Review: The Bistro at Grand Center in St. Louis

Editor's note: The Bistro at Grand Center has closed.

The Guru has trailed Eddie Neill to a number of St. Louis locations for many years. We began in a corner of the basement of the Galleria, then watched and admired the flowering of his skills as a restaurateur and entrepreneur in Clayton, the Central West End, Kirkwood and St. Alban's. Now, he's in Grand Center, where he has joined the growing occupation force led by former Mayor Vince Schoemehl and the Rev. Lawrence Biondi, president of fast-growing St. Louis University.

Many have tried, but few have succeeded in creating a dining area in the neighborhood. Problems are varied. Crowds want to be fed within the same 30-minute period so as to be in their theater seats when the curtain goes up. There are no customers on evenings when the Fox, Powell Hall, the Sheldon and Grandel are dark. The entertainment factor at the Bistro itself creates an additional problem, that of dining too early or too late, and often in the dark. If Neill and his staff can make it work, their achievement will be almost as grand as the neighborhood.

A few early visits during Neill's reign displayed violent contrasts, and since the second and third visits were far superior to the first, we hope things have turned and more joyous visits are forthcoming. In the past (and the Guru has been dining there ever since the building left its cafeteria status to become, as it were, a post-Pope operation) there were good meals and not-so-good meals, but better is necessary to make the Bistro and the other dining sites qualify as pre-theater destinations.

We thought that progress was being made when Eric Brenner was in the kitchen at the Bistro, but he moved west to Chez Leon, once a partial-Neill operation, shortly before Neill joined the mix at Grand Center. It's often difficult to follow the winding trail left by a variety of operators and chefs at a single St. Louis restaurant without coming across Neill's presence, but he has provided many good meals -- at many locations -- for local diners.

A spot like the Bistro is perfect for the neighborhood, which is why we looked forward to its rebirth with high expectations. At the moment, only the Best Steak House and Gary's are in the immediate vicinity. The former is a good value, and dinner there is a form of entertainment on its own, but pre-theater dinner for the Guru doesn't include carrying his own tray. The latter is on the bleak side, especially when eating in the basement, and it's not yet what the theater district demands (of course, a theater district also demands theaters, but that's another story). All three are no more than a five-minute stroll from any of the entertainment sites. Vito's, around the corner on Olive Street, also is handy and has excellent pizza, but is a slightly longer walk.

And that's why the Guru was so sad - and more than a little angry - after the first visit to the Bistro, before a recent opening at the Fox. The menu hits all bases, with a few appetizers, soups and salads, entrees and desserts. There are some sandwich entrees, too, served with fries and providing a less formal alternative to dinner. The dishes include many St. Louis favorites, including braised lamb shanks, salmon, pot roast, beef Wellington, a chicken breast with sweet peppers and chorizo sausage and a ginger-and-rum glazed pork chop.

On the first night, the meal opened with some fresh corn cakes, served with a drizzle of sauce made from goat cheese and a fresh salsa. They were light enough, and not greasy, but lacking much flavor except what came with the peppers in the pale-colored salsa. Caesar salad made one understand a little of Brutus' thinking. The dressing lacked any of the characteristic anchovy flavor - there was some shredded cheese strewn across the top to provide some of what Parmigiano adds to the classic Caesar- but the dressing tasted stale and rather metallic. In addition, the lettuce was limp and more than half the pieces were brown.

Cuban pot roast was clearly based on the old Cuban classic, ropa vieja, or "old clothes," a rich, tasty stew. Brilliant work at the defunct Hot Locust, third-rate here at the first visit, excellent the second time, when the beef had been stewed with tomato, onion and some sweet pepper, as well as some passable red wine, seasoned with cumin and coriander, the meat tender, the sauce flavorful and the seasoning accomplished with care and a generous hand. That was more like it, though it still makes one worry a lot. But a Carolina pulled pork sandwich was merely cut-up strips of meat covered by a tomato-based sauce that definitely wasn't prepared by a Carolinian. The promised "tobacco onions" were missing, but the accompanying french fries had merely been dumped on the top of the sandwich instead. Ooops! A lackluster bread pudding that was cold in the middle and rather heavy completed the meal. The Guru trudged off to the theater with a sad and heavy heart.

On a pair of subsequent visits we were able to sample most of the rest of the menu and many dishes were better. Service was passable and eager, the wine list had good values at the lower end.

Steamed mussels with saffron and ginger were an adequate appetizer, the broth tastier than the slightly rubbery mussels, and so was fried calamari. Gumbo turned out to be rich and satisfying.

Among dinner entrees, chicken basquaise, a Basque-style chicken breast cooked in sherry, sweet peppers and chorizo sausage was delightful and a braised lamb shank with tomato and feta cheese, was highly satisfactory. Beef Wellington, a filet rolled in mushroom duxelles and wrapped in puff pastry, was splendid. A pork chop glazed with ginger and rum was fine and tender. We've spoken of the second appearance of the Cuban pot roast already; the pulled pork sandwich, too, had done some morphing into pullings, not cut-up pieces, the sauce was better, the french fries knew their place and the promised tobacco onions were there. Still, it's a knife-and-fork sandwich unless you're wearing red that night. On all occasions, the vegetables were far too undercooked (al dente vegetables are too '80s for most folks and not for the Guru generally) and the potatoes often stale-tasting, but these are fixable problems if the entree itself is in good shape.