“Wash your hands and pull up a chair,” Mary Samuelson said with a laugh, “’cause supper’s on the table, and it’s time to eat.”

Samuelson, the owner of Mama Josephine’s, was quoting Josephine Spallino – her late mother and the namesake of the restaurant celebrating its grand opening today at 4000 Shaw Blvd.

Mama Josephine’s, which will serve lunch and early dinner, will specialize in home-style comfort food. Samuelson laughed again and added, “We’re not a health-food restaurant, trust me – if you don’t want heavy cream and butter, you don’t want to come here.”

Samuelson will share cooking duties with kitchen manager Maria Baker. “She is a wonderful, wonderful cook – she’s got many, many years’ experience in the industry,” Samuelson said. “And actually, there are a couple of the recipes that are hers rather than my mother’s.”

The two of them will plate home-cookin’ classics like fried chicken, meatloaf and pork steak, as well as lasagna. “I call it eight-layer lasagna,” Samuelson noted, “but if you count all the layers, it’s probably closer to 12.”

Mama Josephine’s will seat 30 diners inside and 24 outside, Samuelson said. She also related that a local seamstress expressed surprise at the delicate brocade bought for its curtains: “You’re gonna put this in a restaurant?”

“I would put this in my mama’s dining room,” Samuelson replied, “and that’s what this is.”

Who is the Cake Witch? And why does she fly around on her broom, swooping down to steal cake from children with a gleeful cackle?

No, no, that’s Cakewich, as in sandwich made of cake. The Cakewich is a sort of inside-out cupcake offered at the Central West End’s adorable Cupcakery. The treat consists of a ribbon of buttercream icing betwixt two rectangular slabs of cake.

It comes in the Confetti (French vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream), Tuxedo (dark chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream) and Gold Rush (golden yellow cake with chocolate buttercream) combinations, and through Saturday, March 20, you can try the limited-edition St. Patrick’s Day Mint Cakewich (dark chocolate cake with green mint buttercream).

The best thing about the Cakewich? Now you can eat a cupcake while driving, with no fear of getting icing up your nose.

– Byron Kerman

Look for changes to occur at Benton Park’s Niche Restaurant starting this Sunday.

“I walked into the dining room last week,” chef-owner Gerard Craft just told us, “and I was like, ‘God, really kinda getting fancy in here.’ I mean seriously, I don’t know if you’ve seen me, but I’m not the fanciest guy in the world.

“I think we were getting to a place doing seven-course tastings with gold leaf … and kinda white tablecloth-only, and I think I was just at a place that I just didn’t really enjoy it,” Craft continued. “When we opened Niche, it was all about serving good food that was approachable, like a guy like me with tattoos can come in and sit down and feel comfortable and still get a taste of something that you usually pay a lot of money for. So I think we’re just trying to bring it back to that vision.”

Inspiring the changes was Craft’s recent tour of hot, new bistros in France. Devotees of Niche’s cuisine can breath easy, though – Craft reassured us his menu will remain progressive. Moreover, starting Sunday, the restaurant will offer guests a three-course meal for $35, as well as probably instituting a five-course tasting menu.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “None of this is about cutting back on my food and not trying to keep people interested, ’cause that’s what I love to do. But it’s about making people feel comfortable while they’re experiencing it. … You might see us work a little bit harder to use off cuts of ingredients. You might see more in the way of a flat-iron steak than a ribeye or a filet or something of that nature.”

With a chuckle, he added, “We’re still keeping the bread service – that’s the only thing that I’m giving in on. … [But we’re] going back to, for now, brown paper on the tables – you may see wood tables pretty soon.”

Craft’s conclusion regarding the upcoming changes? “I feel a little more comfortable.”

Heard of fish fries, right? Well, tomorrow evening the First Unitarian Church of St. Louis is hosting the Unfish Fry.

The vegetarian dinner runs from 6 to 8 p.m. at the CWE house of worship, event chairwoman Sue Herzberg told us, and costs $6 for adults and $4 for children.

The meal includes a choice of two entrées and two side dishes. The entrées will be falafel with pita, a large order of hummus with pita, veggie chili and a large order of macaroni and cheese. The sides will include a small order of hummus with pita, dolmas, fried zucchini, applesauce, green beans and a small order of mac and cheese.

“The hummus is delicious because I made it myself last night,” Herzberg assured us. “The falafel will also be handmade, not the boxed stuff, and so will the chili. We’re trying to use as many fresh ingredients as possible.”

The Unfish Fry will also include a bake sale with assorted homemade desserts and live music starting at 7 p.m. Proceeds from the event will benefit the church’s Religious Education Committee.

The only thing I liked about going to work at 3 a.m. for my stupid summer job slinging packages at a warehouse in Kansas City was stopping at Dunkin’ Donuts for a large coffee, a French cruller and a blueberry cake doughnut. Maybe a glazed apple fritter, too – I was in high school, after all.

I’m not the only one who missed DD’s coffee and doughnuts when they exited St. Louis 10 years ago. So did Michael Geller, the man behind bringing the Dunkin’ Donuts franchise back to town starting tomorrow. According to the St. Louis Business Journal, Geller plans to launch a dozen new stores in the area, the first one opening Thursday at 1210 S. Kirkwood Road. Later this year, another store should open in Rock Hill.

Geller seems the right man for the job. The Washington University grad recently moved back to St. Louis from New York, but more importantly, he has the doughnut biz in his blood: His mother and aunt ran a Dunkin’ Donuts in New Jersey for more than 20 years.

I know I’ll be there for the opening, although maybe for just one doughnut (the high-school metabolism graduated years ago). But I’ll have to wait a bit: This Dunkin’ Donuts doesn’t open till 5 a.m.

– Michael Renner

Those hoping to sample the debut prix fixe vegetarian and raw menu at Scape should do so soon. “Right around the 21st, we’re going to change it out to our spring menu,” chef Eric Kelly told us.

The three-course menu debuted in late January at the CWE restaurant, and the response to it pleasantly surprised him. “It’s rolling – it’s selling like crazy,” he said. “The demand is much greater than what I first thought it would be. About seven or eight out of every hundred people [who visit Scape] order the vegetarian.

“It’s no longer once every three weeks that somebody says, ‘I’m vegetarian, can you prepare something vegetarian for me?’” Kelly continued. “And the awareness and demands have gotten beyond just vegetarian and beyond just vegan – it’s raw. Now [guests] want the nutritional value. And anything that has so much demand cannot be neglected. You can’t just grill some vegetables, put it on a plate and give it to a guest.”

The current menu comprises a watermelon salad; a tomato, rapini and legume salad; and a choice between a portabella mushroom pavé and vegetarian lasagna.

Intriguingly, the first course includes fresh horseradish. “I wanted something that would really cut through the sweetness of the watermelon with some heat,” Kelly said. At first, in fact, he’d experimented with a jalapeño salsa used in another dish there.

In the second course, Kelly stressed the seasonality of the legumes. “We also add the rapini because of the bitter pepperiness,” he said. “And when it’s raw, it’s great. I used to love it sautéed with olive oil and blanched roasted garlic, and I eat it raw now – I prefer it raw.”

Otherwise, between the two current entrées, demand for one has far exceeded demand for the other, Kelly noted: “The lasagna’s been probably five times more popular [than the portabella pavé]. And I think that it has to do with familiarity. When you talk about a portabella mushroom pavé, people are like, ‘Huh?’”

As a result, Kelly plans to retain the vegetarian lasagna on the forthcoming spring menu. He’ll add to it an appetizer of spring rolls (incorporating English hothouse cucumbers and including dipping sauces), a salad and a curried crêpe for the second entrée choice. On both the forthcoming menu and the existing one, Scape also offers the prix fixe items a la carte, Kelly emphasized.

Sarah Vickers will leave her post as director of operations at The Market at Busch’s Grove this Friday, she just told us. “I’m going to start at County Market in Quincy in the middle of April,” Vickers said.

She’s worked at the Ladue grocery since it opened. Why the change? “They offered me an opportunity to go over there and work on their deli operation,” noted Vickers. “They’re a slightly bigger chain, so I thought I would take the opportunity to move on.”

Vickers sketched a few details about her successor, Kelley Bryan: “She was an executive assistant for a long time, and she’s at L’École Culinaire right now. And she’s going to come over here and replace me and use both sets of those skills.

Vickers paused to reflect on her time at The Market at Busch’s Grove. “It’s certainly been very exciting,” she said. “We’ve got a lot accomplished over here. I think we’ve really set out to do what we aimed to: integrate the local and fresh aspects of the food that you can find at the farmers’ markets into a grocery-store environment.

“We’ve certainly had our challenges, but everything is still working out well, and I wish them all the best of luck in the future.”

Diners seeking a vegetarian option can enjoy a quality entrée at Pomme, whose menu confusingly lists it as Tonight’s Vegetarian Dinner.

A few days ago, we briefly buttonholed one of the servers at the Clayton restaurant about that listing. “It doesn’t include a salad – it’s all à la carte,” Mike, the server, told us. “Tonight it’s a house-made ravioli filled with spinach and tomato confit over tomato coulis with a fricassee of spring vegetables. Generally speaking, nightly or every two nights we will change that.”

He helpfully added, “But if you have any special requests or if you want to do a multicourse vegetarian menu and you give us a couple of days’ heads-up, we can definitely put that together for you as well.”

So – your best bet? Obviously, phone Pomme for details at 314.727.4141.

Craving vegetarian? Well, then – head to Sleek.

Consider that a tiny tease. Most folks would sooner associate Hubert Keller’s acclaimed steakhouse in Lumière Place with Kobe and Ridgeland Harvest premium beef than with vegetarian cuisine. Nonetheless, in addition to giant bone-in rib-eyes and other daunting cuts of meat, Sleek offers a four-course prix fixe vegetarian menu.

“The chef makes [the menu] every night, so it changes depending on what fresh produce we have in for that particular day,” general manager Rusty Oakes told us. “When you come in and order the vegetarian menu, the server will bring you out details of each course.”

The evening that Oakes spoke with us, for instance, the vegetarian menu included a beet salad and gnocchi with black truffles. “It’s three courses with dessert,” he said. “We fly all our stuff in and have it shipped in locally from here in Missouri, so it changes depending on what’s in season.”

Potential diners seeking details ahead of time, of course, will want to phone Sleek at 314.621.9590.

We’ve seen a lot of interesting cooking techniques, but nothing quite like Rick Milton’s unconventional use of an espresso machine steamer to cook eggs. Crack a couple of eggs into a stainless-steel steam pitcher, blast ’em with steam, and about 25 seconds later you’ve got light, fluffy barista eggs. No oil, no butter, just the pure goodness of fresh free-range eggs from Dry Dock Farm.

Milton launched his barista eggs menu today at his Northwest Coffee Roasting Co. location in Clayton. The lineup ranges from basic eggs – served plain or topped with cheese – to dishes like the Northwestern, Southwestern and Mediterranean, all of which include steamed veggies. There are also breakfast burrito and sandwich options. We’re keen on the sandwich that features eggs and cheddar on a lightly salted Companion bakery pretzel bun.

Worried that the froth in your grande cappuccino has got scrambled egg bits in it? Don’t be. Milton added an espresso machine just for creating the steamy fare. And if all goes as planned, you’ll soon see barista eggs on the menu at the Central West End location.

– Ligaya Figueras

Photo courtesy of Rick Milton