Review: Balaban's in Chesterfield

Classics dishes are good, and remain good. That's why they're called classics. And while many restaurants change menus with speed that sometimes appears to make it happen between courses, there's something good about permanence, as exemplified in a recent trip to Balaban's for a look at 30 years of St. Louis dining history, evenings of what might be called "dinner as theater" and a couple of superlative meals.

The Guru was a few months from his debut as a restaurant writer when Balaban's opened in the spring of 1972. The site had been a restaurant; at one time it was called the Pleasant Peasant, and Sally Bixby Defty, later one of the Post-Dispatch's great reporters, writers and editors, had been an owner. But when Herbie Balaban, long a raconteur, boulevardier and man-about-town, opened his eponymous restaurant, it was much in the manner that Richard Mutrux opened the Gaslight Bar, which gave its name to the neighborhood -- a place for the owner's friends to stop for a drink on their way home from downtown offices.

Herb Balaban had a vision, and before his untimely death, he had seen much of it come true. His little French bistro was no longer little, and had brought a change in dining habits to all of St. Louis. He owned three of the four corners at Euclid and McPherson, and lived close to one of them. He had turned the Castlewood Lounge (known as Camp Castlewood to some of us who drank there) into a neighborhood hangout and added a grill, then sold it to Jack Brangle and Jon Dressel, who changed the name to Llywelyn's and were successful before later going their separate ways. He had a major winner and a big loser at Herbie's, at Euclid and Maryland, but the space has limped along for many years as a series of Chinese restaurants -- and which now, sources tell the Guru, is about to be remodeled and reopened as a restaurant, sushi bar and neighborhood bright spot.

Balaban's was one of five restaurants that opened in 1972 and changed the face of dining in St. Louis forever. With Duff's, Yen Ching, Anthony's and the Jefferson Avenue Boarding House also offering new styles in dining, new dishes, new spicing and real style, St. Louis moved into the 20th century.

Enough history. . . .

Balaban's, with its bare brick walls and French drinking and theatrical posters, its casually dressed waiters and its nascent wine list, was successful from the start. And the menu was led by chilled cucumber bisque, smoked trout, snails Bourguignonne, roast duckling and beef Wellington, all of which still are available today.

Through the years, it has had good times and not-so-good ones. There have been ups and downs, but in general, from Lady Charles through David Guempel and David Timney to Dan Joyce, who is the chef today, meals have generally been imaginative and flavorful. The Guru can recall periods when both those adverbs went missing, and service difficulties have caused some hard feelings. It's also a restaurant that has been touched by tragedy.

When Balaban retired, Steve McIntyre, Tom Flynn and Timney took over. Balaban died almost three years ago, followed within a nine-month period by Lady Charles and by Flynn, victim of a Mexico surfing accident; McIntyre returned to an active management role. So did Sean Gallagher, who had left some years ago to open his own restaurant near Edwardsville.

Everything is excellent at the moment, as a couple of recent dinners showed. The first -- and original -- dining room, with high ceilings and arched entrances, is slightly high in noise level, but it's happy noise. There's a pleasing buzz of conversation, often overlaid with the language of seduction, truly the American pastime.

When it comes to dining, the Guru prefers the dining room. Even when crowded, it seems less crowded than the front porch, and on a personal level, I don't care to provide the entertainment for strollers on Euclid Avenue.

Balaban began it, and the restaurant has achieved the perfect mix of the old and the new.

The restaurant is big on seasonal specials. Morel mushrooms are in season right now, served as part of a glorious pasta sauce, or in a salad with green and white asparagus and a rich, smooth, delightful Bearnaise sauce, or with a roast chicken. I'm sure the kitchen would prepare the succulent mushrooms any other way a customer would prefer, from something as simple as an omelet on up. It's also soft shell crab season, and those delicious crustaceans are available in several styles.

In years past, Balaban would call me in the early spring to report that the shad roe season had begun, and I'm sure he made similar calls to other customers. Game like rabbit, elk and pheasant are served in season; so are stone crabs, scallops and other special things. And dinner can be a mix-and-match endeavor. Morel pasta can be either an appetizer or an entree, and the same holds true for soft shell crabs. Another appetizer at one visit was a fat medallion of seared foie gras served over what the New York Times recently cooed over as the year's hot cut of meat, pork belly.

The daily menu has sufficient selection, with fresh oysters from both the north Atlantic and north Pacific states usually available, served with a light champagne-ginger dipping sauce that allows the full oyster flavor, laced with delicious brininess, to come through. New Orleans oysters have
many fans, but colder water creates better bivalves.

Smoked trout always has been a delight, and the snails, in traditional Burgundy style of lots of butter, lots of garlic and lots of parsley, are excellent. Shrimp dumplings are good, though occasionally the skins are tough, and the Japanese Bento Box is a surprise and a pleasure. While the structure housing a handful of different bites in the Japanese style used to be a box open at both sides, it has grown closer to an A-frame. On a recent visit it held a wondrous scallop, a small cup of delicately flavored miso soup, a small California roll and a dish of Asian slaw with peanuts and a tangy dressing, all designed to perk up the palate.

The cucumber bisque recipe comes from one of the first kitchen workers; it's creamy and with a perky flavor that comes from yogurt and/or sour cream, plus some chives. It's served with a lemon wedge and a little of the juice carries it to perfection. Salads are excellent, with a variety including Caesar, spinach, roasted pepper and hearts of palm, but dinner at Balaban's is such that two courses are the maximum as long as the desserts are so exciting.

Soft shell crabs were their usual delicious selves, cooked so that they were crisp on the outside, soft and juicy inside, with juices that squirted here and there with almost every bite.

Duck was mostly delicious, though overdone at the edges where the skin had been burned, and the classic beef Wellington remains a dish to conjure with -- beef wrapped in a ground mushroom paste, then cooked inside a puff pastry shell. It's almost impossible to get the meat truly rare, but satisfactorily close to medium-rare was good enough, with the mushrooms adding flavor and some moisture, and the puff pastry just there to revel in.

Then there was the pork belly, fresh from the commodities page and new to St. Louis menus as far as I know, but the hottest item on New York menus right now, prepared by Daniel Boulud, Danny Meyer and others on the so-called cutting edge. Joyce has an extra fillip with his, a slab of foie gras on top of the braised pork, alternating layers of fat and meat and crisped on top to add succulence. A touch of grainy mustard made it that much better. Very rich and fatty, but spectacular in flavor and a great special on the appetizer menu. Mrs. Guru, a pork groupie from way back, ordered it as an entree.

The wine list is not as lengthy as it once was, but there are plenty of offerings in a variety of price ranges. The by-the-glass offerings are satisfactory, but I'd like to see a few more choices. An excellent spring-summer wine is a light, brisk Chateau Houch French rose from Provence, proving once again that the gamay grape is an unsung hero.

The dessert menu is highlighted by the chocolate fritters which are a dream for the chocolate lover. Dark chocolate, covered in a light, nutty batter and then flash-fried, is a glorious ending to a meal, especially if there's some good red wine left over. The bread pudding is first-rate, and so are the brownies.

Lots of fine dining history in the Central West End, and 30 years of Balaban's to prove it.