After more than three decades in the hospitality industry, St. Louis sommelier and restaurant veteran Stanley Browne is launching a new venture that brings together wine, food, education, travel and hospitality consulting.
Cellar & Table is a St. Louis-based company centered on wine experiences and hospitality under the philosophy, “where wine meets connection.”
The venture will offer strategic consulting for restaurants and other hospitality organizations, wine program development, staff education and training, curated events, culinary classes and global food and wine travel.
For Browne, the concept grows out of a career spent working at the intersection of food, wine and hospitality. He spent nearly two decades as co-founder of the now-closed Robust Wine Bar and is a partner in Madrina in Webster Groves, while also building experience in wine education, restaurant operations and guest experience.
“Wine has never just been about what’s in the glass for me,” Browne said. “It’s about the food beside it, where it came from, the people who made it and, most importantly, the people gathered around the table. Cellar & Table gives me the opportunity to bring all of those things together in a new way.”
One part of the business will focus on helping hospitality organizations develop stronger food and beverage programs. Browne plans to work with restaurants, hotels, cultural institutions, event venues and private wine cellars on everything from beverage strategy and staff training to service standards and guest experiences.
Cellar & Table will also bring Browne’s wine expertise into the classroom through a partnership with Kitchen Conservatory in St. Louis. The two will collaborate on classes that pair culinary instruction with wine education, exploring how food and wine interact while incorporating the history, culture and agriculture behind them.
“Learning about wine opens the door to so much more – history, culture, food, agriculture and the people who make it,” Browne said. “Kitchen Conservatory is a natural place to bring those conversations to life.”
The company will extend that same approach outside St. Louis through curated food and wine trips developed with Lydia Gwin of Gwin’s Tiny Kitchen and Gwin’s Traveling Kitchen.
Rather than focusing solely on traditional wine tourism, the trips will be built around meeting the people behind a destination’s food and drink, including winemakers, chefs, farmers, restaurateurs and market vendors. Travelers will visit food and wine regions while exploring the local traditions and communities that shape them.
“Some of the most meaningful experiences I’ve had have happened around tables all over the world,” Browne said. “We want these trips to feel less like tours and more like being invited into a place – to understand its wine, its food and its culture through the people who live it.”
Cellar & Table will also offer curated corporate and home-based events and educational experiences, bringing Browne’s hospitality background into private gatherings as well as professional settings.
The company is expected to announce upcoming Kitchen Conservatory classes, Cellar & Table events and its first international food and wine tours in the coming months.
For Browne, the new venture provides a way to bring together the different parts of hospitality that have shaped his career, from restaurant operations and wine programs to education, travel and the communal experience of sitting down at a table.
