clara Kryskill, purchased 6 acres in 1931. “This was well before the airport [which abuts the restaurant] was built. It was way out in the boonies back then. Everything was farmland around here,” McKenna says.
William, a hobbyist architect, and Clara spent years building their “castle in a cornfield.” The couple used wood and stone from a century-old barn 10 miles away, as well as materials found on the property, to construct their Tudor-inspired building on the highest point in the area. Part of the reason it took so long was that the Kryskills were gone for a good portion of the year; they spent summers running a teahouse in an artists’ colony in coastal Connecticut.
The couple opened a simple yet elegant country-style restaurant on the ground floor of their residence on Oct. 16, 1937. Profits from mining the Pittsburgh Coal Seam, which sat below the property, allowed the family to purchase additional land and for William Kryskill to construct a second building, The Round Room, in 1952. He was fascinated by the work of the naturalistic architects of the time, particularly in passive solar design, and found inspiration in “hemicycle” curved homes he saw in an architectural magazine.
Dinners at The Hyeholde started with sherry bisque, which is still on the menu today. A classic chopped salad then preceded the main course. For that, guests then had a choice of porterhouse steak, whole Maine lobster or half broiled chicken, served with a potato and vegetables.
“It was all very plainly cooked but very delicious,” McKenna says.
The Kryskills offered homemade cakes for dessert.
“And that was the Hyeholde for about 40 years,” McKenna says.
By the early 1970s, the Kryskills, now in their 70s, were ready to retire. They sold the main building to Pat and Carol Foy in 1974.
“It became much more cosmopolitan under Pat and Carol,” McKenna says.
The Foys had some experience running restaurants in Pittsburgh. They made the menu significantly more upscale and added lunch service.
The couple purchased The Round Room from the Kryskills in 1986 and connected the two buildings via an underground tunnel. In the process, they rebuilt part of The Round Room and turned it into a jazz club, The Hyeholde Cabaret. The Foys also bought two adjoining acres, where they planned to put a 41-room, elegant inn. But the proposed expansion, and the challenging location for a jazz club, led the Foys to financial difficulty.
In 1991, McKenna, who by that time had built a career as an interior designer, returned to her family home when she and her late husband, Quenten, purchased the Hyeholde from the Foys.
“Restaurants are the best learning experience you can put a person through. They’re full of life lessons,” she says.
McKenna closed the jazz club and converted The Round Room into a space for weddings, business meetings and other special events. Otherwise, she left things pretty much as they were until 1997, when a significant kitchen renovation introduced the concept of a chef’s table well before it was a hip thing to do at high-end restaurants. The proceeds from those dinners were used to fund trips for the chefs to fine-dining restaurants throughout the country.
“You could get a really good look at the organized chaos that goes on in the kitchen,” McKenna says. “And it helped our chefs see what was going on elsewhere.”
Also: 1997 was Chris O’Brien’s first year as Hyeholde’s executive chef. Much like McKenna, he’s been at the restaurant for most of his life.
A chef at home
O’Brien came to the restaurant in 1993. He was 20, working at The Pines Tavern in Gibsonia and unsure where to take his career.
“A friend told me, ‘If you really want to learn something, go [to the Hyeholde] and they will groom you to be a better chef,’” O’Brien says.
He found a mentor in then-executive chef Keith Luce, who taught O’Brien how to meld French culinary techniques with rustic American charm, a combination that has defined the restaurant over the past few decades. When Luce left to work as sous chef in the Clinton White House in 1994 (he later went on to build a stellar culinary career in the U.S. and Canada), O’Brien and a team of young guns that included future Pittsburgh culinary superstars such as Richard DeShantz and Derek Stevens moved the Hyeholde forward.
“Thinking back on that now, wow. That was a great crew. We were all so young at the time. The camaraderie between us and how we were all growing into ourselves at the same time was pretty incredible,” O’Brien says.
O’Brien showed promise, and even though he was still in his early 20s, McKenna decided to promote him to executive chef in 1997.
“I was a little unsure at the time that I could handle the responsibility. She assured me that, although there would be some growing pains, it would be worth it,” he says.
It was. O’Brien ran the Hyeholde’s kitchen for 12 years and delivered quality cuisine in what, overall, was a transitional time for Pittsburgh dining.
He left the restaurant in 2010 to open Restaurant Echo in Cranberry with Brian Hammond, another former Hyeholde chef (now executive chef/co-owner of Siempre Algo in Deutschtown). The duo worked together, with Hammond as executive chef and O’Brien as chef de cuisine, until the restaurant closed in 2015.
“We tried to take handmade food out to the suburbs, just like we did at the Hyeholde. It was a harder market out there [in the North Hills] with all of those big chains and quick-service food. We had a good run but couldn’t make the numbers work long-term,” O’Brien says.
He spent the next few years running the kitchens in restaurants such as Six Penn Kitchen, Poros and Scratch Food and Beverage and working as consulting chef for Richard DeShantz Restaurant Group. Meanwhile, Jim Brinkman, a longtime Hyeholde fixture who at points worked as pastry chef and dining room manager, was promoted to executive chef, serving from O’Brien’s departure on through 2015. Then the restaurant ran through a series of executive chefs until O’Brien returned a year and a half ago.
“I’d been dedicated to this place for all these years, and it felt like it’s opening up a door to your house for me at this point,” he says. “It feels right, cooking this style of food.”
Next act
The possibility of taking ownership of the Hyeholde when McKenna was ready to retire was a significant factor in O’Brien’s decision to return, too.
“This place affects people who work here. It’s one of those special places. You grow a connection to each other, but also just to the place. It makes you push and learn and get each other’s backs. You have that to some degree at a lot of restaurants, but I never had it as much as I do here,” he says.
Aside from a few cosmetic upgrades, he says he doesn’t plan on changing much about the restaurant. Like McKenna, he believes Pittsburgh still needs a fine-dining restaurant where people want to visit to celebrate special occasions, have business dinners or head over for a night of upscale cuisine in a romantic environment.
“I have a lot of respect for Barbara, for the people that work here, for the building and the property. That she trusts me with her legacy and her parents’ legacy really hits home with me. It’s a responsibility I don’t take lightly. I’m excited about writing the next chapter of this restaurant,” he says.
McKenna, who will retain ownership of the property following the sale of the restaurants (expected to take place early next year), feels like she’s leaving the restaurant her parents built and the legacy she carried on for the last 31 years in the right hands. And even though she’s going to retire (somewhat, at least), her career in restaurants was, she says, a well-lived life.
“It’s not just the food. It’s not just the front of the house. It’s being able to get out there and talk with people. It’s carrying on and growing the legacy of what my parents built,” she says.
Hyeholde: 1516 Coraopolis Heights Rd., Moon; 412-264-3116, hyeholde.com
The Hyeholde will celebrate its 85th anniversary with a 6-course dinner on Oct. 16. Dishes include sherry bisque (of course), roasted quail and prime beef with truffles, bordelaise sauce and broccolini. Reservations can be made online or by calling the restaurant.
Hal B. Klein: hklein@post-gazette.com, Twitter @halbklein and IG @halbklein.
First Published: October 4, 2022, 10:00 a.m.
Updated: October 4, 2022, 1:47 p.m.
