Best Chefs in Pittsburgh: Creating Flavorful Nostalgia at 40 North with Beth Zozula

By Olivia Miller

At City of Asylum on the North Shore, artistry is everywhere from the exiled artists’ art they promote to the books lining their shelves to the dishes at 40 North, the adjoining restaurant. As an artist herself, Chef Beth Zozula is the mastermind behind the creative fusion dishes at 40 North.

Chef Zozula was first introduced to the world of cooking by being in the kitchen with her mother and grandmother. As a teenager, she planned to follow her dream of going to art school but decided to hone her culinary skills working at the Mountainview Inn in Greensburg. She said she “kind of lucked out” and was able to work under chefs who were willing to teach and mentor her. From this point, she has worked in a variety of different venues including hotel kitchens, country clubs, and upscale restaurants all around Pittsburgh until 2020 when she decided to take a break from cooking. This break was cut abruptly short when City of Asylum founder reached out to her via social media asking her to cook at 40 North.

When crafting the menu for 40 North, she relied on memories and her past experiences to guide her. She says “food is like a memory trigger and kind of connects us to the stories of our lives” and wanted to create a menu of dishes that were both “kind of familiar and interesting.” She heavily drew on the Mediterranean foods she ate with her “hippie” parents growing up, the Turkish cuisine that bonded her and her husband together, and the Georgian techniques one of her chef mentors taught her.

One of the defining techniques of Chef Zozula’s career that she has brought to 40 North is full lamb butchering. She began doing this while working at Whitfield in the Ace Hotel in East Liberty and her butcher mastery is displayed in Rick Sebak’s WQED special Meat Pittsburgh. She makes sure no part of the lamb is wasted by serving the heart, liver and other cuts as entrees, serving lamb bacon, and making a soup out of the head and ankles.

Whether patrons are snacking on some of 40 North’s homemade bread or chowing down on a bowl of their sour yet bitter borscht, she wants them to simply “feel good.” Chef Zozula believes that “food is medicine” and focuses on combining foods in her dishes that make customers feel energized.

From country club to upscale restaurant and everywhere in between, her interest has been retained over the years by the performance elements of cheffing. She grew up performing as a ballerina and working with her father who was a professional clown. She says “something about restaurants and running restaurants is a lot like a performance.” She sets the stage by saying that they are both quite unpredictable, require a lot of practicing, and collaboration with others to create the perfect finished product. She says, “Then it's showtime.”