Wes Johnson gets whimsically serious at Salt

Chef Wes Johnson has worked in kitchens in his native Springfield, Mo., in Seattle and in St. Louis. During his 18 years in the biz, he’s helped launch eight restaurants, most recently Eclipse in the East Loop’s Moonrise Hotel. Now he’s ready to venture out on his own. “I’ve looked at a lot of buildings over the last two years, and this is the only one that really just felt right,” said Johnson about the location he chose in the Central West End for restaurant, Salt, opening this month. We spoke with the easygoing Johnson about his plans for Salt, how food can be fun and why farm-to-table should be the standard in today’s restaurants.

You’ve wanted to open your own place for a long time; why is it so important to you to have your own restaurant? It’s about getting to shape it the way I want. You really can’t do that with someone else’s restaurant. They already have a business plan and you are just fitting to what that is. The other thing is, I’ve moved around a lot. St. Louis is home now. I want to put down roots here. Part of that is tying myself down to a restaurant that is mine.

In a word, what is “Wes cuisine”? Whimsy. It’s not about kitsch, it’s about doing something and having fun with it. You can still be serious and have fun. I realized over the years that I wanted to be this serious chef, but I’m not a serious person.

You’ve worked at The Scottish Arms, The Shaved Duck, Eclipse. Those are fun places, staffed with fun personalities. Should food always be fun? Food should always be fun. If you are not enjoying it and having a good time, then all you are doing is eating. There’s a huge difference between eating and dining. Dining, you should be enjoying yourself. Eating is just sustaining life.

Tell me about Salt. It’s about us really taking the time to break down our own meats, to source local product. Not just to buy local, but to be engaged in the farm community. I want to be involved in their business. My success is directly tied to their success. I don’t think farm-to-table should be a marketing tool as much as it should be a standard. The name Salt is about the simplicity that food can be and still be really good. You don’t have to overwork a dish. You can do simple, great food.

What kind of place do you envision Salt to be? An everyday dining place. We don’t want to be that special-occasions-only kind of place. Especially in this neighborhood, we want it to be more an extension of your kitchen. You don’t want to cook today? Come by here. That’s why we are trying to keep the price point as reasonable as we can.

Tell me about some highlights from the menu. Small plates: We have a fennel and pork sausage meatball with a blackberry jam, pork fat-fried almonds with rosemary, garlic and sea salt. Somewhat tapas-y, but salads and soups will fall under that small plates category too. On the entrées: butter-poached fillet with bone marrow, cornbread-stuffed saddle of rabbit with braised greens, a peppercorn-seared duck breast with shoestring sweet potato fries. And we’re going to have a cheese and charcuterie selection, and a small dessert selection.

You chose a very large space for Salt. You’ve got a main dining area, a bar, banquet space and theater upstairs, a wine room in the cellar, an outdoor patio. How will you fill all that space? The building is just over 10,000 square feet. It seems like a lot, but the building is well compartmentalized, so we can break it down into spaces that are far more manageable. There are pocket doors in each dining room, [so] we can shrink to size as we need.

How is the concept for Salt reinforced by the space? The décor projects whimsy to me. It says, “I’m really fun. I don’t take myself too seriously.” The food will be innovative, thoughtful, farm-to-table fare. But again, we want to have fun. I’ve been doing this 18 years now, and I don’t want to do anything that’s not fun.

For the second part of this interview, click here.