Visitors to the Moonrise Hotel in The Loop will soon be able to choose between two dining destinations perched eight stories above Eclipse Restaurant at 6177 Delmar Blvd.

Situated on the east wing of the hotel, the new addition, called the New Moon Room, will house 2,100 square feet of lounge space that will open to the public on Wednesday, May 8. The space will also be available for private parties of up to 175 guests.

According to hotel owner Joe Edwards, the menu, which will focus on small plates created by executive chef Isaac Hardwict, is in the final stages of development. It will be distinct from the menu Hardwict offers downstairs at Eclipse. Edwards also noted that rooftop patrons will be able to move freely between the New Moon Room and the hotel’s other sky-high space, the Rooftop Terrace Bar.

The New Moon Room is more than just a rooftop hangout, however. It is the first restaurant roof in the U.S. made entirely of solar panels, according to a press release issued by St. Louis-based Microgrid Solar, the company that installed the panel canopy roof. “Unlike traditional solar modules, the glass panels that form the roof are frameless, translucent modules that take the place of a traditional roof, and which allow sunlight – and moonlight – to peek through,” said Microgrid Solar founder and CEO Rick Hunter.

The New Moon Room is water-tight and will be heated and cooled so that it can be enjoyed year-round. The new 25.6-kilowatt solar array is expected to produce approximately 33,000 kWh of electricity annually, enough to power the entire rooftop dining area and bar. This is the second solar application atop the Moonrise Hotel, as a 4kW solar awning was installed on the hotel’s original rooftop bar in 2011.

The array of food options in The Loop continues to grow. And the latest addition is an especially welcome treat for lovers of all things sweet. Today marks the official opening of Piccione Pastry, an Italian pastry shop located at 6197 Delmar Blvd., at the intersection of Delmar and Skinker Boulevards. As The Scoop reported last October, Piccione is a venture by Butler’s Pantry president Richard Nix Jr. and his wife Elizabeth.

The selection of single-serve Italian desserts at Piccione is impressive. Signature items include Italian-style donuts called bomboloni served with a dipping sauce of lemon curd, raspberry curd or chocolate sauce (pictured), as well as cannoli. The latter is available with a choice of nine different filling flavors, a gluten-free option and even an un-filled version called “chips and dips.” Piccione’s counter is filled with pastries and cakes like ricotta cheesecake, cream puffs, cassata cake and tiramisu, along with cookies of all shapes and sizes. Customers at the 40-seat eatery can enjoy the baked goodness with coffee drinks featuring Lavazza Italian coffee or an Italian soda.

Piccione is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday, and until 11 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. Extended weekend hours are expected soon.

 — photos by Michelle Volansky

Mssion Taco Joint has announced its official opening date: tomorrow, February 28. Hours for the restaurant, located at 6235 Delmar Blvd., in The Loop, will be Tuesday through Sunday from 4 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. If  you missed our sneak peek from yesterday, head on over to our Facebook page.

Mssion Taco Joint is expected to open to the public any day now. While brothers and co-owners Adam and Jason Tilford shared details about the menu a few weeks ago, we’ve been itching to see some of those words on paper become edible. Yesterday, the Tilford brothers (who also own Barrister’s, Tortillaria Mexican Kitchen and Milagro Modern Mexican) gave Sauce a taste of what customers will encounter when they order fare from St. Louis’ newest taco joint. The restaurant, located at 6235 Delmar Blvd., in The Loop, has not announced its opening date. Watch for that news to be posted in The Scoop in the next week or so. When doors do open, hours will be Tuesday through Sunday from 4 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. For a sneak peek of what you’ll find at Mission Taco Joint, head on over to our Facebook page.

— Photo by Michelle Volansky

Last summer, restaurateurs Adam and Jason Tilford announced their plans to open Mission Taco Joint. Renovations are moving along inside the former home of Delmar Lounge at 6235 Delmar Blvd., and the Tilford brothers are aiming to unlock doors during the last week of February.

With opening day just weeks away, Jason gave The Scoop a peek at a draft version of the food menu he developed. The tightly focused menu begins with a handful of shared appetizers. Highlights include crab taquitos as well as roasted mushrooms with huitlachoche, goat cheese and arugula presented in a fried corn masa base called a huarache. A la carte tacos include popular choices such as baja fish and carne asada, but Mission gets creative with quite a few others, such as the chile-roasted duck with crisp pork belly and avocado serrano sauce. The menu also beckons for vegetarians with options like a roasted cactus taco or one featuring the local product Mofu tofu. The restaurant will feature giant Mission-style burritos wrapped in house-made tortillas, plus tortas served on telera rolls from Diana’s Bakery. Diners looking for a square meal can round things out with side dishes like fire-grilled vegetable quinoa and chayote calabacitas.

Joel Clark, who recently departed from Sanctuaria, will be helming the beverage program. Clark stated that the bar at Mission Taco Joint will be “a very culinary bar,” explaining that “as many fresh ingredients the kitchen is going to get, I’m going to get the same.” The focus on fresh will be seen in the likes of numerous flavors of agua fresca and horchata, available in virgin form or as alcoholic beverages. In addition, he plans on aligning beverages – not just cocktails, but also beer and wine – with the food. “I’m going to work really closely with the kitchen,” he commented. Clark, who’s been part of a local movement in progressive bartending, plans to continue in that direction, preparing house-made ingredients like syrups and shrubs (No flavored vodkas, sorry.) and noted that the Mission bartending crew will be quite capable of crafting classic cocktails. “I want [the bar] to be an extension of [the kitchen] as well as a bar on its own,” Clark said.

The Good Pie is moving. The Neopolitan pizzeria will be relocating to 6665 Delmar Blvd., in The Loop, said owner Mike Randolph, who called The Scoop today to inform us that he had just signed the lease on the property in U. City.

The Good Pie’s future home, which is currently occupied by Ginger Bistro, will be partitioned, with The Good Pie taking the 2,000 square foot on the western side of the building’s first floor. Randolph noted that the additional 600 square feet of space compared to The Good Pie’s current location at 3137 Olive St., in Midtown, will not only mean a larger kitchen for his pizza crew (who will get to enjoy a new oven handcrafted in Naples) but also an extended bar for patrons.

Randolph explained that he decided to move the popular pizzeria to The Loop because of the “younger demographic” that frequent The Loop, including students from nearby Washington University, and that the move also places the restaurant closer to West County and the central corridor. Of course, it’s also closer to Half & Half and Little Country Gentleman, Randolph’s double-restaurant concept at 8135 Maryland Ave., in Clayton.

Randolph hopes to have doors open at The Good Pie’s new location by early summer.

— Photo by Carmen Troesser

In late September, Bernie Lee, owner of Japanese izakaya and sushi restaurant Hiro, disclosed his plans to relocate Hiro downtown because the building at 609 Eastgate Ave., in The Loop, was slated to be demolished. At the time, Lee only said that Hiro would make its new home on Washington Avenue but declined to provide the exact address.

Today, he told The Scoop that his re-concepted Hiro Asian Kitchen will be located at 1405 Washington Ave., in the space previously occupied by the short-lived Smash Bar. He anticipates a January opening. Further details about his design plans for the space, as well as the lunch, dinner and late-night menus, are expected in the coming weeks.

Richard L. Nix Jr., president of the St. Louis-based catering company Butler’s Pantry Catering & Events, and his wife, Elizabeth, are opening an Italian pastry shop in The Loop. The shop, Piccione Pastry, will be located on the northeast corner of the intersection of Delmar and Skinker Boulevards.

Piccione (pronounced “pi-chō-nee”) will offer single-serve Italian pastries as well as Italian coffees and sodas. Among the Piccione signature items future sweet-toothed patrons can expect are eight varieties of cannoli, bombolini made to order, numerous types of Italian cookies, tiramisu, ricotta cheesecake, cassata cake (a liqueur- or juice-soaked sponge cake layered with ricotta, candied fruit and/or chocolate and topped with marzipan and whipped cream), and other specialty cakes.

At the culinary helm of Piccione will be Martin Lopez, who has worked as executive pastry chef at Butler’s Pantry for the past six months. Lopez, a career chef, is a 1987 graduate of the New England Culinary Institute and former owner of Chantilly Cake Co., which he opened in Alton, Ill., in the mid-1990s. Lopez explained that while his pastries will be recognizably Italian in form, he plans to put his own spin on things. (After all, he’s the son of an Italian mother who fused her native cuisine with Mexican flavors when she married her Mexican husband and moved to Mexico City, where Lopez was born.)

Richard Nix explained that his pastry project has been in the works for the last two years. The Italian word Piccione, meaning “pigeon,” is also the last name of his Italian grandmother, Grace Piccione, who once operated the now-defunct Varsity Theatre in The Loop. “We kind of have a family history on Delmar,” Richard Nix said. He’s optimistic that Piccione’s location at the busy corner of Delmar and Skinker Boulevards will attract customers. “It’s like being at the corner of Main [Street] and Main [Street],” he explained. Since the shop will stay open until 11 p.m. – and later on weekends – he also hopes to draw some of The Loop’s nightlife crowd, even without a liquor license.

Activity inside the empty space at 6197 Delmar Blvd., which was most recently occupied by a barbershop, will begin in December. The target opening date for the 40-seat shop is March 1, 2013, upon the addition of a kitchen and interior design, the latter tasked to Elizabeth Nix and designer Mark Herman of Mark, Inc. (Herman also worked on Butler’s Pantry venues including Palladium Saint Louis near Lafayette Square and Bixby’s inside the Missouri History Museum.) “It won’t look like a traditional pastry shop,” Richard Nix said. “You have to keep it in the neighborhood; the neighborhood is so edgy.”

— Photo courtesy of Richard L. Nix Jr.

Back in May, The Scoop reported that the space at 6227 Delmar Blvd., next door to the now defunct Delmar Restaurant & Lounge in The Loop, appeared to be getting a new restaurant tenant. Well we have since tracked down the owner of the eatery, Wally Othman, to learn more about his plans.

The 25-seat, counter-service style restaurant, to be called Chubbies, will offer burgers, wings, gyros and frozen custard. Othman noted that, while the price point is comparable to that of a fast-food restaurant, his burgers are made fresh; no frozen patties here. Chubbies will offer soft drinks and other nonalcoholic beverages, but Othman also expects to have beer and wine available; a liquor license hearing is scheduled for later this month. If all goes as planned, Chubbies will open within the month.

It appears that the space at 6227 Delmar Blvd., next door to Delmar Restaurant & Lounge in The Loop, is getting a new tenant. The space, which most recently housed the shuttered Layal Café and Hookah Bar, now has lettering on the awning above the entrance that reads: “Burgers, wings, frozen custard.” The interior is undergoing construction, and it appears that a wall will divide the former cafe space into two separate storefronts, with the new restaurant tenant taking the spot to the west. More as we learn it.