My wife and I recently had our wedding, so we decided to go to Cure to celebrate.\n\nWe got there early due to a surprising lack of traffic, so we were told to go to the next door bar. After spending 30 minutes there, it was time for our reservation. After stopping back in, they were still not ready for us. About 20 minutes after our scheduled reservation, we were sat.\n\nThey had a robust drink menu. I really liked that they served East End, so I took the opportunity to get a Black Strap since I live pretty far south of Pittsburgh and it's hard to find down there.\n\nTo start, we shared the large salumi plate. It came with 2-3 pieces of each thing listed on the menu. The clear standouts on this platter were the duck speck, toscano, smoked pork rillett, and rabbit terrine. The other pieces, while enjoyable, were what I would consider on par with those you could purchase for your home. The pickled vegetables and mustards added a more dynamic take to the meal as well. The vinegar in the pickled carrot really helped break apart some of the oily remnants between pieces.\n\nFor my entr\u00e9e, I ordered the duck. This came as no surprise to my wife, as I order the duck anywhere it is served. Once it was served, we talked about the nice presentation of the dishes. Aside from the breast and confit, there was a fried drumstick, a half dozen braised dandelion leaves, and a dozen halved pickled cherries. The presentation was fantastic.\n\nI tried one of the dandelion leaves and two of the cherries when the waitress came back to ask if everything was good. Not having much to go on, we said yes and continued with our meal. This is where everything started to go downhill.\n\nI tried the confit next. The taste, while fine, could not compete with the texture. It was soggy with an extreme amount of grit. At first I could not place it. It grinded on my teeth. It was coarse and unforgiving. It then hit me all at once; wet sand. My stomach started to turn after the first bite. I tied two small more bits, though each one was as bad as the first. I could not finish it and gave it to my wife to try. She agreed there was a lot of grit, but she is not a very textural eater, so she was able to finish it.\n\nI decided to move on to the breast next. Looking at it, it appeared to be underdone. It was difficult to cut, and chewing had the same issue. It would be the equivalent of blue rare for duck. This, coupled with fact it also shared some of the gritty texture of the confit, turned me once more. After scraping the surface of the breast, I was able to remove the gritty texture. This unfortunately removed a majority of the flavor as well. This made finishing the rest of the breast a bit of a chore as it was now a mildly flavored chew.\n\nThe drumstick was last. This had the opposite problem of the breast. It was overdone and a bit dry. It thankfully did not have the grit issue the other two duck dishes had, so it came as a welcome change of pace. So, in contrast to the other two dishes I found it good, but standing alone I can tell it would have been subpar.\n\nDuring this entire time, my stomach continued to churn from the first bite of the confit. I excused myself and let things take their natural course. I wasn't feeling well enough, nor did I want to risk, desert, so we dropped cash and left.\n\nWith an underwhelming appetizer and an entr\u00e9e that left me feeling less than well for the rest of the night due to some unknown grit and being poorly cooked, I have to say that I most likely won't be returning nor can I recommend it to others.