We’ve loved Little Fox for a long time, so we’re always interested when its owners, Craig and Mowgli Rivard, have something new cooking. We’ve also been happy to watch the couple grow their restaurant group in St. Louis, particularly in Fox Park, where they opened Little Fox and are now adding a second restaurant to the neighborhood.
That restaurant, Sur Lie, opens Friday, Sept. 11, at 2805 Shenandoah Ave. The wine-led bistro will serve dinner Tuesday through Saturday beginning at 4 p.m., with a bottle shop and daytime service planned for later. The new restaurant brings together the Rivards’ love of wine, ingredient-driven cooking and the restaurant influences they picked up while working and traveling in New York and abroad.
For a city that could always use more reasons to get excited about new restaurants, especially in the city, we’re glad to see a local restaurant team expanding in its own neighborhood rather than heading elsewhere.
Sur Lie is a different restaurant from Little Fox, but the connection between the two is clear. Craig leads the kitchen at both, while Mowgli oversees the hospitality, atmosphere and culture. The couple returned to Craig’s hometown after years working in New York, where they met while working at Marlow & Sons and Diner. They later cooked and traveled abroad before opening Little Fox in Fox Park, which went on to earn national recognition.
At Sur Lie, Craig is taking a somewhat looser approach to the food. The menu draws on European bistro traditions but also pulls from the couple’s childhoods, travels and the dishes Craig has wanted to cook over the years.
“We didn’t want to put too many rules around the food at Sur Lie,” Craig said. “There are European bistro traditions at the foundation, but the menu also pulls from things Mowgli and I grew up eating, places we’ve traveled, and dishes I’ve wanted to cook for years.”
That means the opening menu jumps around in a way that should make for a pretty fun meal. There are East Coast oysters with Champagne mignonette, lapsang souchong tea tincture and tomato granita; roast beef on Weck with au jus and horseradish aioli; mushroom lasagna; petite steak au poivre; and skate wing Milanese with a cabbage and mint Caesar salad.
The menu also includes a few dishes with direct ties to Craig’s cooking at Little Fox. Confit egg yolk comes with house bread, continuing the bread program that has become a favorite at the restaurant. Italian fried rice combines fennel, roasted radish, basil, greens, housemade cotechino and a poached egg, using a cotechino recipe Craig developed years ago.
And, yes, there will be plenty to drink.
Wine is the focus at Sur Lie, with a producer-driven list that moves from Cava, Lambrusco and Champagne to bottles from Slovenia, Croatia, Burgundy, Piedmont, the Loire Valley, South Africa and California. The by-the-glass list includes sparkling, skin-contact, white and red wines, with the goal of making the program approachable enough for both serious wine drinkers and people who just want to find something good to drink.
The cocktails follow the same idea. The Sur Lie Martini combines dry gin, coastal gin, dry vermouth and Spanish blanc vermouth, while the Green Negroni features dill-infused gin, Boomsma, Suze and blanc vermouth. The list also includes a Flora Spritz, Tried & True, Marianito and salted Espresso Martini.
We’ve actually already had a little preview of the Rivards’ cocktail sensibility. Little Fox’s Three Carrots Tall recently appeared in our Drink This column, which feels like a pretty good excuse to keep an eye on the cocktail list at Sur Lie too.
During the day, Sur Lie will eventually shift into a bottle shop and neighborhood hangout, with espresso service beginning at noon and wine available to drink there or take home. The bottle shop is expected to open in the near future Tuesday through Sunday from noon to 4 p.m.
There’s also a private dining room behind the main dining area that can be reserved for gatherings and dinners.
The Rivards have said they want Sur Lie to feel less like a special-occasion restaurant and more like the kind of neighborhood place people can use however they want: for an afternoon bottle of wine, oysters and a martini after work, dinner with friends or a private gathering.
That seems fitting for Fox Park, a neighborhood that has continued to add restaurants and businesses while retaining a strong sense of place. And with Little Fox already firmly established nearby, Sur Lie gives the Rivards a chance to build on what they’ve already created without simply opening the same restaurant twice.
