Butternut Squash Soup With Black Trumpets
8 Servings
The Ritz’s new menu goes locavore
The Ritz-Carlton has always been a superior spot for celeb sightings, but these days our eyes are on the food at the luxe Clayton hotel. Executive chef Michael Mandato and the most recent addition to his team, executive sous chef Jaco Smith, have rolled out a new menu at The Grill that features simple, fresh…
Ruth’s Chris brings the sizzle to seafood for the Lenten season
Ruth’s Chris Steak House may have built a reputation for making one heck of a sizzlin’ U.S. Prime corn-fed steak, but that doesn’t mean that RCs in the St. Louis area don’t go in for fish on Fridays. The lineup for the steakhouse’s Friday Fish Feature menu – blue crab cakes, salmon fillets, ahi tuna,…
Cheese!
Eighty-five pounds. That’s the weight of the 24-month-old wheels of Parmigiano-Reggiano that cheese specialists at area Whole Foods Markets will crack in public demonstrations this Saturday at 2 p.m. That’s a lot of formaggio. “I’m not in front of one right now,” said Marcia Whelan, marketing team leader with the Town & Country store, “but…
Hoppy daze
Fans of India pale ale should head to the International Tap House next Wednesday, March 3. Starting at 7 p.m. that day, the Chesterfield beer mecca will showcase a whopping 10 single-hopped American IPAs from Danish brewer Mikkeller. Five 5-ounce draft samples will cost $15, which will include background on each beer, a tasting sheet…
A surfeit of sauces – at Home Depot!
Customers exiting the Home Depot locations in Sunset Hills, Brentwood and Chesterfield Valley do a double take when they see the Dirty Dogz hot-dog stand condiment table. That’s because owner Jason Gaines keeps more than 200 condiments for customers to put on the dogs, brats, hot links, Kielbasa, Polish and smoked sausages, and turkey dogs.…
Fatted Calf reopens
Quick! Name the St. Louis restaurant where the cheese is put on your burger with an ice-cream scoop? That would be the Fatted Calf, a Clayton institution since 1966. The home of charbroiled cheeseburgers adorned with scoops of “soft cheddar” broke a few hearts about four months ago when it closed due to a grease…
Flippin’ for flapjacks
Hello, pancake. I know – it’s been a while. Did you miss me? Can we be friends again, maybe? Is there some way I can make it up to you? Maybe I can bite holes in you for my eyes, nose and mouth to make the famous “pancake face.” That’s always fun. Or I could…
Crickets and mealworms, yum!
Is the idea of eating a fried cricket really so odd? I mean, have you looked at a boiled crawfish before it gets chopped up into an étouffée? The line between what’s acceptable to eat and what’s not can be pretty fuzzy. The adventurers at Chesterfield’s Butterfly House are poking their antennae just over the…
Sweetie Pie’s to renovate abandoned building
Thanks to $425,227 in Brownfield Redevelopment Incentives, soul-food restaurateur Robbie Montgomery, of Sweetie Pie’s fame, will clean up an abandoned building at 3643 Delmar Blvd. and open Sweetie Pie’s Upper Crust, her third establishment. The building, currently contaminated with asbestos and lead paint, will be renovated to house a restaurant, bakery, and meeting and banquet…
Two local chefs make Beard Awards semifinals
A Saucy congrats to Gerard Craft of Niche, Taste by Niche and Brasserie by Niche and Josh Galliano of Monarch Restaurant, who have been named as semifinalists for the 2010 James Beard Awards in the Best Chef Midwest category. Semifinalists were selected from a thousands of online entries; final nominees will be announced on March…
Pi hits the Times
A Saucy shout-out to the CWE Pi for being mentioned today in Diner’s Journal, The New York Times’ dining-out blog. The entry focuses on a new high-tech single-cup coffee machine manufactured by Bunn. “I should note that this isn’t the first Trifecta to appear in public,” stated blogger Oliver Strand. “Last week, one was installed…
Downtown café offers free java
Need help fighting the February cold? Then visit the Roberts Cyber Café downtown in the Roberts Mayfair Hotel next Tuesday through Friday for complimentary coffee. “All next week, just to get things rolling and to teach our staff what they’re doing, we’re gonna be offering free, complimentary coffee,” marketing coordinator Jenn Carter told us. The…
Kota heats up Grand Center
Although our Rum Runner tasted springlike, Chris LaRocca sounded positively summery yesterday evening when we visited Kota Wood Fire Grill to learn how its opening was going, after various prelaunch events that started last Thursday. “The staff did tremendous – absolutely tremendous,” said LaRocca, co-owner of the restaurant-development company Culinary Architects. “This is the 37th…
Fourth local Llywelyn’s coming next month
Llywelyn’s Pub is shooting for March 1 for its St. Charles opening, marketing and community-relations rep Sandie Hackbarth told us. “We don’t have the date set in stone just yet,” she said. The new location, at 100 N. Main St., will be the pub’s fourth in the area and fifth in total. It will feature…
A Nod to Cod
For centuries, cod has been a choice fish for curing. And although the advent of refrigeration might have made durable dried cod an Old World has-been, cured cod still remains on menus – at a few of your favorite restaurants in town, no less. Brandade de morue is one of the most widely known and…
CWE Bissinger’s expands
For chocolate-lovers in the CWE, life just got a bit sweeter. An expansion of Bissinger’s: A Chocolate Experience there had a soft opening last Friday evening, media contact Jeannine Manning told us, with a grand opening tentatively set for early March. How much has Bissinger’s seating capacity increased? “Doubled,” Manning said. “And with outdoor seating,…
Drink This, Carnival edition: Cachaça
Just because you’re not in Rio watching buxom women in skimpy bikinis and peacock-length feather headdresses dance the samba doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate Carnival in Brazilian style. Start on Saturday – and keep it going all four days – with cocktails built from Brazil’s national spirit: cachaça, a cousin to rum that’s made from…
Irish Sazerac
• Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass, add ice and stir for at least 30 seconds. • Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a lemon twist. 1½ oz. Jameson Irish Whiskey 1 oz. Hendrick’s Gin ½ oz. simple syrup ¼ oz. John D. Taylor’s Velvet Falernum liqueur 2 drops absinthe 2…
Rhubarb Rum Sazerac
• Rinse a highball glass: Fill the glass with ice, water and a small amount of yellow chartreuse, swirl to coat the sides, then discard. • Combine the remaining ingredients in a mixing glass, stir and then strain into the highball glass without ice. • Garnish with a flamed orange peel. Yellow Chartreuse 1½ oz.…
Small plates … at Houlihan’s?
You know the small-plates trend has reached some sort of conclusion when it arrives at your neighborhood Houlihan’s. The chain is beta-testing a truly extensive new small-plates menu at select restaurants – including the Brentwood location. Highlights include grilled naked Chinese dumpling kabobs, smoked pork flatbread pizza with cilantro-peanut pesto, Truckstop Fries in chipotle cheese…
Second Everest opens Tuesday
Craving Nepalese, Korean or Indian cuisine for lunch downtown? Then look no farther than 711 Olive St. next Tuesday, Feb. 16, when Everest Café & Bar’s second location opens there.
Java competitions heat up the week
It looks like a banner week for coffee beans, as well as St. Louisans who love them. First, despite the snow, Kaldi’s Barista Throwdown is still scheduled to take place at Washington University today. Roughly six baristas will compete in Tisch Commons at the Danforth University Center till 3 p.m. Passers-by will serve as judges.…
Kakao adds flowery flavors
Just in time for an early spring – cross your fingers, anyway – Kakao Chocolate has doubled the number of floral flavors in its Bouquet of Chocolates. “We’ve always done the lavender and the rose,” owner and chief chocolatier Brian Pelletier told us, “but we added to that the elderflower, which is a French liqueur,…
Another Dewey’s opens today
Dewey’s Pizza, the Cincinnati-based company that doesn’t taste franchise, opens its fourth St. Louis restaurant today at 11 a.m. in Webster Groves (122 E. Lockwood Ave.). We think that now brings the number of pizzerias in the area to about 5 million. Not that we’re complaining, because you can never have too many options for…
Steeped in Flavor
“Most people I’ve seen so far are still buying tea as a beverage, but I’m trying to educate them,” said Kateri Meyer, owner of Traveling Tea in Maplewood. “I tell them, ‘You can use it in salad dressing or to replace the liquid in a cooking recipe,’ and they always say, ‘Oh, I never thought…
Eat Your Books indexes cookbooks and recipes
You’ve volunteered to bring dessert to a dinner party. You want to knock ’em dead with an old-fashioned chocolate cake. You own 200 cookbooks, and clearly, some of them contain recipes for chocolate cake. But which ones? How do the recipes compare? And what about that one woman, Bridget – isn’t she a vegan? And…
Drink This, Super Bowl Edition: Sazerac
Advice for those rooting for the New Orleans Saints as you prep for Super Bowl Sunday: Don’t just paint your face black and gold then make a batch of gumbo and call it good. You gotta complete the crazed-fan scene by serving a real NOLA potation. Sure you can fix a Hurricane, but why not…
From STL to Sweden, Andy White is all about seafood
You’d think Tap Room chef Andy White would have had enough fishiness with this weekend’s annual Schalfly Cod and Cask Festival, but no – he’s traveling to Gothenburg, Sweden just days later to talk, cook, eat and think fish. He’ll be representing St. Louis at the Délice Network’s symposium on everything seafood, from sustainable fishing…
Ritz names new exec sous chef
The Ritz-Carlton recently appointed Jaco Smith as its executive sous chef. His duties cover both The Grill and The Restaurant at the Ritz. Smith, who hails from South Africa, previously cheffed for four years at the Ritz in Greensboro, Ga. He’s also held culinary positions in West Virginia and Tennessee.
Dine at Lu Lu – and help a kitten or two
To welcome the Year of the Tiger just a bit early, Furball 2010 will (figuratively) join cats and Chinese cuisine this Saturday, Feb. 6, at Lu Lu Seafood & Dim Sum Restaurant. The bash benefits Clowder House, the South Side feline shelter. The preplanned dinner will be served Lazy Susan-style. It will include three appetizers,…
New pastry chef, menu items at Rue Lafayette
Changes have come to Rue Lafayette, co-owner Araceli Kopiloff-Zimmer told us – with more on the way. First, pastry chef Sandy Stolberg, who’s freelanced at various places here, has joined the restaurant. Also, Mary Hennesy, who previously prepared Rue Lafayette’s soups, scones and savories, has been named the manager there. Most of the menu changes…
The Scoop: Farrar Out Farm changing hands
Farrar Out Farm owners Bryan and Christina Truemper will light out this winter for warmer pastures in Asheville, N.C., where they’ll manage a 15-acre organic produce farm. Chefs and home cooks alike will miss Christina Truemper’s gentle demeanor and Bryan Truemper’s ready smile at local markets. The good news is we’ll still be able to…
Brooks joins CWE Pi
When the North Euclid Pi launches its coffee bar next Monday, Feb. 8, bravura barista Alex Brooks will helm the operation – and Brooks is jazzed about the new gig. “The thing that excites me the most is bringing proper coffee and espresso preparation to the Central West End,” he told us by phone from…
Welcome back, Zia’s
When fire gutted Zia’s Restaurant last August, we were not only devastated, we were worried the popular Italian eatery on The Hill would shutter for good. Five months and more than $1 million later, Zia’s has returned, officially reopening its doors today. Unofficially, they opened last night with a special dinner for the firefighters who…
Ginger Liqueur and Mezcal Are Top-Shelf Selections for Doug Frost
Wine aficionados are no stranger to Master of Wine Doug Frost, who will lead a vertical Old World-new world comparison tasting at a four-course wine dinner at Monarch this month. But as a master sommelier, the K.C.-based wine consultant is also an expert on spirits, so we asked him to weigh in on which liquors intrigue…
Eat This: Lobster Ravioli at Balaban’s Wine Cellar and Tapas Bar
Take our advice and use a spoon to eat Balaban’s Wine Cellar and Tapas Bar’s lobster ravioli. A pool of luxurious, silky lobster-butter sauce awaits beneath four squares of fresh pasta filled with lobster, ricotta and goat cheese. The crunchy shaved fennel and asparagus served with the ravioli balance out that super-rich sauce and add…
Review: Brasserie by Niche in St. Louis
Brasserie by Niche, the latest addition to the St. Louis dining scene from Gerard Craft of Niche and Taste by Niche, dishes out a decidedly casual and affordable approach to French country cooking. Brasserie took over the space formerly occupied by Chez Leon, the classic French restaurant that recently relocated to Clayton; it’s still a…
Review: The Library Annex in St. Louis
Midtown residents and college students have much to be thankful for in The Library Annex, a sharp new saloon on the ground floor of the McGowan Bros.’ Spring Street Loft development located within easy stumbling-home distance of Saint Louis University. Designed to be a part-time eatery and study space (with free WiFi), The Library Annex…
Recipe: Molly’s in Soulard’s Crawfish Lasagna
Forget the long underwear and do as they do at Molly’s in Soulard, where winter layers mean lasagna. The five levels of chef Eric Brenner’s NOLA-inspired version build melty comfort with noodles and cheese, then turn up the heat with crawfish, andouille sausage and Cajun spices. Crawfish LasagnaCourtesy of Molly’s in Soulard’s Eric Brenner6 servings…
How Local Beef Can Improve Your Winter Cooking
Beef – really? Why profile something so universal as beef in the Seasonal Shopper? Because the beef market is changing – rather rapidly, for a stodgy commodity. Raising animals in more natural ways has improved how some beef tastes. Chefs are discovering pure-bred animals beyond Angus and Kobe, some wild and wooly, others wearing horns…
Poached Jasmine Green Tea Pears
6 servings
Chilled Cucumber and Fenugreek Soup
2 servings
Market Grill opens in Soulard
Market Grill had its soft opening last Wednesday, Chris Byington just told us. Byington – co-owner, general manager, “here all day kinda guy” – described the Soulard newbie at 728 Lafayette Ave. as “a complete full restaurant, full bar, comfort foods and classic cocktails.” Market Grill hopes to fill a void in that neighborhood. “There’s…
Menu changes at The Delmar, y’all
We heard the buzz about the recent changes at The Delmar Restaurant & Lounge in The Loop –or just The Delmar, as we like to say – and had to taste for ourselves. The new head chef, Randy Wilson, was brought in to shake up the menu, and he’s done a doozy of a job.…
Bailey’s Bridge Celebrates the Artisanal
Some restaurants are all show. Fistfuls of dollars are thrust into developing a gorgeous façade, with quality and creativity in the kitchen an afterthought. Other restaurants are only about good eats. Atmosphere be damned, fresh, flavorful food is the only thing that matters. David Bailey’s gift is that he knows how to create restaurants that…
Sunday Smorgasbord
Few things bespeak civility like Sunday brunch, and the metro area boasts a bevy of restaurants to match that meal to your mood – whether you want to bask in tranquility, indulge your sweet tooth or recuperate from Saturday night. SIT, SIP AND SAVOR Terrace View808 Chestnut St., St. Louis, 314.436.8855 Citygarden, one of St.…
Cheers to a well-chosen list
Although it doesn’t embody the literal translation of brasserie as “brewery,” the beverage selection at Gerard Craft’s latest restaurant, Brasserie by Niche, certainly supports his choice of name. The beer list, with six interesting drafts and nearly 20 bottled beers, is obviously well-planned and ready to support the menu. Cocktails delight, too, with knowledgeable bartenders…
Short List: Buffalo wings
Buffalo wings – there’s nothing subtle about this aromatic, messy, popular nosh. Chicken wings and drumettes are fried and dipped in the sauce that Buffalo, N.Y., made famous: a mix of rich butter, hot sauce to let you know you’re alive and sometimes vinegar. Blue cheese? Ranch? Au naturel? You choose the finishing condiment –…
Don’t Miss Russell’s Bakery’s Savory Side
Russell’s Café and Bakery is a tiny gem in a small strip mall in Fenton owned by a young chef whose New Year’s resolution was to make his customers eat more cookies. But beneath all the sprinkles, marshmallows, Mexican chocolate cupcakes and cherry cheesecake, there’s something even more appealing (if that’s possible) about this place:…
Unique Touches at Jimmy’s on the Park
Jimmy’s on the Park sits nestled between Sasha’s Wine Bar and Kaldi’s Coffeehouse on quaint DeMun Avenue in Clayton. And nestled between little bottles of herb-infused olive oil and flatware on the tables at Jimmy’s are pint glasses filled with pasta crunchers, whole strands of fettuccine deep-fried to a blistered and golden supercrunch and hit…
