10 nhà hàng hàng đầu ở St louis năm 2022

Acero • Ý, nếm thực đơn spaghetti Chitarra amatricana. Ảnh của Ian Froeb, Post-Dispatch • Italian, Tasting Menu

St. Louis hadn đã nhìn thấy một nhà hàng Ý như Acero khi nó mở cửa vào năm 2007, mười lăm năm sau đó, trong khi rất nhiều nhà hàng Ý tuyệt vời đã mở trong thời gian đó, Acero vẫn cảm thấy độc đáo. Đầu bếp tín dụng và chủ sở hữu Jim Fiala, người có tầm nhìn về sự xuất sắc nhất quán phân biệt cả Acero và anh chị em Clayton lớn tuổi của nó, The Crossing. Chắc chắn, bài thuyết trình Polenta bên cạnh Bên cạnh từ những ngày đầu của Acero đã qua lâu rồi, nhưng đầu bếp điều hành Andy Hirstein và nhóm của ông đã giữ cho thực đơn vừa quen thuộc và tươi mới, từ chữ ký, bây giờ là Ravioli mang tính biểu tượng cho đến một mound Spaghetti có vẻ đơn giản Không bao giờ thất bại trong sự mặc khải trong sự đơn giản của nó. Một đặc điểm nổi bật khác: Danh sách rượu vang sâu sắc, và thậm chí cả lựa chọn bằng kính [hoặc ở đây, chính xác là, theo tài sản] mang lại những thú vui bất ngờ. Không thể tránh khỏi, các hiệu ứng gợn sóng trong hai năm qua đã làm tăng chi phí cho bữa tối bốn món Acero. Tuy nhiên, ở mức 58 đô la mỗi người, đó là cách thông minh nhất để trải nghiệm nhà hàng thiết yếu này.

Trong đó 7266 Đường Manchester, Maplewood • Thông tin thêm 314-644-1790; Acero-stl.com • Giờ ăn tối Thứ Ba-Thứ Bảy [Đóng cửa Chủ nhật-Thứ Hai] • Giá $$$$ 7266 Manchester Road, Maplewood • More info 314-644-1790; acero-stl.com • Hours Dinner Tuesday-Saturday [closed Sunday-Monday] • Pricing $$$$

Akar & nbsp; • & nbsp; đương đại, sườn thịt lợn me Malaysia. Ảnh của Ian Froeb, Post-DispatchContemporary, Malaysian

Tôi đã viết về việc nấu ăn Bernie Lee, trong hơn một thập kỷ nay, bắt đầu với nhà hàng sushi Loop của anh ấy và Izakaya Hiro, nhưng tôi nghi ngờ tôi chỉ hoàn thành các chương mở đầu. Lee theo Hiro ban đầu của mình với nhà bếp châu Á mở rộng hơn - và hấp dẫn hơn - Hiro ở trung tâm thành phố West. Thực đơn ở đó di chuyển với sự tự tin giữa các món ăn của Malaysia, Nhật Bản, Việt Nam, Trung Quốc và Thái Lan, nhưng ngay cả năm lần vinh danh STL 100 đó chỉ là một lời mở đầu cho Akar, mà Lee đã ra mắt vào năm 2019 tại Clayton. Ở đây, ở quy mô thân mật hơn [đặt chỗ là bắt buộc], việc nấu ăn của anh ấy cá nhân hơn và vui tươi hơn, từ Rangoon Rangoon Ravioli Hồi với tôm hùm vượt trội hơn mọi nỗ lực khác để cao cấp Rangoon hoặc T-Ravs đến Sởm SHOR với một demi-glace sambal. Những món ăn mới như những món ăn gần đây-sườn thịt lợn tráng men với bạc hà và ớt fresno trên mì gạo giòn và lechon thịt lợn trong nước sốt adobo với gạo tỏi-sẽ đưa tôi trở lại để viết nhiều hơn về Lee.

Trong đó 7641 Đại lộ Wydown, Clayton • Thông tin thêm 314-553-9914; akarstl.com • Bữa tối giờ thứ ba-Chủ nhật [Thứ Hai đã đóng] • Giá $$$ 7641 Wydown Boulevard, Clayton • More info 314-553-9914; akarstl.com • Hours Dinner Tuesday-Sunday [closed Monday] • Pricing $$$

ANNIE GUNN's • Đương đại, bít tết bít tết New York bít tết với nước sốt pan cabernet nấm ozark forest. Ảnh của Hillary Levin, Post-Dispatch • Contemporary, Steakhouse

Không một danh mục nào gói gọn việc nấu ăn của Lou Rook III tại Annie Gunn, ở Chesterfield, mặc dù Steakhouse không phải là một nơi tồi tệ để bắt đầu. Trong những năm qua, tôi đã ăn cả một đôi mắt của USDA Prime Rib và gần đây hơn, một phần được chia sẻ khiêm tốn, mặc dù không kém phần chuẩn bị bữa trưa sang trọng của thịt bò thịt bò bọc thịt xông khói. Tất nhiên, trong cùng một chuyến thăm gần đây, tôi cũng đã ăn cánh - chiên giòn và với một cạnh tiêu tạo ra một món ăn phụ của nước sốt trâu, mặc dù được chào đón, không cần thiết. Tôi thường đặt Annie Gunn dưới chiếc ô rộng lớn của một nhà hàng đương đại của người Hồi và Chophouse cổ điển. Như mọi khi, giám đốc rượu vang Glenn Bardgett, danh sách là lý do riêng để ghé thăm, sâu và rộng trong phạm vi chai, với lựa chọn bằng kính và nửa chai hào phóng.

Trong đó 16806 Đường sân bay Chesterfield, Chesterfield • Thông tin thêm636-532-7684; Anniegunns.com • Giờ và bữa tối Thứ Ba-Chủ Nhật [đóng cửa Thứ Hai] • Giá $$$-$$$$ 16806 Chesterfield Airport Road, Chesterfield • More info 636-532-7684; anniegunns.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Sunday [closed Monday] • Pricing $$$-$$$$

Asador del sur • Ecuadorian, hải sản, Nam Mỹ, bít tết, người Uruguay Fried Mariscada, Mahi-Mahi với nước sốt rocoto. Ảnh của Christian Gooden, Post-Dispatch • Ecuadorian, Seafood, South American, Steakhouse, Uruguayan

Cặp vợ chồng Maria Giamportone và Daniel Gonzalez đã mở Asador del Sur vào tháng 8 năm 2020 sau khi chuyển đến St. Buzz về nhà trước của họ. Giamportone có nguồn gốc từ Ecuador, trong khi Gonzalez là người gốc Uruguay, và thực đơn Asador Del Sur, giữa hai quốc gia này và qua Nam Mỹ. Muối thô là món Gonzalez gia vị duy nhất ủng hộ khi anh ấy nướng cả hai miếng thịt bò xương sườn xương sườn và cắt lát mỏng của Uruguay [Tira de Asado], và không được đánh dấu chính xác nào của nhà Chimichurri nhà garlicky. Nhà bếp vượt trội so với các món bít tết đặc trưng của Asador Del Sur [thịt lợn carnitas trong tỏi mojo, xúc xích cừu trên một cây gậy sả] và cũng tại hải sản Patacones rellenos với tôm làm sinh động bởi những con chim mắt của chim.

📍 Trong đó7322 Đường Manchester, Maplewood • Thông tin khác314-802-8587; asadordelsur.com • GiờDinner Thứ Hai và Thứ Tư-Chủ Nhật, Bữa trưa Thứ Tư-Chủ Nhật, Thứ Bảy Thứ Bảy-Chủ Nhật [Thứ ba đóng cửa] • Giá $$$-$$$$$$ 7322 Manchester Road, Maplewood • More info 314-802-8587; asadordelsur.com • Hours Dinner Monday and Wednesday-Sunday, lunch Wednesday-Sunday, brunch Saturday-Sunday [closed Tuesday] • Pricing $$$-$$$$

Balkan Treat Box & nbsp; • Balkan, Bosnian, Địa Trung Hải pljeskavica [Balkan Burger nướng]. Ảnh của Laurie Skrivan, Post-Dispatch• Balkan, Bosnian, Mediterranean

Tôi có thể nghĩ về bất cứ điều gì một quán ăn hợp lý hơn có thể mong đợi từ Balkan Treat Box. Nhà hàng Loryn và Edo Nalic, Webster Groves có các món ăn được hoan nghênh, thú vui thị giác và khứu giác của lò sưởi gỗ mở, và sự tiện lợi và khả năng chi trả của một hoạt động chống dịch vụ. Heck, cặp vợ chồng thậm chí có thể yêu cầu một câu chuyện gặp gỡ vui vẻ: Họ gặp nhau khi Loryn làm việc cho một công ty dịch vụ thực phẩm và trả một cuộc gọi bán hàng cho nhà hàng nơi Edo được tuyển dụng. . Các cựu chiến binh sẽ tranh luận về những điểm tốt hơn của PIDE so với người mỏng hơn, cuộn Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ Lahmacun. Họ sẽ ăn mừng mật đường chân thạch mơ hôn với Patlidzan [cà tím đốt gỗ bên trong Somun]. Họ sẽ để mắt đến những đặc biệt như Kumru hoặc hợp tác với các nhà hàng khác. Điều duy nhất bạn thực sự có thể yêu cầu của Balkan Treat Box là hộp điều trị Balkan nhiều hơn.

WHERE8103 Big Bend Boulevard, Webster Groves • Thông tin khác314-733-5700; balkantratbox.com • Giờ11 sáng-3 giờ chiều. [hoặc cho đến khi bán hết] Thứ Ba-Thứ Bảy [Đóng cửa Chủ nhật-Thứ Hai] • Giá $-$$ 8103 Big Bend Boulevard, Webster Groves • More info 314-733-5700; balkantreatbox.com • Hours 11 a.m.-3 p.m. [or until sold out] Tuesday-Saturday [closed Sunday-Monday] • Pricing $-$$

Cửa hàng bánh mi • Sandwiches, Việt Nam Sài Gòn cổ điển và bánh mì kẹp thịt lợn BBQ. Ảnh của Chris Kohley, Post-Dispatch • Sandwiches, Vietnamese

Cửa hàng bánh mi mang bánh sandwich Việt Nam một twist St. Louis. Chủ sở hữu Jimmy Trinh đã không muốn chiếc baguette bồng kề beh mi của anh ta bị xáo trộn mạnh đến nỗi nó làm hỏng khẩu vị của bạn. Như anh ấy đã nói với tôi trong một cuộc phỏng vấn năm 2020, anh ấy đã làm việc với Peter Vitale của Vitale's Bakery on the Hill để đưa ra một cuộc hợp tác của Ý-Pháp-Pháp-Việt Nam, dễ dàng hơn trên mái nhà của bạn. " Trinh có một chiếc bánh mang thịt lợn MI DAC Biet-được gọi là Sài Gòn cổ điển ở đây-với pate gan lợn, cuộn thịt lợn, phô mai đầu và giăm bông, nhưng anh ta có thể đi vừa nhẹ hơn và sáng hơn với thịt gà sả hoặc đậu phụ hoặc nặng hơn với thịt bò nướng. Lớn lên ở Hoa Kỳ sau khi di cư cùng gia đình từ Việt Nam, Trinh là một người hâm mộ Banh Mi. . Cửa hàng bánh mi đã ra mắt trong vòng lặp Delmar chỉ vài tuần trước đại dịch, nhưng sự cống hiến của anh ấy cho bánh sandwich đã kiên trì.

WHERE567 Đại lộ Melville, Thành phố Đại học • Thông tin khác314-390-2836; Thebhamhmishopstl.com • Giờ và bữa tối Thứ Ba-Thứ Bảy, Bữa trưa Chủ nhật [Thứ Hai Đóng] • Giá cả $ 567 Melville Avenue, University City • More info 314-390-2836; thebanhmishopstl.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Saturday, lunch Sunday [closed Monday] • Pricing $

Beast Craft BBQ Co., Beast Butcher & Block, Beast Southern Kitchen & BBQ • BARBECUE, Đương đại, sườn phía nam ăn kèm với thịt xông khói Mac và Brussels với bụng lợn ở Beast Butcher & Block. Ảnh của Troy Stolt, Post-Dispatch • Barbecue, Contemporary, Southern

Chủ sở hữu Beast và Pitmaster David Sandusky đã hối hả trong toàn đại dịch. Anh ấy đã ra mắt một nhà bếp ma có một số cánh gà ngon nhất mà tôi đã ăn. Trong một thời gian, anh ta xoay vòng vị trí của mình từ thực đơn thịt nướng thông thường của nó sang bánh sandwich, bao gồm cả một hiện tượng trên thịt bò hố kiểu Baltimore. Anh ấy đã xuất hiện trong cuộc thi của Food Network trong cuộc thi BBQ Brawl, và sau khi bắt đầu vấp ngã, đã lọt vào đêm chung kết. Tinh thần tương tự đã hoạt hình Beast kể từ Sandusky và vợ, Meggan, đã mở vị trí ban đầu của Belleville vào năm 2014, và nó đã mang món bít tết thịt lợn đặc trưng của họ, thịt bò, và các loại thịt và các mặt hàng đầu khác cho đầu St. Louis ' Lớp thịt nướng, nơi nó vẫn còn. Trước đại dịch, họ đã giới thiệu một chương trình nấu ăn trực tiếp đầy tham vọng tại Grove Beast-hãy tìm kiếm sự trở lại từ đại dịch gián đoạn sớm-và vào cuối năm 2020, họ đã ra mắt một con thú thứ ba ở Columbia, Illinois, nơi bạn có thể đặt hàng Boudin Balls, xuất sắc Gà rán và nhiều giá vé phía nam cùng với thịt nướng của bạn.

CẬP NHẬT: Beast Southern Kitchen & BBQ ở Columbia, Illinois, đóng cửa vĩnh viễn vào tháng 5 năm 2022. Beast Southern Kitchen & BBQ in Columbia, Illinois, permanently closed in May 2022.

WHEREBEAST CRAFT BBQ Co., 20 South Belt West, Belleville • Thông tin thêm618-257-9000; beastcraftbbq.com • Giờ và bữa tối hàng ngày • Giá $-$$ Beast Craft BBQ Co., 20 South Belt West, Belleville • More info 618-257-9000; beastcraftbbq.com • Hours Lunch and dinner daily • Pricing $-$$

📍 Wherebeast Butcher & Block, 4156 Đại lộ Manchester • Thông tin khác314-944-6003; beastbbqstl.com • Giờ và bữa tối Thứ Ba-Thứ Ba [Thứ Hai đã đóng] • Giá $-$$ Beast Butcher & Block, 4156 Manchester Avenue • More info 314-944-6003; beastbbqstl.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Sunday [closed Monday] • Pricing $-$$

WHEREBEAST Southern Kitchen & BBQ, Trung tâm 1280 Columbia, Columbia, Illinois • Thông tin thêm618-719-2384; BeastSouthern.com • Giờ và bữa tối hàng ngày • Giá $-$$ Beast Southern Kitchen & BBQ, 1280 Columbia Center, Columbia, Illinois • More info 618-719-2384; beastsouthern.com • Hours Lunch and dinner daily • Pricing $-$$

Bellwether & nbsp; • & nbsp; brunch, sò điệp hiện đại với thịt xông khói vinaigrette, chanterelles, slivers châu Á, dầu hương thảo, chive và húng quế. Christian Gooden, Post-Dispatch • Brunch, Contemporary

Hãy là khách sạn lịch sự - các đối tác Brian Schmitz, Jonathan Schoen và Travis Hebrank, với đầu bếp điều hành Thomas Futrell - đã tăng tốc sự phát triển của nhóm nhà hàng của họ vào năm 2021 với ba nhà bếp riêng biệt tại Hội trường thực phẩm mới tại City Foundry: Sub Division Sandwich Co. như một trục dịch đại dịch của Hội Nhà hàng LAFAYETTE Square ban đầu của họ; Ngày tốt lành vào bữa sáng; và Bánh burger liên thiên hà. Thông qua sự hoạt động này, nhóm Jewel vẫn là nhà hàng thứ hai, Bellwether, được khai trương vào năm 2019 trong tòa nhà nhà máy điện của Bệnh viện Thành phố cũ. Ở đây, Futrell đã tìm thấy một rãnh của kỹ thuật hiện đại [bít tết thịt lợn sous-vide với bắp cải đỏ nén] và các thành phần toàn cầu [khoai tây chiên tăm, món khai vị đặc trưng]. Mặc dù vậy, anh ta không bỏ bê các tác phẩm kinh điển, giống như một người gần đây với Coq au Vin trong một miếng thịt đỏ với nấm và thịt xông khói trên một loại Parsnip xay nhuyễn. Những ngày này, The Bellwether là niềm vui hiếm hoi, đáng hoan nghênh: một nhà hàng ngày lớn trưởng thành.

& Nbsp; trong đó 1419 đường Carroll • Thông tin thêm 314-380-3086; TheBellwetherstl.com • Bữa tối giờ hàng ngày, Brunch Saturday-Sunday • Giá $$$-$$$$ 1419 Carroll Street • More info 314-380-3086; thebellwetherstl.com • Hours Dinner daily, brunch Saturday-Sunday • Pricing $$$-$$$$

Vua nhân từ & nbsp; • Sò đất đương đại, Địa Trung Hải, Ma-rốc Hokkaido với gạo koshihikari, salad waianae-herb và bơ harissa. Ảnh của Ian Froeb, Post-Dispatch• Contemporary, Mediterranean, Moroccan

Ben Poremba đã tiết lộ vị vua nhân từ vào năm 2018 với một sân đầy đủ hấp dẫn. Nhà hàng Maplewood sẽ lấy cảm hứng từ ẩm thực của mẹ anh, người bản địa Morocco, trong khi bản thân Poremba-người đầu bếp nổi tiếng của ELAIA, Olio và Nixta, người trong những năm gần đây đã có nhiều nhà hàng hơn đầu bếp-sẽ dẫn dắt nhà bếp. Thực phẩm King King King đã chứng minh đủ hấp dẫn, và con mắt của Poremba về tài năng nhà bếp đủ, rằng nhà hàng phát triển mạnh khi anh ta quay lại tham dự các dự án khác của mình. Giờ đây, Vua nhân từ không chỉ sống sót sau một sự gián đoạn đại dịch kéo dài mà còn xuất hiện từ nó được tiếp thêm sinh lực dưới thời Chef New Eliott Harris, người trước đây đã nhận được thông báo cho công việc của mình tại các nhà hàng sushi Miso trên Meramec và Baiku Sushi Lounge. Harris có các món ăn King Benevolent đặc trưng như phô mai của nông dân, thịt gà giòn và thịt cừu trong nước sốt hun khói, nhưng ông cũng đã giới thiệu một khía cạnh hấp dẫn của các nguyên liệu và kỹ thuật của Nhật Bản, như sò điệp trên gạo koshihikari trong một món salad salad-herb-herb salad-herb, Một bơ harissa cay tinh tế.

📍 Trong đó7268 Đường Manchester, Maplewood • Thông tin khác314-899-0440; Bengelina.com/the-benevolent-ing • GiờDinner Thứ ba 7268 Manchester Road, Maplewood • More info 314-899-0440; bengelina.com/the-benevolent-king • Hours Dinner Tuesday-Saturday [closed Sunday-Monday] • Pricing $$$

Blues City deli & nbsp; • & nbsp; deli, bánh sandwich thịt bò cay của Mike n 'cheddar. Ảnh Post-Dispatch • Deli, Sandwiches

Another welcome sight during these two fraught years: the line to order at Blues City Deli once again snaking out the front door, around the corner and down the block. What draws a crowd to Vinnie Valenza’s corner of Benton Park is no mystery — sandwiches, great and big — and Blues City has been a mainstay of this list since its inaugural edition. But given the number and variety of sandwiches I have eaten during the pandemic [many and many, respectively], I did ponder what sets Blues City apart. The restaurant doesn’t boast one signature ingredient a la the hot salami at Gioia’s Deli, and as messy as the sandwiches here can be, Valenza doesn’t favor the sly, can-we-top-ourselves aesthetic of the Gramophone. Instead, Blues City does right by each featured ingredient — roast beef, roast pork and pastrami [smoked in-house], especially — and moves with ease from classic arrangements to its own smart originals [the Knuckle Sandwich: Italian beef with the porky nudge of capicola, sharpened by giardiniera and Blues City’s smoky Delta sauce].

📍 Where 2438 McNair Avenue • More info 314-773-8225; bluescitydeli.com • Hours 10:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday [closed Sunday-Monday] • Pricing $

Bolyard’s Meat & Provisions • Brunch, Burgers, Contemporary, Sandwiches

In May 2021, Chris and Abbie Bolyard moved Bolyard’s Meat & Provisions to much bigger digs a short distance from its original Maplewood home, and if you didn’t already know that the couple’s butcher shop doubled as a sandwich-focused restaurant, now you have no excuse. The new Bolyard’s features more seating and an expanded menu of sandwiches, salads and side dishes. Before founding Bolyard’s in 2014, Chris was the chef de cuisine of Sidney Street Café, and smart touches abound: the fermented Brussels sprouts that spark his take on a Reuben, the duxelles and black-garlic aioli that intensify the umami of the pulled-beef Feisty Italian sandwich. Speaking of umami, with its Umami Burger [raclette, mushroom conserva, “umami aioli”], Bolyard’s stakes a strong contender in the ongoing smashed-burger arms race. Weekend brunch is also a meaty affair: lard biscuits, burnt ends with a fried egg, even a PB&J with beef bacon.

📍 Where 2733 Sutton Boulevard, Maplewood • More info 314-647-2567; bolyardsmeat.com • Hours 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Sunday [regular menu daily, brunch also available Saturday-Sunday] • Pricing $

Brasserie by Niche • Brunch, French

The veteran of Gerard Craft’s restaurant group, Brasserie by Niche garnered renewed attention in February when executive chef Evy Swoboda and longtime pastry chef Elise Mensing were named James Beard Award semifinalists for “Best Chef: Midwest” and “Outstanding Pastry Chef” nationwide, respectively. The restaurant also recently undertook a sort of expansion. After closing the adjacent Taste in October 2021, Craft converted the space into Brass Bar, a spot for an aperitif or a digestif and Mensing’s signature floating island or another of her desserts. You can also order from the full Brasserie menu, as I did on a recent visit, my first since Swoboda took over the kitchen in early 2021. She previously had been chef de cuisine of Craft’s Pastaria, and in the 2020 edition of this list I celebrated her work leading the Last Kitchen, the restaurant inside the Last Hotel downtown. Unsurprisingly, the timeless appeal of Brasserie’s onion soup, cassoulet and other classic French dishes hasn’t wavered under her guidance.

📍 Where Brasserie by Niche, 4580 Laclede Avenue • More info 314-454-0600; brasseriebyniche.com • Hours Dinner daily, brunch Sunday • Pricing $$$

📍 Where Brass Bar, 4584 Laclede Avenue • More info 314-361-1200; brasseriebyniche.com/brassbar • Hours Dinner Thursday-Monday [closed Tuesday-Wednesday] • Pricing $$$

Bulrush • Contemporary, Ozark, Tasting Menu

At Bulrush late this winter, Rob Connoley served a venison meatball on fermented-carrot rye bread, a clever and delicious riff on the slider that also showcased the restaurant’s mission — or one of its many missions. A landowner with whom Bulrush has formed a partnership had a deer problem on his property. That landowner’s neighbor had grown some wheat for soil-regeneration purposes but didn’t want the wheat. “So the wheat came to us, as did the deer that were eating the wheat,” Connoley said in the YouTube video explaining the dish. [As a COVID precaution, videos accessed by diners via QR code have replaced a direct explanation from the chef.] Connoley debuted Bulrush in 2019 with the ambitious project to explore historical Ozark cuisine through a modern lens using locally sourced and foraged ingredients. Bulrush has evolved since then to include a suite of interrelated efforts: growing ingredients from long-lost heritage seeds, building a wine list around French vineyards that planted Missouri rootstock after the phylloxera epidemic, researching the role of enslaved and indigenous peoples in Ozark foodways. Studying the Hopewell culture led Connoley to the importance of hazelnuts, which featured in the Ozark-style chili crisp atop gorgeous roasted carrots. Research into cattle-raising in the Ozarks means beef is now on the menu: beef cheek at my dinner, with cheese grits in a pawpaw mole. The seven-course tasting menu is playful, inspired and educational — often all at once. Bulrush is not just a great restaurant but a necessary one.

📍 Where 3307 Washington Boulevard • More info 314-449-1208; bulrushstl.com • Hours Dinner Thursday-Sunday • Pricing $$$$

Cate Zone Chinese Cafe • Chinese

It says something about the breadth and overall appeal of the menu at Cate Zone Chinese Cafe that only now, some five years after Daniel Ma and Quincy Lin debuted this University City restaurant, am I recommending one of its most popular dishes: hot crisp fish. The pieces of fried fish — crisp as promised, tender-flaky and portioned to feed at least two very hungry diners — are smothered in chiles, with a generous tingling dose of Sichuan peppercorns to boot. It’s one more winner for Cate Zone, which first attracted notice for its focus on the cuisine of China’s northeast, including another crisp [though not spicy] dish, the sweet-and-sour pork that is as much and maybe more the latter than the former. Cate Zone’s menu traverses multiple regional cuisines, making the restaurant not only a part of St. Louis’ growth of regional Chinese restaurants, but also emblematic of it.

📍 Where 8148 Olive Boulevard, University City • More info 314-738-9923 • Hours Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Sunday [closed Monday] • Pricing $-$$

Chao Baan • Thai

Sue and Suchin Prapaisilp and their adult son, Shayn, opened Chao Baan three years ago in the Grove to bring together the regional cuisines of Thailand’s northeast and south, from where Sue and Suchin respectively hail. Over the pandemic’s course, the menu has expanded somewhat to include dishes more in the vein of the Prapaisilps’ beloved the King and I in Tower Grove South, including that restaurant’s specialty the Four Kings of Thailand and red, panang and massaman curries. But at Chao Baan you can still find much of the fare that made this restaurant one of 2019’s standout debuts: sai grog [sausage] snappy with lemongrass and lime; citrusy, spicy beef nam tok; the smoky and chile-pungent ground-beef dish kua kling. Chao Baan has also emerged a vital civic force, with Shayn leading efforts over the past two years to benefit the Siteman Cancer Center and, more recently, to support the Asian American and Pacific Islander community in the wake of racist incidents and hate crimes.

📍 Where 4087 Chouteau Avenue • More info 314-925-8250; chaobaanstl.com • Hours Dinner daily • Pricing $-$$

Chez Ali • Afro-Caribbean, Caribbean, Ivorian, Senegalese

Chez Ali debuted along with the Food Hall at City Foundry in August 2021, and Alioun “Ali” Thiam’s restaurant is one of the main reasons the long-anticipated midtown project has exceeded my expectations. A self-taught chef — though he credits his late mother with passing down the cooking “gene” to him — Thiam serves dishes from his native Senegal and the Ivory Coast as well as from the Afro-Caribbean tradition. The cafeteria-style buffet almost always features jerk chicken and curry chicken, both the smoky jerk and the warmly spiced, citrus-splashed curry turbocharged by Scotch bonnet chiles. [You can usually order a combination platter with both dishes.] Among the dishes less regularly available here, keep an eye out for the Senegalese yassa chicken, electric with Dijon mustard, vinegar and lemon. When available, Thiam’s oxtails are the best in town, smoked and then cooked down to nearly scoopable tenderness. The generous platters include cabbage and rice or rice and beans, and you should probably order a couple of the small, fiery Kenyan-style samosas, too.

📍 Where Food Hall at City Foundry, 3730 Foundry Way • More info cityfoundrystl.com/directory/chez-ali • Hours Lunch and dinner daily [closed Tuesday] • Pricing $-$$

Chiang Mai • Thai

Sometimes, the term “new restaurant,” though accurate, hardly does its subject justice. Such is the case at Chiang Mai, the northern Thai restaurant that chef Su Hill unveiled in October 2020 in Webster Groves. I named Chiang Mai “restaurant of the year[s]” in my list of the best new restaurants of 2020-21, but this is really the capstone of a life’s work to date for Hill, who learned to cook from her mother in the northern Thailand city that gives the restaurant its name. After immigrating to the United States to attend college, Hill has built a lengthy career in hospitality; since the mid-1990s she has operated Bistro Saffron in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. At Chiang Mai, she guides diners through some of northern Thailand’s most revered dishes — crackling sai oua [grilled sausages]; sweet-savory hung lay curry; the curry-noodle soup khao soi with its vital pickled-mustard garnish — all punctuated by exceptionally vibrant flavors. When most chefs are fortunate to have upgraded to 4K resolution, Hill cooks in 8K.

📍 Where 8158 Big Bend Boulevard, Webster Groves • More info 314-961-8889; chiangmaistl.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Saturday [closed Sunday-Monday] • Pricing $$

Chicken Scratch • Contemporary, Rotisserie Chicken, Sandwiches

As executive chef of the late, great Niche in its final years, Nate Hereford led as ambitious and challenging a kitchen as St. Louis has seen. After leaving Niche to take a research-and-development job with a food company in the Bay Area, Hereford grew fascinated with the “complex simplicity” of the rotisserie-chicken restaurants he and his wife, Christine, were visiting in California. Now the Herefords have brought their own brand of complex simplicity to the Food Hall at City Foundry with Chicken Scratch. Here the birds are cured overnight with salt and sugar and dry-rubbed before their spin in the Rotisol rotisserie oven. The chicken is crisp-skinned and juicy by itself, and the pulled meat also makes for excellent sandwiches whether as traditional chicken salad or warmed up in jus with kale, provolone and horseradish mustard. [There is also, of course, a superlative fried-chicken sandwich.] Hereford’s kitchen chops also reveal themselves in meticulously prepared but unfussy sides like the fried jojo potatoes or Brussels sprouts in a pesto-like salsa verde.

📍 Where Food Hall at City Foundry, 3730 Foundry Way • More info chxscratchstl.com • Hours Lunch and dinner daily [closed Tuesday] • Pricing $-$$

ChiliSpot • Chinese

Before the pandemic, I was already late to try the Sichuan fare at the University City restaurant then called Sze Chuan Cuisine, though after a brow-dampening, mouth-numbing meal of Chongqing-style fried chicken and a less intense but delicious plate of cumin lamb, I was eager to dig into the menu for a longer write-up. A few things have happened since then. During the pandemic, the restaurant changed its name to ChiliSpot. The menu remains Sichuan-focused, the chile- and Sichuan peppercorn-laden Chongqing chicken included. I still need to work through most of ChiliSpot’s menu, but the vibrancy of the dishes I have tried so far — from a snapping, spicy salad of fresh cucumbers to tender Sichuan twice-cooked pork with a sophisticated sweetness to match its heat — have made this another winner among the area’s regional-Chinese restaurants. Be sure to try the deep-fried, homemade tofu. The crisp exterior gives way to a luscious texture that reminded me of nothing so much as fresh burrata.

📍 Where 7930 Olive Boulevard, University City • More info 314-925-8711; bestspicy.com • Hours Lunch and dinner daily [closed Wednesday] • Pricing $-$$

Cinder House • Brazilian, Breakfast, Contemporary, South American, Steakhouse

The partnership between Gerard Craft and the Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis was a no-brainer: a James Beard Award-winning chef and a top-of-the-line hotel boasting a dining room with spectacular downtown views. In its particulars, though, Cinder House was a welcome surprise when it debuted in 2018. Rather than provide his gloss on generic luxury, Craft fashioned an ambitious menu inspired in part by the Brazilian cooking of his late childhood nanny, Cecelia “Dia” Assuncao, with feijoada and moqueca as well as wood-fired steaks and chops. The next year, Craft introduced Dia’s Room, a tasting-menu experience within Cinder House that delved more deeply into Brazilian cuisine and featured the most inspired cooking from Craft and his team since Niche closed in 2016. Dia’s Room remains on pandemic hiatus — look for a possible return this summer — but under executive chef Peter Slay, Cinder House still intrigues with its mixture of steakhouse and Brazilian and South American fare, often on one plate, like the steak tartare garnished with chimichurri and pickled banana peppers.

📍 Where Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis, 999 North Second Street • More info 314-881-5759; cinderhousestl.com • Hours Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily • Pricing $$$$

Clara B’s Kitchen Table • Breakfast, Cajun/Creole, Food Truck, Sandwiches, Southern

Jodie Ferguson realized her dream for Clara B’s Kitchen Table when she opened a brick-and-mortar location of her food truck this February in Belleville. I look forward to visiting, but Clara B’s has earned its place on the STL 100 for what Ferguson has already accomplished on her truck. Since launching Clara B’s in late 2020, Ferguson has distinguished herself among St. Louis’ many mobile chefs with her deeply personal cooking, which looks to both her late, Louisiana-born grandmother, Clara Bloodworth [the Clara B. of Clara B’s], and her own central Texas upbringing. Her core menu argues convincingly for breakfast at any hour — her breakfast burrito [egg, chorizo, double-smoked bacon, potato and avocado] is the best version of that dish in the metro area — but Ferguson also might persuade you to start your day with her signature wood-fired shrimp with andouille in tomato gravy over ethereal cheese grits. Is Belleville outside your usual orbit? Clara B’s truck remains in service, including on Affton food-truck park 9 Mile Garden’s 2022 roster.

📍 Where 106 East Main Street, Belleville • More info 618-416-1812; clarabs.com • Hours Breakfast and lunch Thursday-Sunday [closed Monday-Wednesday]; truck hours and location vary • Pricing $

Cleveland-Heath • Brunch, Contemporary

Evan and Gina Buchholz took over as the owners of Cleveland-Heath in late 2021, making them the third couple to run this acclaimed restaurant in downtown Edwardsville since Jenny Cleveland and Eric “Ed” Heath opened it in 2011. Ownership changes aren’t rare in the restaurant industry, but diners shouldn’t take for granted how Cleveland-Heath has navigated the progression from its founders to successors Kari and Keith McGinness to the Buchholzes while maintaining both the high standards of its upscale but unfussy comfort food and its neighborhood-hangout vibe. The Buchholzes did come to Cleveland-Heath with an advantage: A few months before they became the owners, Evan began his second go-around as the restaurant’s executive chef. He can execute such signature dishes as the whopping pork chop topped with a sunny-side-up egg and served alongside luscious jalapeño-cheddar cornbread and also keep things fresh but familiar with a gratin of crab, shrimp and cod.

📍 Where 106 North Main Street, Edwardsville • More info 618-307-4830; clevelandheath.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Monday-Saturday, brunch Saturday [closed Sunday] • Pricing $$-$$$

Cocina Latina • Colombian, Peruvian, South American

Elsewhere in this year’s STL 100, I mention that restaurant-caliber rotisserie chicken is having a moment in St. Louis. Cocina Latina doesn’t focus on the golden-brown roasted bird to the extent that the new Chicken Scratch and Golden Chicken do, but this Central West End restaurant serves crisp, juicy, garlicky pollo a la brasa worth attacking with fork, knife and fingers. Chef and owner Maritza Rios waited some 20 years after moving to St. Louis to open a restaurant featuring the food of her native Peru. Cocina Latina surveys a broad range of Peruvian dishes [and some Colombian and Cuban fare as well], from sunny, chile-charged ceviche to the stir-fried, vinegar-splashed steak of lomo saltado. On a recent visit, I paired an order of pollo a la brasa with an appetizer far less common in St. Louis than rotisserie chicken but no less compelling or liable to have you digging into it with fingers and teeth: anticuchos de corazon, skewers of grilled beef heart with a fiery dipping sauce.

📍 Where 508 North Euclid Avenue • More info 314-696-2294; cocinalatinastl.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Sunday [closed Monday] • Pricing $-$$

The Crooked Boot • Cajun/Creole, Food Truck, Southern

Monroe, Louisiana, native Coria Griggs left corporate office work in St. Louis to pursue a culinary career. She also became “obsessed” with food trucks, she told me in a 2020 interview — though when she bought a truck of her own, “I had it [parked] for, like, six months because I was scared.” Griggs needn’t have worried. The Crooked Boot, which launched in 2016 with a Creole-inspired menu, is one of the most appealing food trucks I have encountered recently, and in February, Griggs added a takeout-focused storefront in St. Charles. Griggs puts her own spin on fried catfish and shrimp po’boys and a soft-shell crab sandwich with her Voodoo Sauce [a tangy, remoulade-ish concoction], and she also builds her own creations, like tender, peppery jerk chicken with with both Voodoo and barbecue sauces as well as cabbage and pickled onions [“Yah Mon” Jerk Sammie] or cheese fries smothered with her jerk chicken or her seafood gumbo with chicken-andouille sausage. Lately, inspired by several trips to Haiti, she has offered a few dishes from that country.

📍 Where 2012 Campus Drive, St. Charles • More info 636-757-3305; facebook.com/thecrookedboot; instagram.com/thecrookedboot • Hours Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Saturday [closed Sunday-Monday]; truck hours and location vary • Pricing $

The Crossing • Contemporary, Tasting Menu

Any restaurant can serve you a plate of thinly sliced Iberico ham. Few besides the Crossing would instead make that ham the centerpiece of a salad with arugula, fennel and Pecorino Romano cheese, enhancing the meat’s luxury through bracing juxtaposition. Few also would forgo the easy comfort of braised short ribs for a more refined preparation of braised veal cheek that collapsed into its own heady juices. A special on my long-awaited return to the Crossing in March, the veal cheek was yet another example of the precisely considered pleasures that have distinguished Jim Fiala’s Clayton restaurant for nearly a quarter of a century. Fiala and executive chef Thu Rein Oo continue to offer diners multiple options, from the traditional a la carte [including such Crossing signatures as the blue-crab cake and the foie gras] to an extended, seasonal grand tasting menu. At $65 per person, the four-course prix-fixe dinner is a reasonably priced survey of the Crossing at its best.

📍 Where 7823 Forsyth Boulevard, Clayton • More info 314-721-7375; thecrossing-stl.com • Hours Dinner Monday-Saturday, lunch Monday-Friday [closed Sunday] • Pricing $$$$

Crown Candy Kitchen • Bakery & Desserts, Diner, Sandwiches

I have experienced any number of emotions since returning to restaurant dining rooms last year, from relief to excitement, from fear I had come back too soon to guilt that I had stayed home too long. Nothing, though, can compare to the joy I saw — and felt — when I finally [finally!] took my young daughter to Crown Candy Kitchen for the first time and watched her try her first chocolate malt. Wide-eyed, she took in the slow slide of shake from metal cup to her glass, the old-school menu and soda ads on the walls, and the head jerk himself, Andy Karandzieff, mixing a steady stream of shakes during a Friday lunch. At Crown Candy Kitchen, Karandzieff continues his family’s now-109-year-old legacy, one that I might have taken for granted before the pandemic. Karandzieff was public about the restaurant’s own struggles over the past two years, including in an appearance on the Discovery+ series “Restaurant Recovery.” If my daughter left Crown Candy Kitchen that day thrilled to have “discovered” a new favorite, I was simply grateful to be back.

📍 Where 1401 St. Louis Avenue • More info 314-621-9650; crowncandykitchen.net • Hours 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday [closed Sunday] • Pricing $

The Curry Club • Indian

One of the best of St. Louis’ homegrown counter-service operations — and one of its most appealing Indian restaurants regardless of format — the Curry Club presents diners with two or even three menus in one. At the counter itself is a small cafeteria-style lineup of the day’s offerings: the signature Curry Club Chicken or another chicken curry, a vegetable curry and a dal dish, all packed with pull-no-punches flavor. [The mango dal I ate on a recent visit balanced an almost citrusy brightness with an intense chile heat.] You can order half or full portions, and there are usually appetizers [e.g., chicken 65, pakora] and a few other dishes available. Yet you might be tempted away from this selection by the cook making dosas to order behind the counter — or by the menu board that lists the Hyderabadi chicken biryani or another of the Curry Club’s biryanis or weekend specials.

📍 Where 1635 Clarkson Road, Chesterfield • More info 636-778-7777; stlcurryclub.com • Hours Dinner Tuesday-Sunday, lunch Friday-Sunday [closed Monday] • Pricing $-$$

DD Mau Vietnamese Eatery • Vietnamese

Julie Truong expanded her fast-casual restaurant DD Mau Vietnamese Eatery to Webster Groves in 2021, and the new location both replicates the appeal of the Maryland Heights original and showcases how the concept is continuing to evolve. Truong grew up in her parents’ Chinese restaurant in the city, but she opened the first DD Mau in 2018 only after leaving St. Louis for a few years for a career in the fashion and retail industry. At DD Mau, she has brought together excellent Vietnamese dishes — rice bowls, crackling banh mi, hearty pho — and counter-service convenience. I have especially come to admire Truong’s soups over the past four years, not just her beef pho and the nearly as rich chicken [pho ga], but also her vegan lemongrass soup, an inspired riff on bun bo Hue. Don’t overlook DD Mau’s smaller plates: spring rolls with grilled shrimp, fried vegan “shrimp” and excellent Thai chile chicken wings with lime ranch dressing.

📍 Where 20 Allen Avenue, Webster Groves • More info 314-926-0900; ddmaustl.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Monday-Saturday [closed Sunday] • Pricing $

📍 Where 11982 Dorsett Road, Maryland Heights • More info 314-942-2300; ddmaustl.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Monday-Saturday [closed Sunday] • Pricing $

Dixon’s BBQ • Barbecue, Soul Food

At Dixon’s BBQ in Overland, owner and pitmaster Joe Dixon continues his own barbecue tradition and his family’s. His mother, Charlene Runnels, was expected to bring her ribs, rib tips and peach cobbler to family reunions, he told me in a 2021 interview. She always barbecued, he said, and he was “the person who was just always there beside her.” Runnels would go on to open her barbecue restaurant in Berkeley, and Dixon followed in her stead with his first restaurant, Dixon Smoke Co., in midtown in 2015. He closed that restaurant in 2018 after his mother’s death the previous year. After a period of grief, he returned with Dixon’s BBQ in late 2020. Fittingly, ribs and rib tips, simply seasoned and smoked with oak and cherry wood, are the standout dishes here, though Dixon of course still features the chicken “tips” [thigh-meat morsels], burnt ends, corn on the cob with barbecue aioli and other dishes that won him a deserved following at Dixon Smoke Co. Don’t forget the peach cobbler.

📍 Where 2549 Woodson Road, Overland • More info 314-395-2855; instagram.com/dixons_bbq • Hours 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday [closed Monday-Wednesday] • Pricing $-$$

El Toluco Taqueria & Grocery • Mexican, Tacos

A 20-year veteran of St. Louis kitchens, Fausto Pizarro had always wanted a restaurant of his own. His wife, Maggie, had always wanted her own shop. The couple realized their dreams together when they opened El Toluco Taqueria & Grocery in 2016 [store first, restaurant a few months later] in a shared space set back from the busy Manchester Road-Highway 141 interchange in Manchester. If no longer a “hidden” gem — among El Toluco’s plaudits, it’s now a four-time STL 100 honoree — the restaurant can still stagger even regular customers with the sheer size of its tortas, not to mention the vibrant flavors. [Each tops your choice of meat with both ham and queso de puerco and both queso fresco and Oaxaca cheese along with all the usual garnishes.] For the tortas and tacos alike, Pizarro and kitchen assistants Marcelo and Cruz Salazar dazzle with their takes on al pastor pork, lengua, lamb barbacoa and more.

📍 Where 14234 Manchester Road, Manchester • More info 636-686-5444; eltolucotaqueria.com • Hours 10:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 10:30 a.m.-7 p.m. Friday-Saturday [restaurant closed Sunday-Monday; grocery store open Monday-Saturday] • Pricing $

Elaia • Contemporary, Tasting Menu

A decade old this year, Ben Poremba’s flagship Elaia is one of the vanishingly few St. Louis restaurants still committed to a vision of fine dining both rarified and progressive — a place suited for special occasions and caviar service where you also might eat a dish unlike anything you have encountered before. Elaia offers two options: the full-blown tasting menu [$150 per person] or a four-course dinner [$95 per person]. The latter doesn’t slouch in extravagance or invention. In March, it began with a delicate first course of poached apple with fennel, celery leaf and horseradish that hinted at the budding of spring and then staggered me with a “shabu shabu” of cured salmon and preserved mushrooms in a summer-bright tomato dashi with seemingly bottomless umami. Though more formal in its presentations than such comparably ambitious restaurants as Vicia or the Lucky Accomplice, Elaia can still cut loose, as with the a-la-carte snack I added to my dinner: chicken-fried sweetbreads with a smoked-paprika dipping sauce, the popcorn chicken of the gods.

📍 Where 1634 Tower Grove Avenue • More info 314-932-1088; bengelina.com/elaia • Hours Dinner Thursday-Saturday [closed Sunday-Wednesday] • Pricing $$$$

Elmwood, Pizza Champ • Contemporary, Pizza, Sandwiches, Wings

Pizza Champ, which as a standalone restaurant opened only in January, technically doesn’t qualify for this year’s STL 100. Pizza Champ as a concept, however, launched in summer 2020, when Adam Altnether and Chris Kelling introduced it as the pandemic pivot of their Maplewood restaurant Elmwood, one of 2019’s standout newcomers. I tried the pizza that August and could have guessed the duo had big plans for their pies. Altnether crafts a New York-style pizza with the ideal crust ratio of crispy to airy to chewy, with tang [the dough ferments for 48 hours] and blistered char. Pizza Champ rounds out its menu with chicken sandwiches, salads and wings, the hot Buffalo version of which is serious business. Meanwhile, Elmwood is on hiatus as of early April while Altnether and Kelling focus on Pizza Champ’s debut. As a pizza incubator, Elmwood is emblematic of how restaurateurs have navigated the pandemic. As a showcase for Altnether’s cooking and Kelling’s front-of-house acumen, Elmwood is a restaurant to anticipate anew.

Note: The opening month of Pizza Champ has been corrected.

📍 Where Elmwood, 2704 Sutton Boulevard, Maplewood • More info 314-261-4708; elmwoodstl.com • Hours On hiatus

📍 Where Pizza Champ, 2657 Lyle Avenue, Maplewood • More info pizzachampstl.com • Hours 2-8 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, noon-8 p.m. Saturday-Sunday [closed Monday-Tuesday] • Pricing $-$$

Farmhaus • Contemporary

I have been writing about Kevin Willmann’s cooking for 15 years now, back to his work at the late Erato on Main in Edwardsville, where he turned diners’ heads from a walk-in closet [if that] of a kitchen, to Farmhaus, the Lindenwood Park restaurant he opened in 2010. It has been a remarkable journey to follow. Willmann has been a Food & Wine “Best New Chef,” a James Beard Award nominee and a mainstay of this list’s pre-pandemic Top 25. Before the pandemic, though, I might have been a little too ready to assign Farmhaus to the well-deserved comfort of restaurant middle-age. I returned this spring to find a fresh coat of paint on the walls — dried but not yet redecorated — and vibrant flavors on the plates. Willmann and his ace sous chef Dillon Witte served seafood, of course: shrimp in a peri peri sauce that lived up to that chile’s reputation. And, yes, there was pork, a handsome Duroc chop properly pinkish in the center, with honey-bacon turnips and a sweet-potato puree. After two years, I was both glad to be back and eager to return.

📍 Where 3257 Ivanhoe Avenue • More info 314-647-3800; farmhausrestaurant.com • Hours Dinner Wednesday-Saturday [closed Sunday-Tuesday] • Pricing $$$-$$$$

The Fattened Caf • Filipino, Pop-Up

Soon, maybe, pork steak will conjure dreams of tender, charry-sweet meat as likely to be sloshed with the Fattened Caf’s Filipino BBQ Marinade as with Maull’s. Or so I hope after a Fattened Caf lunch this March. Charlene and Darren Young launched their Filipino barbecue pop-up in 2020 with almost no restaurant experience between them. [Charlene did work at a Coldstone Creamery when she was 15.] Instead, they built their concept from her love of sharing her Filipino culture and his fascination with grilling and smoking, from nights with friends to regular pop-ups at Earthbound Beer on Cherokee Street. The Fattened Caf grills its meats over hot charcoal and wood: longanisa [sausage], chicken quarters, rib tips and pork steaks. The pop-up might feature plates with meat, garlic rice, atchara and tomato ensalata — or there might be a kamayan box, a feast of meats [mine featured the peanut-based stew kare kare with smoked brisket] and sides to share. Rather than the obvious pivot to a brick-and-mortar restaurant, the Youngs have placed their packaged longanisa in Schnucks and a few other grocery stores, and the couple recently launched a line of bottled marinades and dipping sauces. You should really let them cook for you first, though.

📍 Where Pop-up events, often at Earthbound Beer, 2724 Cherokee Street • More info thefattenedcaf.com • Hours Check website or instagram.com/thefattenedcaf for details of upcoming events • Pricing $-$$

Fire Chicken • Korean

Over the past three years, St. Louis has welcomed multiple appealing options for Korean-style fried chicken, from the local, independent Chicken Seven in Carondelet to the small but growing local chain Kimchi Guys [Laclede’s Landing and Skinker-DeBaliviere, with Edwardsville under development] to a location of the Seoul-based international chain BB.Q Chicken in O’Fallon, Illinois. I recommend all three restaurants, but the most exciting option right now is a slightly different Korean fried-chicken dish: the chicken gangjeong at Fire Chicken, the tiny, takeout-only restaurant that Michelle and Sungmin Baik opened in the summer of 2020 in Overland. Your order of crisp, bite-sized pieces of fried chicken comes with your choice of Fire Chicken’s sauces, which range from mild teriyaki to the hot, gochujang-based Red and the even hotter but also sweet Buldak. The best entry point might be the Fire sauce, which balances its complex sweetness with a jalapeño-led heat not quite as hot as the Red or Buldak.

📍 Where 10200 Page Avenue, Overland • More info 314-551-2123; facebook.com/firechickenstl • Hours Lunch and dinner Monday-Saturday [closed Sunday] • Pricing $

Five Star Burgers • Burgers

The past two years have undermined many of my assumptions about restaurants. Not all for the worse, though. Consider the burger — specifically, consider the plumper example of the species, the kind best enjoyed when you nod and smile at the USDA but order it medium-rare anyway. I figured this style at that temperature wouldn’t hold up to takeout, but several places have proved me wrong, none more often or more deliciously than Steve Gontram’s Five Star Burgers. The former fine-dining chef behind the beloved Harvest, Gontram has been slinging his signature Dad’s Green Chile Cheeseburger and other burgers for a decade now, and the combination of primal beef, hatch chile heat and fried chile crunch has been a balm during the pandemic. But Five Star also upended my expectations with the new-to-me Patty Melts My Heart, which sort of fuses a patty melt with the green chile burger. It both rivals Dad’s Green Chile Cheeseburger for hatch chile power and shows Five Star taking on the smashed-burger set — and winning.

📍 Where 8125 Maryland Avenue, Clayton • More info 314-720-4350; 5starburgersstl.com • Hours Lunch and dinner daily • Pricing $-$$

Gioia's Deli • Deli, Italian, Sandwiches

At the beginning of the pandemic, Gioia’s Deli sold frozen pizzas featuring the iconic Hill restaurant’s signature hot salami as a topping. Owner Alex Donley called them his “payroll pizzas” for the lifeline they provided in those fraught early weeks. By June 2021, Gioia’s frozen pizzas were available for purchase at Schnucks supermarkets, and Donley had opened a commissary kitchen in Maryland Heights to meet the demand. [In an interview then, Donley said he had bought 15,000 label stickers for the pizza’s February 2021 retail launch: “I was like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna have these stickers for the next 15 years.’ And we just reordered more stickers.”] The pizzas are just the latest example of how Gioia’s has managed ever-changing dining trends — and, in the pandemic, an unprecedented crisis — while staying true to the identity that has won it lifelong fans for more than a century. Meanwhile, those of us who needed a classic hot salami sandwich as a momentary lifeline during the pandemic’s peak could turn to the Hill location’s walk-up window.

📍 Where 1934 Macklind Avenue • More info 314-776-9410; gioiasdeli.com • Hours 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Saturday [closed Sunday] • Pricing $

📍 Where 623 North New Ballas Road, Creve Coeur • More info 314-776-9410; gioiasdeli.com • Hours 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Saturday [closed Sunday] • Pricing $

Golden Chicken • Mediterranean, Rotisserie Chicken

Is it time for rotisserie chicken to take the spotlight — to move beyond Costco loss-leader and supermarket staple? One of the standout vendors in the Food Hall at City Foundry is Nate Hereford’s rotisserie-chicken restaurant Chicken Scratch, and rotisserie chicken alone is a reason to visit Golden Chicken, which Amjed Abdeljabbar and his uncle Mahmoud Abualizz opened in late 2020 in St. Peters. The chicken is indeed golden, or a dark golden-brown, and a marinade with citrus and herbs renders the meat flavorful and tender. If you want a whole bird, plan ahead to let the restaurant cook your chicken to order, about an hour. The basic rotisserie order includes pita and the house garlic sauce; for a few dollars more, you can get the whole chicken plate, which adds rice, pickles and the restaurant’s excellent jalapeño-zapped hummus. Golden Chicken knows how to cook on the spit and the grill, turning out fine kebabs and shawarma in addition to its rotisserie chicken.

📍 Where 632 Jungermann Road, St. Peters • More info 636-244-3031; goldenchickenstpeters.com • Hours Lunch and dinner daily • Pricing $

Grace Meat + Three • Brunch, Contemporary, Fried Chicken, Southern

Rick Lewis wins the unintentional-foresight award for the COVID dining era. In 2019, the chef and owner of Grace Meat + Three installed a walk-up window in his acclaimed Grove restaurant. Originally intended as a late-night destination for fried chicken and fish [a smart pre-pandemic bet on this bustling corridor of Forest Park Southeast], the window was and still is a vital link for diners not yet comfortable going inside restaurants. More than a few times over the past two years, I have returned to this window for Grace’s fried chicken and fried, cornmeal-crusted catfish — both among the very best examples of the two dishes in town — for the inimitable fried-bologna sandwich with a runny egg, and the dry-aged burger tangy with pickles and Comeback Sauce. Meanwhile, Grace has also become a destination for a brunch the kitchen takes seriously rather than as an obligation, with fried chicken and waffles and the Egg Rick Muffin, a dynamite breakfast sandwich with smoked sausage and an over-easy egg.

📍 Where 4270 Manchester Avenue • More info 314-533-2700; stlgrace.com • Hours 11 a.m.-1:30 a.m. Tuesday-Sunday [closed Monday] • Pricing $-$$

The Gramophone • Sandwiches

A year or so ago, I was about to tweet that I had found a new favorite among the many excellent sandwiches at the Gramophone, the Walk This Way: turkey, pepperoni and bacon on ciabatta with perfect accents of sweet [apple butter] and spicy [pepper jack cheese and jalapeño]. Fortunately, I double-checked before I hit send. I had eaten and written about the Walk This Way in 2018. I will spin this memory lapse to the Gramophone’s advantage. The Walk This Way is so smartly constructed it seems newly brilliant each time, and this former Grove concert venue turned restaurant and bar serves so many great sandwiches a professional eater can’t keep track. My short list would range from the classic Mississippi Night’s Club and Italian cold-cut Delcortivo to the brilliant Lion’s Choice riff the Tiger’s Decision. Truly new to me recently was the When Pigs Fly, a typically over-the-top and delicious arrangement of Buffalo-seasoned pulled pork and bacon with pepper jack cheese and Cajun ranch on Texas toast.

📍 Where 4243 Manchester Avenue • More info 314-531-5700; gramophonestl.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Sunday [closed Monday] • Pricing $

Guerrilla Street Food • Contemporary, Filipino, Food Truck

Temporarily closed

On a cold January day during the pandemic’s omicron surge, I ordered takeout from Guerrilla Street Food’s brick-and-mortar restaurant in Webster Groves and ate it in my parked car. My order of sisig was delicious: crisp-tender pork [slow-roasted, then seared] over rice with a tart top note of calamansi, the luxurious creaminess of a one-hour egg, and the twin punch of tiny, mighty Thai chiles and the restaurant’s own chile crisp. Savoring it in my car took me back a decade to when Joel Crespo and Brian Hardesty’s modern Filipino-American cooking was the most exciting addition yet to St. Louis’ then-new food-truck scene. Guerrilla Street Food has struggled recently. After a relatively rapid expansion to four storefronts in addition to the truck, Crespo and Hardesty closed two locations just before the pandemic and a third during it. While Guerrilla Street Food might be now reduced in scope, the team’s rededication to the core menu is apparent, and it remains both a unique and vital St. Louis restaurant.

CẬP NHẬT: Crespo và Hardesty đã thông báo vào tháng Tư rằng Guerrilla Street Food được rao bán. Nhà hàng đã đóng cửa & nbsp; vô thời hạn vào ngày 30 tháng 4 năm 2022, cho đến khi có một chủ sở hữu mới. Crespo and Hardesty announced in April that Guerrilla Street Food is for sale. The restaurant closed indefinitely April 30, 2022, until there is a new owner.

Trong đó 43 Đại lộ Old Orchard, Webster Groves • Thông tin khác314-274-2528; GSF-online-ortersing.Square.Site • Giờ và bữa tối Thứ ba-Thứ ba [đóng cửa Chủ nhật-Thứ Hai]; Giờ xe tải và vị trí khác nhau • Giá cả 43 South Old Orchard Avenue, Webster Groves • More info 314-274-2528; gsf-online-ordering.square.site • Hours Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Saturday [closed Sunday-Monday]; truck hours and location vary • Pricing $

Havana sườn ẩm thực • Caribbean, Cuba, Sandwiches Cuba Sandwich. Ảnh của Christian Gooden, Post-Dispatch • Caribbean, Cuban, Sandwiches

Sự nổi bật của St. Louis, trong thế giới cờ vua đã mang đến Tamara Landeiro và gia đình cô ở đây từ Cuba. Con gái tuổi teen của cô là một thần đồng, người đã giữ cấp bậc của Liên đoàn cờ vua quốc tế. Sandwiches sẽ đưa bạn đến nhà hàng trung tâm thành phố Landeiro, Havana, Havana. Sau khi giới thiệu việc nấu ăn của mình thông qua phục vụ, một gian hàng tại Soulard Farmers Market và một chiếc xe tải thực phẩm [không còn hoạt động], Landeiro đã ra mắt hoạt động đối phó vào tháng 9 năm 2021. Tất nhiên, cô trình bày một phiên bản vượt trội của bánh sandwich Cuba cổ điển: nướng Thịt lợn, giăm bông, phô mai Thụy Sĩ, mù tạt và dưa chua trên bánh mì từ tiệm bánh trung tâm La Segunda nổi tiếng ở Tampa, Florida. Cô phục vụ các biến thể thêm Salami [Tampa Cuban] hoặc croquettes hoặc đặt chất trám Cuba trên bánh mì trung bình mềm hơn. Nhìn rộng hơn, Landeiro sử dụng bánh sandwich làm cửa ngõ để giới thiệu các tiết mục giá vé Cuba rộng hơn của cô, bao gồm Ropa Vieja và thịt lợn nướng mojo đặc trưng của cô. Không có tâm trạng cho một chiếc bánh sandwich? Ẩm thực Havana, cũng phục vụ empanadas và đĩa với một món ăn chính và các mặt.

📍 Trong đó 1131 Đại lộ Washington • Thông tin thêm314-449-6771; Havanascuisine.com • Giờ 11 sáng-4 p.m. Thứ Hai-Thứ Năm, 11 giờ sáng đến 7 giờ tối. Thứ Sáu-Thứ Bảy [Chủ nhật đã đóng] • Giá cả $ 1131 Washington Avenue • More info 314-449-6771; havanascuisine.com • Hours 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Friday-Saturday [closed Sunday] • Pricing $

Indo • đương đại, Nhật Bản, hải sản, sushi, sashimi Thái. Ảnh của Ian Froeb, Post-Dispatch • Contemporary, Japanese, Seafood, Sushi, Thai

Indo hầu như không thể phản ánh về năm 2019 giật gân của nó trước khi đại dịch xảy ra. Lựa chọn của tôi cho nhà hàng mới tốt nhất năm đó, nó đã ra mắt ở vị trí thứ 3 trên phiên bản 2020 của danh sách này và được các tạp chí GQ và Esquire đặt tên là một trong những nhà hàng mới nhất trong cả nước Là một trong những đầu bếp mới xuất sắc nhất năm 2020. Hai năm sau, phong cách độc đáo của Bognar - dựa trên truyền thống sushi, di sản Thái Lan và ẩm thực Đông Nam Á rộng hơn [Lamb Lamb, dựa trên công thức của bà ngoại] và một người vui tươi, vui tươi, Streak Flavorst-First [những món ăn đặc trưng như bánh mì nướng tôm và Isaan Hamachi trong dừa Naam pla]-giữ Indo trong số những nhà hàng ngon nhất và thú vị nhất mà tôi đã trải qua trong hai thập kỷ qua ở St. Louis. Ngay từ đầu, Indo đã tìm kiếm sự rung cảm của một bữa tiệc tối vui vẻ thay vì ăn uống ngon lành, nhưng chuyến thăm gần đây của tôi đã tìm thấy một sự rung cảm thậm chí còn lỏng lẻo hơn. Quầy sushi, từng là trung tâm cho bữa tối Omakase dài, giờ là chỗ ngồi đầu tiên, được phục vụ đầu tiên, cũng như một số bàn trên sân mở rộng. .

📍 Trong đó1641D Tower Grove Avenue • Thông tin khác314-899-9333; www.indo-stl.com • GiờDinner Thứ ba-Chủ nhật [đóng cửa Thứ Hai] • Giá $$$-$$$$ 1641D Tower Grove Avenue • More info 314-899-9333; www.indo-stl.com • Hours Dinner Tuesday-Sunday [closed Monday] • Pricing $$$-$$$$

J. Devoti Trattoria • Đương đại, Ý, pizza, thực đơn nếm pizza với xúc xích thịt bò Fitchner Farm, mozzarella, sốt cà chua, thảo mộc và ớt shishito. Ảnh của Sid Hastings • Contemporary, Italian, Pizza, Tasting Menu

Tôi ngần ngại giới thiệu một món ăn cụ thể tại J. Devoti Trattoria. Anthony Devoti, đầu bếp và chủ sở hữu, thực sự tuân theo sứ mệnh từ nông trại đến bàn và những người khác từ những người khác thích thảo luận. Thực đơn của anh ấy thay đổi thường xuyên, thậm chí hàng ngày, và khi tôi vinh danh nhà hàng gốc của anh ấy, Five Bistro, và bây giờ là người kế nhiệm của nó, J. Devoti, trong danh sách này, tôi đã chụp ảnh chụp nhanh: Empanadas với Lamb Confit một năm, tôm với Kimchi khác , Chiên sườn cừu với đậu trắng om và Chanterelles vào năm 2020. Nhưng trong thị trấn ăn pizza này, chúng ta không nói đủ về những chiếc bánh của Devoti. Đối với Devoti, lớp vỏ là phần quan trọng nhất. Dựa trên kinh nghiệm của anh ấy trong bánh mì nướng [tuyệt vời], anh ấy lên men bột trong ít nhất 24 giờ và sau đó nướng nó trong lò đá. Pizza isn Neapolitan, nhưng nó có thể so sánh với sự cân bằng của sự không khí, nhai và tang. Devoti giữ cho những chiếc bánh đơn giản: một loại nước sốt chưa nấu chín của cà chua địa phương trong mùa [San Marzano khi không], phô mai và toppings theo phong cách J. Devoti điển hình, như nhà hàng của riêng Salumi hoặc nấm từ nấm Purveyor địa phương một cách tự nhiên.

📍 Where 5100 Daggett Avenue • More info 314-773-5553; jdevoti.com • Hours Dinner Thursday-Sunday [closed Monday-Wednesday] • Pricing $$$-$$$$

J’s Pitaria • Bosnian, Mediterranean

Originally based a falafel’s throw from the historic Bevo Mill, J’s Pitaria now calls the Concord Plaza shopping center along the bustling South Lindbergh Boulevard corridor home. If Zamir Jahic set up the spit on which he roasts the beef for the best doner kebab in St. Louis [by far] on the shoulder of Interstate 44, I would follow him there, too. The appeal of the Bosnian and more broadly Mediterranean restaurant operated by Jahic and his wife, Josi, has only expanded over the past five years. You can, of course, order J’s Sarajevo-style cevapi cradled in freshly baked somun, but you might also try maslenica, a flatbread stuffed with the beef sausages, smoked mozzarella and kajmak and smothered in yogurt sauce. From the beginning, J’s signature dish has been pita, hand-stretched phyllo dough stuffed with meat, cheese, spinach and cheese or potato. The pies are now also available frozen, so you could send J’s almost anywhere.

📍 Where 91 Concord Plaza Shopping Center, south St. Louis County • More info 314-270-8005; jspitaria.us • Hours Lunch and dinner Wednesday-Sunday [closed Monday-Tuesday] • Pricing $

Juniper • Contemporary, Fried Chicken, Southern

Shortly before the pandemic hit, John Perkins named Matthew Daughaday Juniper’s executive chef. The pairing seemed ideal. Daughaday had won wide acclaim for his work at Gerard Craft’s Taste and his own restaurant, Reeds American Table, which had closed in 2019. Now, two years later, I can report that Perkins, Daughaday and their team have elevated Juniper to an even higher level — high praise for a concept that since 2013 has already evolved from limited-engagement pop-up to full-fledged restaurant and relocated from its original home to its current, sleeker digs. Here, you can spend time just with the oyster selection: on the half-shell, with a clever trio of lemon, horseradish and Tabasco ices replacing traditional mignonettes; smoked and served with fried saltines; or as a brilliant composed raw dish with blood orange and a fennel mignonette, a fennel foam and a wild-fennel togarashi. Alongside Juniper’s fried chicken, burger and other favorites, you might find new standouts like grilled hen-of-the-woods mushrooms as meaty as a steak with popped sorghum over Jimmy Red corn grits.

📍 Where 4101 Laclede Avenue • More info 314-329-7696; junipereats.com • Hours Dinner Wednesday-Sunday, brunch Saturday-Sunday [lunch available for takeout, closed Monday-Tuesday] • Pricing $$-$$$

Katie’s Pizza & Pasta Osteria • Brunch, Italian, Pizza

Last spring, as I was just beginning to resume regular, non-takeout dining, I sat on the recently and impressively expanded patio of Katie’s Pizza & Pasta Osteria in Rock Hill for what would be my best meal yet at Katie Collier’s restaurant. The menu that May evening featured an honest-to-goodness fresh take on crudo [halibut with Aleppo pepper and tart kumquat], fried squash blossoms with a gooey, creamy heart of stracciatella and ricotta and, of course, wood-fired pizza, an elegant seasonal pairing of morels and ramps. Over the first year or so of the pandemic, I had reported on the ambitious and wildly successful pivot Collier and her husband, Ted, had made into frozen pizza. What a joy that night to see the fruits of that pivot: a bustling restaurant and a kitchen, overseen by Katie’s longtime executive chef, Jake Sanderson, allowed once again to thrive.

📍 Where 9568 Manchester Road, Rock Hill • More info 314-942-6555; katiespizzaandpasta.com • Hours Lunch and dinner daily, brunch Saturday-Sunday • Pricing $$$

📍Where 14171 Clayton Road, Town and Country • More info 636-220-3238; katiespizzaandpasta.com • Hours Lunch and dinner daily, brunch Saturday-Sunday • Pricing $$$

Khanna’s Desi Vibes • Indian

Unsure what to order from the expansive menu at Khanna’s Desi Vibes in Chesterfield? Look for the smoke. Owner Pravin Khanna showcases the restaurant’s malai chicken tikka — juicy skewered chicken redolent of both tandoori char and fenugreek’s elegant sweetness — in a replica tabletop tandoor that smolders as you eat. Khanna’s, which opened in October 2020, is its eponymous owner’s first restaurant after an international career as an electrical engineer. [You can see the influence of Khanna’s travels in such fusion dishes as chicken tikka tacos and butter chicken pasta.] The menu features northern Indian cuisine, including two standout offerings drawn from Khanna’s mother’s recipes: dal makhani, black lentils in a creamy tomato sauce with bracing pops of black cardamom; and the tomato-chickpea dish Amritsari chole. The menu also impresses when it ventures into some of India’s many other regional cuisines, from crisp-juicy Indo-Chinese chicken lollipops with neon-red schezwan sauce to a Goan curry sweet with coconut and just sour enough with mangosteen.

📍 Where 13724 Olive Boulevard, Chesterfield • More info 314-392-9348; desivibesstl.com • Hours Dinner Tuesday-Saturday, lunch Tuesday-Sunday [closed Monday] • Pricing $-$$

La Patisserie Chouquette • Bakery & Desserts

On La Patisserie Chouquette’s annual macaron day in March, white bags filled with pre-orders filled the windows of Simone Faure’s Botanical Heights patisserie. A few days earlier, La Patisserie Chouquette had posted the list of this year’s flavors [among them, salted caramel, Vietnamese coffee, mango passion, cotton candy, the tease of a collaboration with Melanie Meyer of the Korean restaurant Tiny Chef] and a stern warning: “Please keep in mind that there will be more people online purchasing macarons than you can imagine. It must be treated as if you’re trying to get concert tickets.” Pleasure is a serious business at La Patisserie Chouquette. Thankfully, now that the bakery’s storefront is once again open to the public, you can also browse the everyday wonders of Faure’s creations, from the rainbow display of macarons to the quiet elegance of the canelé, from a breakfast savory and a touch sweet [bacon-cheddar corn muffins] to intensely chocolatey [the Darkness croissant] to the just-right flaky pastry cradling sweet cream cheese and caramelized apples.

📍 Where 1626 Tower Grove Avenue • More info 314-932-7935; simonefaure.com • Hours 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday [closed Sunday-Tuesday] • Pricing $

La Tejana Taqueria • Mexican

I have welcomed the recent popularity of birria tacos with beef, but the trend brought a bittersweet note. I have known only two area restaurants to serve the stew birria with goat — one of which closed during the pandemic, Pueblo Nuevo in Hazelwood. [The other is Tienda el Ranchito in Fairmont City.] Thankfully, the best goat soup in STL is still available. It isn’t birria: the consome de borrego at La Tejana Taqueria, a golden elixir of the meat’s rich, grassy, slightly funky flavor, garnished as you like with cilantro, onion, jalapeño and lime. It wasn’t soup weather when I finally made it back to Brenda and Rich Garcia’s Bridgeton gem. I didn’t care, and I also ordered tacos from La Tejana’s many appealing options [e.g., al pastor, cabeza]. The Garcias have made their restaurant and related businesses into a community hub. They have also built a family legacy. Their son runs Locoz Tacos in Tower Grove South, where you’ll find the best carne asada tacos in town.

📍 Where 3149 North Lindbergh Boulevard, Bridgeton • More info 314-291-8500; latejanastl.com • Hours Lunch and dinner daily • Pricing $

Little Fox • Contemporary, Italian

Little Fox is a deceptively modest name for the restaurant Mowgli and Craig Rivard have built in the city’s Fox Park neighborhood. Over the past 2½ years, in addition to copious local praise, Little Fox has received national attention from the New York Times [one of the 50 restaurants nationwide the paper was “most excited” about in 2021] and the James Beard Awards [Craig was a 2022 semifinalist for “Best Chef: Midwest”]. But Little Fox doesn’t loom over you with the enormity of its buzz and accolades. This is still a neighborhood restaurant at heart, a place where you are equally thrilled to stop by the bar for a cocktail and ’nduja croquetas or to gather at the table for a multicourse feast of Ozark mushrooms, thinly sliced beef ribs goosed with Calabrian chiles, housemade cavatelli and the signature grilled half-chicken. Craig’s cooking is seasonal and broadly Italian, but the spirit of food and hospitality alike is sunny in every season. Little Fox’s name, if modest, is apt. This restaurant sneaks into your heart.

📍 Where 2800 Shenandoah Avenue • More info 314-553-9456; littlefoxstl.com • Hours Dinner Tuesday-Saturday [closed Sunday-Monday] • Pricing $$$

Lona's Lil Eats • Chinese, Contemporary, Thai

Lona’s Lil Eats is a restaurant without peer in St. Louis, praise I don’t bestow lightly even on a list such as this. It begins with the fiercely personal cooking of chef and owner Lona Luo, who introduced her dumplings at a Soulard Farmers Market stall and since 2014 has overseen a restaurant menu that ranges from those mushroom or steak-and-mushroom dumplings to rice-paper wraps plump with exceptional smoked brisket or turkey in a lemongrass pesto as verdant as it is spicy. As specific as its cuisine is, Lona’s also aims to be broadly appealing, not only in its affordable counter-service model but also in how the menu carefully notes which items and individual ingredients are vegan, which contain gluten, and which those with peanut, sesame or shellfish allergies should avoid. The model of a great restaurant was already changing before the pandemic, but the past two years and their knock-on effect on labor and food costs have humbled the industry. Lona’s doesn’t show the only way forward, but a restaurant couldn’t do much better.

📍 Where 2199 California Avenue • More info 314-925-8938; lonaslileats.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Saturday [closed Sunday-Monday] • Pricing $

Louie • Contemporary, Italian

Even a great restaurant is fortunate to create one dish so immutable in its design and so beloved by regulars that it becomes known by the most generic term possible. The Chicken, say. Or the Pork Chop. At Louie, you can order the Chicken [roasted, with jus and rapini] and the Pork Chop [grilled, with shishito chiles and chermoula]. You should probably order the Hummus for the table and — why not? — the Gnocco, too. I can’t think of another restaurant that has better embodied exactly what it wanted to be in style, service and substance from the beginning than Louie. Owner Matt McGuire, chef Sean Turner and their team have built a timeless restaurant, Italian in the particulars but universal in its appeal. Which is not to say the menu hasn’t evolved. A relatively new addition features grilled octopus over crispy potatoes and chickpeas, all of it sharpened by soppressata and Calabrian chiles. Or, as I imagine the dish will soon be known, the Octopus.

📍 Where 706 DeMun Avenue, Clayton • More info 314-300-8188; louiedemun.com • Hours Dinner Monday-Saturday [closed Sunday] • Pricing $$$

Love at First Bite • Barbecue, Burgers, Sandwiches, Seafood, Vegan, Wings

When Jason Lamont, the chef, and his niece Monica Hedges opened Love at First Bite in September 2020, the takeout-only St. Ann restaurant didn’t have a commercial smoker. Lamont prepared the menu’s barbecue in a makeshift pit. Very soon, customer demand compelled the duo to add that smoker. When I most recently went to place an order here, the main barbecue menu was on hiatus for the winter. Without much thought, I ordered something else. Those two anecdotes encapsulate the Love at First Bite experience. No one dish defines Lamont’s cooking, but anything he cooks is liable to be delicious, from his signature Spinning Chicken sandwich [with Provel and spinach-artichoke-jalapeño dip] to St. Louis-style fried rice gussied up with lobster. Love at First Bite is notably vegan-friendly — not simply burgers made with Impossible-brand faux meat but fried cauliflower tossed in the restaurant’s wing sauces, vegan fried rice and even a vegan St. Paul sandwich.

📍 Where 10479 St. Charles Road, St. Ann • More info 314-695-5440; loveatfirstbitestl.com • Hours 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday [closed Sunday-Monday] • Pricing $-$$

The Lucky Accomplice • Brunch, Contemporary

Many chefs and owners pivoted their restaurants during the pandemic. Logan Ely pivoted to another restaurant altogether. This is all the more remarkable since the restaurant he pivoted away from — and which as of April 2022 remains on indefinite hiatus — is Shift [née Savage], easily one of St. Louis’ best new restaurants of the past decade. At the Lucky Accomplice, which Ely opened in September 2020 with Shift co-owner Brian Schuman and managing partner Sarah Cymber, the vibe is more casual than the tasting-menu-focused Shift, but the cooking is no less brilliant. When I visited in fall 2021, Ely was dazzling diners with a “carpaccio” of Turkish orange eggplant and mafalda with black trumpet mushrooms in a thick, saucelike Parmesan foam. Ely’s cooking is still rigorously seasonal, local and vegetable-focused, but here he will sometimes let meat be the star, with succulent roasted pork collar a go-to dish. Shift fans can take some solace: Ely occasionally hosts ticketed dinners at the Lucky Accomplice featuring a menu in the vein of his original restaurant.

📍 Where 2501 South Jefferson Avenue • More info 314-354-6100; theluckyaccomplice.com • Hours Dinner Wednesday-Sunday, brunch Sunday [closed Monday-Tuesday] • Pricing $$$

Mai Lee • Chinese, Vietnamese

I didn’t understand the enormity of what would happen to the restaurant industry until I took my family to lunch at Mai Lee one Saturday in March 2020. We were seated immediately in the beloved, usually packed restaurant. A few days later, when I interviewed Qui Tran, the son of Mai Lee founder and chef Lee Tran and himself now one of St. Louis’ most high-profile restaurateurs, I heard uncharacteristic fear in his voice: “I’m really [expletive] scared.” When I stopped by for takeout two years later — a favorite: No. 174, truu xao xa ot, stir-fried lamb with chiles and lemongrass, hot and verdant; a classic bun bowl; chicken fried rice from the Chinese menu for the kids — Mai Lee was bustling once again. That the area’s first, foremost Vietnamese restaurant made it through these two harrowing years won’t surprise anyone who has followed the Tran family’s journey from Vietnam to St. Louis and from their original University City restaurant to today. As Tran told me in a follow-up interview this March: “I’ve always hustled. But man, for that [first] year-and-a-half, there wasn’t anything I would not do.”

📍 Where 8396 Musick Memorial Drive, Brentwood • More info 314-645-2835; maileestl.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Sunday [closed Monday] • Pricing $$

Malinche Mexican Culinary Experience • Mexican

When Angel Jimenez-Gutiérrez and his mother, María Gutiérrez Molina, opened Malinche Mexican Culinary Experience in 2019 in Ellisville, they veered away from the format that defines most Mexican restaurants in St. Louis — even their own prior effort, the very good Señor Pique. Instead, they presented a selection of small plates, one of which might follow a question [what is the chimichanga, exactly?], another a family ritual [a stop at a subway tamale vendor on a trip out of Mexico City], all of them to irresistible ends. When I returned this year, Jimenez-Gutiérrez and Gutiérrez Molina had reinvigorated the menu with many newer dishes, each distinguished by vibrant flavors seamlessly brought together on the plate: molito verde, pieces of tender pork loin in a complex mole verde garnished with pepitas; campechanos, the restaurant’s signature beef arrachera [formerly served with bone marrow] with longaniza in a taco with both an inner corn-tortilla and outer griddled-cheese shell. Within its narrow shopping-plaza storefront, Malinche remains St. Louis’ most compelling Mexican restaurant.

📍 Where 15939 Manchester Road, Ellisville • More info 636-220-8514; malinchestl.com • Hours Dinner Monday-Saturday [closed Sunday] • Pricing $$

Mayo Ketchup • Cuban, Dominican, Puerto Rican

I don’t usually need to amend my rave reviews, but my write-up of Mayo Ketchup, one of 2019’s best new restaurants, neglected to mention the Buffalo tostones. As these twice-fried green plantains tossed in piquant, spicy Buffalo sauce [with celery sticks and ranch on the side, naturally] are one of the tastiest dishes at Mandy Estrella’s Lafayette Square restaurant, I had better lead with them this year. Estrella first made her name as Plantain Girl, and you could make a satisfying meal at her Puerto Rican, Dominican and Cuban restaurant focusing on her favorite ingredient: the Buffalo tostones or the tostones con aguacate topped with smashed avocado, pickled onion and lime juice to start; the jibarito, which uses planks of twice-fried green plantain as the “bread” for a pork, steak, vegetarian or vegan sandwich; and maduros, fried sweet plantains, on the side. Aside from plantains, the fast-casual menu features sandwiches — the Cuban is a standout — and bowls with braised chicken and pernil [roasted pork], both garnished with tostones.

📍 Where 2001 Park Avenue • More info 314-696-2699; plantaingirl.com • Hours Dinner Tuesday-Saturday, lunch Wednesday-Sunday [closed Monday] • Pricing $

Medina Mediterranean Grill • Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, Palestinian, Sandwiches

I don’t intend the STL 100 to be a case study of business successes. Go skim some previous editions of this list, and count how many terrific spots have since closed before their time. That said, Medina Mediterranean Grill, a fast-casual restaurant that has been a mainstay of this list since 2016, provides useful general pointers for would-be operators. For one, Medina focuses on two main dishes that lend themselves naturally to the fast-casual format, beef and chicken shawarma, and builds out its menu by distributing them among sandwiches, bowls and salads. Second, Medina invests its concept with personality, specifically with founder Ibrahim Ead’s Palestinian and American heritage. You can order your shawarma in a pita with garlic-tahini sauce and Arabic pickles [the Original Palestine] or as a shawarma cheesesteak with chipotle-tahini sauce [the Summer in Dubai]. Finally, cultivate an audience. As other downtown and downtown west restaurants have come and gone, Medina has remained on its original corner since 2015 — and expanded to the Central West End for good measure.

📍 Where 1327 Washington Avenue • More info 314-241-1356; medinagrill.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday • Pricing $

📍 Where 5 Maryland Plaza • More info 314-240-5301; medinagrill.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday • Pricing $

Meskerem Ethiopian Restaurant • Ethiopian

Meskerem Ethiopian Restaurant turns 15 this year, and the restaurant Atsede Wondem and Henok Gerbi founded is now as synonymous with dining along the vibrant South Grand corridor as such St. Louis icons as Pho Grand and the King and I. I have done my best to work through Meskerem’s menu over the past decade and a half — a daunting task, given the variety of both meat and vegetarian options available — but when I returned after the past two years, I couldn’t resist the comfort of the Meskerem Combo, the round of spongy injera topped with such signature, precisely spiced dishes as tibs wat [beef], doro wat [chicken] and miser wat, the brilliant, berbere-seasoned dish that will hip the most vocal carnivore to the charms of the lentil. If you are new to Meskerem specifically or Ethiopian cuisine generally, the Meskerem or the Vegetarian Combo is a smart place to begin. Also, if this is your first visit, the more of you at the table, the merrier.

📍 Where 3210 South Grand Boulevard • More info 314-772-4442; meskeremstl.com • Hours Lunch and dinner daily [closed Tuesday] • Pricing $-$$

Nathaniel Reid Bakery • Bakery & Desserts, Sandwiches

Simply put, Nathaniel Reid Bakery is unfair: a world-class patisserie, a coffee-and-croissant bakery and a sandwich shop that share the same storefront — the same display counter — when a typical shopping strip like its Kirkwood home would likely be happy to land just one of those three concepts. The eponymous Nathaniel Reid is a two-time James Beard Award semifinalist for “Outstanding Baker” nationwide, among numerous other plaudits over the years. Your eye will gravitate to the rainbow array of macarons to one side of the counter or the miniature cakes at its center. The latter is where my attention inevitably lands, with gems like the Ruby [a sophisticated blend of sweet and just tart enough: chocolate cake, raspberry compote and chocolate-raspberry tea mousse] or the chocolate triple-threat of the Guyana [chocolate cake, mousse and creme brulee] atop a caramelized puffed rice-hazelnut croquant. If you don’t already think of Nathaniel Reid Bakery as a sandwich shop too, smoked pork with coleslaw and chipotle mayo on springy Parmesan-red onion focaccia will be a treat before your treats.

[Disclosure: Nathaniel Reid Bakery, which makes this list for the fifth consecutive time, contracted with my wife’s PR firm in 2021.]

This post was updated to correct the description of the pork sandwich.

📍 Where 11243 Manchester Road, Kirkwood • More info 314-858-1019; nrbakery.com • Hours 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday [closed Sunday-Monday] • Pricing $-$$

Nippon Tei, Ramen Tei • Japanese, Ramen, Seafood, Sushi

Ann Bognar opened Nippon Tei in 2001, and this shopping-plaza storefront between Des Peres and Ballwin has been a St. Louis jewel ever since. Bognar herself moves between Nippon Tei’s kitchen and dining room, overseeing the restaurant’s elegantly efficient operation, including the menu her son and executive chef, Nick Bognar, reimagined a few years back. Nigiri sushi is this menu’s heart, ordered by the piece — or, better still, as the omakase selection of the day’s five best pieces. For $28 on my visit, it yielded bites of perfect momentary pleasure: snow-white flounder with a tiny but staggering chile charge; sweet Hokkaido scallop with a pop of lychee; benitoro [seared salmon belly] as luxurious as an exquisitely marbled rib-eye. Pair this with a smartly constructed roll [the Tiger Cry, with yellowtail and spicy crab], light, sweet tempura prawns or the wagyu burger steam bun, which evokes both bao and a late-night slider. In April, the Bognars announced Nippon Tei would relocate this fall to the Hill and become a new sushi concept called Sado.

📍 Where 14025 Manchester Road, Ballwin • More info 636-386-8999; nippon.teistl.com • Hours Dinner Wednesday-Sunday [closed Monday-Tuesday] • Pricing $$-$$$

Nixta • Mexican

Ben Poremba’s Nixta has followed a fascinating, if not exactly linear, path from its late-2016 debut to today. Celebrated for its initial approach under Poremba and chef Tello Carreon — alongside effusive local praise, the Mexican restaurant was one of Bon Appétit’s 10 best restaurants in the country in 2017 — Nixta then took a detour to the Yucatán with chef Alex Henry before eventually winding back to something like its original form. Under Poremba and chef Juana Caballero, the kitchen sends out such signature dishes as chicken in mole negro, the octopus with salsa macha and spit-roasted tacos al pastor with pineapple folded confidently into single tortillas. On a recent visit, the highlight was a tostada with the gentle sweetness of fresh avocado and the initial bright pop and lingering oceanic sting of smoked trout roe. One consistent Nixta strength I haven’t given enough attention is the beverage program, which can even fashion a refreshing but elegant daiquiri from tequila.

📍 Where 1621 Tower Grove Avenue • More info 314-899-9000; bengelina.com/nixta • Hours Dinner Tuesday-Saturday [closed Sunday-Monday] • Pricing $$$

Nomad • Burgers, Sandwiches

Nomad opened in February 2020, mere weeks before the pandemic arrived. The experience was “terrifying,” Nomad’s chef-owner Tommy Andrew told me in late March of that year. Observant diners might have known Andrew from his work at Mike Randolph’s late Randolfi’s Italian Kitchen and other area restaurants, but Nomad was only beginning to build name recognition — a process complicated by the fact that it had succeeded the popular burger restaurant Mac’s Local Eats as the food venue for Tamm Avenue Bar in Dogtown. Andrew didn’t want Nomad to be another burger joint. He focused instead on pastrami and is now producing St. Louis’ best version of that dish: beef brisket brined for 10 to 14 days, seasoned generously with black pepper and coriander and smoked for 12 to 14 hours. Nomad’s signature sandwich piles this pastrami between slices of marble rye bread and accents it with Swiss cheese and the house special sauce. As it happens, Nomad also serves an excellent smashed burger. Pile the patties as high as the pastrami, if you dare.

📍 Where Tamm Avenue Bar, 1221 Tamm Avenue • More info 314-696-2360; nomadstl.square.site • Hours Lunch and dinner Wednesday-Sunday [closed Monday-Tuesday] • Pricing $

Noto Italian Restaurant • Italian, Pizza

Plan dinner weeks ahead, beg friends with reservations to let you tag along, squeeze yourself into the one open seat at the bar — seize any opportunity to visit Noto Italian Restaurant. Since opening in January 2020, and against pandemic headwinds, Kendele and Wayne Sieve’s St. Peters restaurant has become one of the metro area’s toughest tables and its prime destination for Neapolitan pizza. Blitzed in Noto’s 1,000-degree, wood-fired oven, Wayne’s 32-hour-fermented dough transforms into an airy, gorgeously charred crust you should [and in some cases must] order uncut. Get here however you can, but the smart play is to dine with a group and pair a couple of Wayne’s pies with a few of executive chef Josh Poletti’s pastas, from simple, perfect tortellini en brodo to luxurious lobster ravioli. Leave room for cannoli or another of Kendele’s desserts. Her father previously operated J. Noto’s Bakery at this address, which makes Noto both one of the best restaurants to open in this young decade and the next chapter of a family legacy.

📍 Where 5105 Westwood Drive, St. Peters • More info 636-317–1143; notopizza.com • Hours Dinner Wednesday-Saturday [closed Sunday-Tuesday] • Pricing $$-$$$

Nudo House • Japanese, Ramen, Vietnamese

Nudo House is a counter-service restaurant built for convenience but steeped in patience. Co-owners Marie-Anne Velasco and Qui Tran planned their ramen restaurant for several years and took lessons from Japanese ramen master Shigetoshi Nakamura before opening the original Nudo House in 2017 in Creve Coeur. The tonkotsu broth ladled quickly into your bowl is based on pork bones boiled for 20-plus hours and features slices of chashu pork belly that have marinated for a day. Velasco and Tran named their chicken paitan ramen the Hebrew Hammer for all the schmaltz that rises while its broth bubbles away. The time required here will not be news to anyone who knows ramen or pho, Nudo House’s other specialty — or anyone who has made halfway decent stock at home, for that matter. Still, when I brought home Nudo House ramen during the pandemic, I poured the broth slowly from its container into the bowl with the noodles, partly not to splash, partly to savor the journey from there to here.

📍 Where 11423 Olive Boulevard, Creve Coeur • More info 314-274-8046; nudohousestl.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Monday-Saturday [closed Sunday] • Pricing $

📍 Where 6105-A Delmar Boulevard • More info 314-370-6970; nudohousestl.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Sunday [closed Monday] • Pricing $

O! Wing Plus • Korean, Wings

You don’t need to sign a waiver to eat any of the wings at O! Wing Plus in Overland, though its hottest flavor, Beast Mode, surely earns its name. You will find a fine version of classic Buffalo sauce here, but if I were to rank O! Wing’s flavors, I would place it no higher than fifth. For a little more than a decade now, Steven and Heidy Song have served wings their way, and theirs are the best wings in town. I first celebrated them in another publication in 2010 and have returned many times since, which spares me only a bit of the embarrassment for not having included O! Wing Plus on this list sooner. The Songs have mastered the balance of hot and sweet, from the red chile-brown sugar combination of the O’s Original sauce to the citrus-kissed Thai chile lime to the honey-tempered blaze of their Hot Mama! flavor, just a skosh less incendiary than Beast Mode. A side of cooling ranch or bleu cheese dressing is probably a good idea.

📍 Where 10094 Page Avenue, Overland • More info 314-395-0180; owingplus.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Monday-Saturday [closed Sunday] • Pricing $

O+O Pizza • Italian, Pizza

O+O Pizza doesn’t reimagine the pizzeria or the neighborhood Italian restaurant, but the latest venture from the owners of Webster Groves sensation Olive + Oak and its cafe spinoff the Clover and the Bee approaches this well-traveled terrain with refreshing vigor. Chef Mike Risk certainly knows the cuisine. Beginning as a teenager, he spent 12 formative years cooking at Trattoria Marcella. More recently, before the pandemic, he introduced his take on veal Parmesan and other classic Italian dishes to the Clover and the Bee dinner menu. At O+O Pizza, which opened in September 2020 in the original Olive + Oak space, Risk both refines and expands his approach. He stuffs handmade toasted ravioli with beef, pancetta tesa and fontina; bathes a strip steak in herb butter and colatura vinaigrette; marks corzetti with a custom-made octopus stamp and serves the coin-shaped pasta with grilled octopus in bone-marrow butter. Even the pizza finds its own niche, thin and crisp with a bit of a chew — not quite New York, not quite tavern-style.

📍 Where 102 West Lockwood Avenue, Webster Groves • More info 314-721-5422; oandopizza.oohosp.com • Hours Dinner daily • Pricing $$-$$$

Olio • Contemporary, Israeli, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern

Tear off a piece of warm, puffy pita bread and swirl it around Olio’s best-in-class King of Kings hummus. Drag your Jerusalem bagel through tart pomegranate molasses. Sip a cocktail and snack on Moroccan olives bright with coriander and citrus. Too often in previous editions of this list I’ve called Olio the “more casual” counterpart to Ben Poremba’s fine-dining flagship Elaia. This is true, of course, but most restaurants are more casual than Elaia, and a decade after the duo debuted in the city’s Botanical Heights neighborhood, the description doesn’t capture Olio’s essence. This is a place, if you’re comfortable again, to linger with friends over good food and good drink — or to treat yourself to a restorative solo meal of a grain salad with tomato, cucumber and feta or a compact gyro with snappy pickles and a surprising heat.

📍 Where 1634 Tower Grove Avenue • More info 314-932-1088; bengelina.com/olio • Hours Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Sunday [closed Monday] • Pricing $$-$$$

Olive + Oak • Contemporary

“How could Olive + Oak be substantially more impressive?” was never a question I asked. The Webster Groves blockbuster seemed fully formed when it opened in 2016 thanks to the exuberant cooking of executive chef Jesse Mendica and the warm hospitality fostered by co-owner Mark Hinkle. Mendica certainly hasn’t stood still since then. Over the years, the multiple-time James Beard Award “Best Chef: Midwest” semifinalist Mendica has balanced Olive + Oak’s instant classics [the blue-crab gratin, cheese curds and cowboy steak for two] with such fascinating dishes as a rabbit mole, a sort of octopus al pastor and, on my most recent visit, a thick lamb chop in a prickly, Dr Pepper-inspired sauce. In 2020, though, Olive + Oak relocated a short distance to a larger and even more beautiful new space that has retained the restaurant’s heart. Olive + Oak has also increased its presence in the community: Perennial on Lockwood, an appealing brewpub collaboration with Perennial Artisan Ales, is adjacent to its new location, and its original home is now the terrific Italian restaurant O+O Pizza.

📍 Where 216 West Lockwood Avenue, Webster Groves • More info 314-736-1370; oliveandoak.oohosp.com • Hours Dinner daily • Pricing $$$-$$$$

Pappy’s Smokehouse, Bogart’s Smokehouse • Barbecue

The twin pillars of St. Louis’ decade-plus boom of new barbecue restaurants, the beloved model student and its spunkier younger sibling, Pappy’s Smokehouse in midtown [and now also St. Peters] and Bogart’s Smokehouse in Soulard have both settled into their iconic status. You could look no further than the two restaurants’ ribs to understand their relationship, Pappy’s old-school Memphis-style dry rub vs. Bogart’s playful apricot-brulee finish, each approach perfect in its own way. Beyond their ribs, I tend to favor Pappy’s for pulled pork and burnt ends, Bogart’s for its pastrami and tri-tip, Pappy’s for the variety of sides, Bogart’s for the inimitable beans. Both restaurants impress far more often than not across their entire menus. Few of the barbecue restaurants that have followed in their wake can claim as much.

📍 Where Pappy’s Smokehouse, 3106 Olive Street • More info 314-535-4340; pappyssmokehouse.com • Hours 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Thursday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday [or until sold out; closed Monday-Tuesday] • Pricing $-$$

📍 Where Pappy’s Smokehouse, 5246 North Service Road, St. Peters • More info 636-244-5400; pappyssmokehouse.com • Hours 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday [or until sold out; closed Monday-Tuesday] • Pricing $-$$

📍 Where Bogart’s Smokehouse, 1627 South Ninth Street • More info 314-621-3107; bogartssmokehouse.com • Hours 10:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday [or until sold out; closed Sunday-Monday] • Pricing $-$$

Pastaria, Pastaria Deli & Wine • Italian, Pizza, Sandwiches

Since opening 10 years ago, Pastaria has been the most broadly appealing of Gerard Craft’s restaurants, a place where a lively evening with friends can share the dining room with a romantic date at the table to the left and a family dinner at the table to the right. During the pandemic, Pastaria’s spirit grew even more capacious when Craft turned the adjacent storefront [previously his other Italian restaurant, Sardella] into Pastaria Deli & Wine, offering a selection of sandwiches alongside retail wine and other provisions. The sandwiches follow the template set by Pastaria’s pastas and wood-fired pizzas, familiar, even classic, but not hemmed in by tradition: tuna salad, roasted turkey with Calabrian-chile mayonnaise, Volpi Heritage prosciutto with giardiniera and lemon agrumato. Meanwhile, at Pastaria itself, where Craft and his team had the menu dialed in more or less from the beginning, the cooking has retained the careful technique and vibrant flavors of a new kitchen seeking to impress.

📍 Where Pastaria, 7734 Forsyth Boulevard, Clayton • More info 314-862-6603; eatpastaria.com/stlouis • Hours Dinner daily [closed Tuesday] • Pricing $$-$$$

📍 Where Pastaria Deli & Wine, 7734 Forsyth Boulevard, Clayton • More info 314-773-7755; pastariadeliwine.com • Hours Lunch Tuesday-Saturday [closed Sunday-Monday] • Pricing $

Pizza-a-Go-Go • Italian, Pizza

A former boss turned me onto Pizza-a-Go-Go not quite two decades ago. The no-frills pizzeria has been around since 1967, but when you’re a transplant here, as I was circa 2003, you need someone to point you in the right direction — specifically to the squat Lindenwood Park building where hand-tossed dough is topped with tomato sauce, cheese and nothing fancier than Canadian bacon. A deck oven yields a thin crust with that trifecta of crisp, chew and golden-brown shade only a deck oven can produce. Frank LaFata founded Pizza-a-Go-Go on South Grand, moved the pizzeria to another spot on the same street in 1980 and relocated it to its current home in the late 1990s. His son, Paul, worked with him, and when I first started visiting, Paul would be tending to the kitchen while his father greeted diners from his seat in the dining room. Pizza-a-Go-Go fell out of my regular rotation for a while. No reason — just the way things go sometimes. Frank LaFata died in November 2020 at age 90. His son is still making Pizza-a-Go-Go’s perfect pizzas and still taking only cash or checks. If you know, you know. If you don’t, tell him I sent you.

📍 Where 6703 Scanlan Avenue • More info 314-781-1234; pizzaagogostl.wixsite.com/pizzaagogostl • Hours Dinner daily [closed Wednesday] • Pricing $

Pizzeria da Gloria • Italian, Pizza

Pizzeria da Gloria owner and pizzaiolo Joe Kurowski named the Bonci pizza at his Hill restaurant after the renowned Italian pizzaiolo Gabriele Bonci. Last decade, Kurowski took a master class with Bonci, “a big, bombastic personality,” he said in a 2021 interview, whose pizza is “like magic almost.” I know Bonci the pizzaiolo only by reputation, so I can’t say how Kurowski’s pies stack up against his, but I can say that Kurowski’s Bonci pizza casts its own spell. The very thin slices of roasted eggplant fanned across this vegan wood-fired pie convey such a depth of savory, smoky and ever so slightly sweet pleasure that you don’t miss or even think about cheese and meat. If you do miss cheese and meat, Pizzeria da Gloria also serves terrific pepperoni, housemade sausage and sausage-broccoli rabe pizzas. More than any one pie, what sets this restaurant apart is the crust, which Kurowski fires for three to four minutes between 650 and 700 degrees: naturally tangy, airy, lightly chewy, magic.

📍 Where 2024 Marconi Avenue • More info 314-833-3734; pizzeriadagloria.com • Hours Dinner Tuesday-Saturday, lunch Saturday [closed Sunday] • Pricing $$

Planter’s House • Contemporary

Seating at the bar had just resumed when I returned to Planter’s House this March. Once again you can watch closely as Ted Kilgore’s team members stir and shake timeless classics and the expansive, often-changing repertoire of Planter’s House originals. You might mumble or strategically elide the names of a cocktail like Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, but your glass holds a bold yet sophisticated concoction of blanco tequila, spiced hibiscus liqueur and a blood-orange puree. Or maybe it’s the simply, aptly named Reverie, which brings together bourbon and brandy [among others] with a seamless, can’t-do-this-at-home elegance I desperately missed during the pandemic’s height. Planter’s House has featured St. Louis’ best cocktails since Kilgore opened it with his wife, Jamie, and business partner Ted Charak in 2013. The food has continued to rise in my esteem, with chef Sam Boettler turning out hearty bistro fare, fun snacks [gochujang-seasoned Chex Mix] and a terrific burger [two 4-ounce patties with manchego cheese, a chorizo spread and a fiery pickled-serrano relish] served with even better fries.

📍 Where 1000 Mississippi Avenue • More info 314-696-2603; plantershousestl.com • Hours Dinner Tuesday-Sunday [closed Monday] • Pricing $$-$$$

Rice Thai Bistro • Thai

Since 2014, Bryan and Nina Prapaisilpa have operated Rice Thai Bistro from a Winchester storefront that might violate the laws of time and space if it were any smaller. Both husband and wife are members of larger restaurant families — one of his uncles is the founder of both the King and I and the international grocery store Global Foods Market, while each of her three sisters runs her own establishment [Chiang Mai, Nippon Tei and Sushi Koi] — but here the couple has built their own legacy. The menu might rekindle your love for a straightforward green curry, rounded out here with Thai eggplant, or ignite a new obsession for two of Rice Thai Bistro’s signature appetizers, moo ping pork with its hot-and-sour tamarind dipping sauce and pan-fried chive dumplings. I usually admire the personal touch of dining in Rice’s tiny space, but even when brought home as takeout, the food’s flavor popped. This could have been no one else’s cooking but the Prapaisilpas’.

Trong đó14536 Đường Manchester, Winchester • Thông tin thêm636-220-1777; Ricethaibistrostl.com • GiờDinner Thứ Tư-Chủ Nhật [Đóng cửa Thứ Hai-Thứ Hai] • Giá $-$$ 14536 Manchester Road, Winchester • More info 636-220-1777; ricethaibistrostl.com • Hours Dinner Wednesday-Sunday [closed Monday-Tuesday] • Pricing $-$$

Root Food + Rượu vang • Thực đơn đương đại, nếm thử chim cút hun khói. Ảnh của Colter Peterson, Post-Dispatch • Contemporary, Tasting Menu

Nhà phát triển David Hoffmann đã thực hiện một dự án trị giá 100 triệu đô la để biến Augusta nhỏ thành Thung lũng Napa của Trung Tây. Đầu bếp Philip Day đã đặt cược khiêm tốn hơn vào thị trấn rượu vang Missouri này khoảng 300, nhưng khoản đầu tư của ông đã mang lại cổ tức cho các thực khách tìm kiếm một nhà hàng đích với sự rung cảm của một khu phố yêu dấu. Tại Root Food + Wine, được khai trương vào tháng 4 năm 2021 trong một ngôi nhà khoảng thế kỷ, ngày thu hút các nguyên liệu địa phương, theo mùa và một loạt các kỹ thuật toàn cầu. Bữa tối vào cuối mùa thu năm ngoái có chim cút hun khói và nướng lạnh và nướng với một chiếc mousseline mềm và thịt gà, bánh bao thịt bò hấp trong nước dùng mượt với bơ miso, và một món súp nấm phong phú được chế tạo từ thân cây mushroom. Đối với trải nghiệm ăn uống đầy đủ, thực đơn nếm thử bảy món của Day, trình bày một ngày nhất định, toàn bộ lựa chọn hai người mới bắt đầu, ba món chính và hai món tráng miệng, nhưng bữa tối năm và ba món của anh là lý do thuyết phục không kém để đến thăm Root.

📍 Trong đó5525 Walnut Street, Augusta • Thông tin thêm636-544-1009; rootfoodwine.com • GiờDinner Thứ Tư-Thứ Bảy, Bữa trưa Thứ Bảy [Đóng cửa Thứ Hai Thứ Hai] • Giá $$$-$$$$$ 5525 Walnut Street, Augusta • More info 636-544-1009; rootfoodwine.com • Hours Dinner Wednesday-Saturday, lunch Saturday [closed Monday-Tuesday] • Pricing $$$-$$$$

Muối + Khói • Thịt nướng, bánh mì kẹp thịt rán Jalapeño và Cheddar Bologna Sandwich. Ảnh của Christian Gooden, Post-Dispatch • Barbecue, Burgers

Nếu tôi có thể mang lại bất kỳ nhà hàng nào đã đóng cửa trong hai thập kỷ qua, thì đó sẽ là Franco, Bistro Tom Schmidt của Pháp hoạt động tại Soulard từ năm 2006 đến 2016. Mặc dù vậy, tôi có lẽ nên kiểm tra với Schmidt trước. Anh ấy có một chút bận rộn trong những ngày này với Salt + Smoke, nhà hàng thịt nướng hit hit mà anh ấy đã ra mắt vào năm 2014. Hiện có năm địa điểm khói + muối, bao gồm cả tiền đồn bóng sân bóng bóng mượt với một sàn trên sân thượng ra mắt vào năm 2021. , nhà hàng đã rút ra từ sự tôn trọng truyền thống và truyền cảm hứng cho lòng hiếu khách khiến Franco trở nên vượt thời gian vừa hoàn toàn hiện đại. Schmidt và đồng sở hữu và Pitmaster Haley Riley làm đúng bởi thịt ức kiểu Texas [lấy vết cắt béo] cũng như sườn heo, thịt lợn và thịt gà, nhưng họ cũng biết thịt nướng sẽ rất vui. Họ nhét đốt kết thúc thành T-Ravs, hút thuốc và chiên jalapeño-cheddar bologna, và ném popover cheddar đặc trưng của họ lên những chiếc đĩa đã đông đúc với giá vé nồng nhiệt.

WHERE6525 Đại lộ Delmar, Thành phố Đại học • Thông tin khác314-727-0200; SaltandSmokeBBQ.com • Giờ và bữa tối hàng ngày • Giá $-$$ 6525 Delmar Boulevard, University City • More info 314-727-0200; saltandsmokebbq.com • Hours Lunch and dinner daily • Pricing $-$$

📍 Trong đó5625 Đại lộ Hampton • Thông tin khác314-727-0200; SaltandSmokeBBQ.com • Giờ và bữa tối hàng ngày • Giá $-$$ 5625 Hampton Avenue • More info 314-727-0200; saltandsmokebbq.com • Hours Lunch and dinner daily • Pricing $-$$

📍 Trong đó392 Đại lộ North Euclid • Thông tin khác314-727-0200; SaltandSmokeBBQ.com • Giờ và bữa tối hàng ngày • Giá $-$$ 392 North Euclid Avenue • More info 314-727-0200; saltandsmokebbq.com • Hours Lunch and dinner daily • Pricing $-$$

WHERE501 South Main Street, St. Charles • Thông tin thêm314-727-0200; SaltandSmokeBBQ.com • Giờ và bữa tối hàng ngày • Giá $-$$ 501 South Main Street, St. Charles • More info 314-727-0200; saltandsmokebbq.com • Hours Lunch and dinner daily • Pricing $-$$

WHERE501 Clark Street • Thông tin thêm314-727-0200; SaltandSmokeBBQ.com • Giờ và bữa tối hàng ngày • Giá $-$$ 501 Clark Street • More info 314-727-0200; saltandsmokebbq.com • Hours Lunch and dinner daily • Pricing $-$$

Nhà hàng Afghanistan Afghanistan • Afghanistan Lamb Biryani. Ảnh của Joseph Cooke, Post-Dispatch • Afghan

Kể từ khi Qayum và Fahime Mohammad mở Tháp Grove Grove South địa điểm của nhà hàng SHOMEM Afghanistan vào năm 2005, vợ của anh em và Qayum, Sitara, đã giới thiệu vô số thực khách St. Louis đến ẩm thực của Afghanistan. Không hoàn toàn hai thập kỷ sau, và bây giờ là trụ cột của bối cảnh ăn uống thịnh vượng ở Grove, Sameem vẫn là một trải nghiệm duy nhất. Tôi thường khuyên bạn nên bắt đầu với một đơn đặt hàng sambosas, cả hai đều xuất sắc và một chiếc xe nhúng cho nhà hàng tương ớt xanh phi thường. Nhưng bạn sẽ hạnh phúc không kém khi bắt đầu bữa ăn của mình với một cốc Aash hoặc Pakowra sắc nét. Trong số các khóa học chính, tôi có xu hướng ủng hộ thịt gà cay, cà chua hoặc thịt cừu karahi hoặc con chiên, nĩa thịt cừu om với gạo biryani. Gà và thịt cừu gây ấn tượng trong suốt thực đơn - cả nướng và thịt gà trong nhà hoặc nước sốt cà ri tikka masala - nhưng nhà bếp cũng biết làm thế nào để làm cho cà tím nướng với tỏi, gừng và rối [và cả garlicky] sữa chua cho món khai vị boorani.

📍 Trong đó4341 Đại lộ Manchester • Thông tin hơn314-534-9500; Sameems.com • Giờ và bữa tối Thứ Ba-Chủ Nhật [Thứ Hai Đóng] • Giá $-$$ 4341 Manchester Avenue • More info 314-534-9500; sameems.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Sunday [closed Monday] • Pricing $-$$

Sides of Seoul • Korean

Sides of Seoul has embraced a few different identities in its first four years. The original owner of this slender Overland storefront specialized in prepackaged banchan [hence the name], though a few Korean meals were available for takeout. The Lee family — Terry, who previously owned a restaurant in Columbia, Missouri; his mother, Mimi, whose cooking had won over family, friends and her church; and his sister and brother-in-law Youni and James Cho — took over Sides of Seoul in late 2018 and, while keeping some banchan, converted the space into a counter-service restaurant. The menu is a winning selection of kimbap; bulgogi, spicy pork and other rice bowls and meal boxes; and especially soups and stews, from the soulful, patiently developed ox-bone broth [seolleongtang] to bubbling, brilliant kimchi jjigae. During the pandemic, and continuing as of April 2022, Sides of Seoul has shifted its menu to takeout-only and expanded its selection of prepackaged kimchi [both the restaurant’s signature cabbage and numerous other varieties] and marinated and pickled vegetables, seafood and other banchan.

📍 Where 10084 Page Avenue, Overland • More info 314-942-8940; sos-sides-of-seoul-korean-take-out.business.site • Hours Lunch and dinner Monday-Saturday [closed Sunday] • Pricing $

Sidney Street Cafe • Contemporary

Dining at Sidney Street Cafe for the first time in two years, I found the menu of Kevin Nashan’s acclaimed, beloved Benton Park restaurant reassuringly familiar and surprisingly, appealingly looser than usual. There were classic dishes [lobster turnovers in crackling phyllo with a tomato-brandy reduction] and expected modern fare [hamachi crudo, though here unexpectedly paired with popcorn]. But beyond the signature selection of appetizers presented on a tabletop chalkboard, there were both artfully plated main courses and an assortment of a-la-carte options. A friend and I ended up packing our table with both an elegant beef-cheek dish and a straightforward jerk quail that I broke apart with teeth and fingers [I did the same with another standout starter, gochujang ribs], a little dish of polenta and a staggeringly good spaetzle with sweet Dungeness crab. Two years ago, I wrote in the STL 100 that the James Beard Award-winning Nashan had nothing left to prove. I was wrong. Faced with the pandemic’s unprecedented challenge, he has let Sidney Street adapt and move forward.

📍 Where 2000 Sidney Street • More info 314-771-5777; sidneystreetcafestl.com • Hours Dinner Tuesday-Saturday [closed Sunday-Monday] • Pricing $$$$

Sister Cities Cajun • Cajun/Creole

On this side of the pandemic, Pamela Melton and Travis Parfait’s Sister Cities Cajun operates both a table-service and counter-service model, depending on the day, but the restaurant’s core menu of Cajun fare is unchanged and its appeal undiminished, from the signature dry-rubbed and smoked wings to crunchy-to-tender fried catfish smothered in crawfish étouffée to the other signature, seafood gumbo, a spicy dark roux loaded with shrimp, crawfish, scallops, clams and fish. “Terrebonne Parish’s Best!” the menu boasts of the gumbo, and I wouldn’t argue with Dulac, Louisiana, native Parfait. [As always, you can order the gumbo by itself or poured over smoked chicken, the Dirty Chick.] Melton and Parfait’s perseverance is unsurprising. The couple opened the original Sister Cities Cajun in 2013 in Dutchtown, and the restaurant survived its building being hit by two different cars within four months before relocating to its current, much more spacious location along South Broadway in Marine Villa.

📍 Where 3550 South Broadway • More info 314-405-0447; sistercitiescajun.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Thursday-Sunday • Pricing $-$$

Songbird • Breakfast, Contemporary, Sandwiches

Songbird is both a newcomer to the STL 100 — it opened in late 2020 in Forest Park Southeast — and a mainstay of this list. The breakfast-focused cafe is the most recent venture from business partners Chris Meyer and Mike Miller, the duo I have previously honored for the pop-up Kitchen Kulture and the small, takeout-only restaurant Kounter Kulture. Songbird continues their knack for building vibrant destinations out of compact spaces. Here a kitchen too small to accommodate boiling bagels led the team to bake crusty sesame-seed bialys to pair with house-cured salmon. In another restaurant, this and the breakfast tamale with cotija and stewed black beans would be the signature dishes, but Songbird has also become the permanent home for Meyer and Miller’s most beloved creation, the Combo breakfast sandwich [white cheddar, smoked bacon, a fried egg, sea salt and honey] that made their name at the Tower Grove Farmers Market. At Songbird, Meyer and Miller have pulled off a rare feat, coming full circle while still moving forward.

📍 Where 4476 Chouteau Avenue • More info 314-781-4344; songbirdstl.com • Hours Breakfast and lunch Monday and Thursday-Sunday [closed Tuesday-Wednesday] • Pricing $

Soup Dumplings STL, Private Kitchen • Chinese

Xiao long bao — soup dumplings, plump steamed purses of meat or seafood in broth — were one of the dishes that put Lawrence and Emily Chen’s tiny University City restaurant Private Kitchen on local diners’ radar when it opened in 2015. Two years later, the Chens gave their soup dumplings their own storefront in the same shopping strip as Private Kitchen. The dumplings did and still do deserve the spotlight, the crab-pork combination especially. The rich, sweet-and-savory broth would draw me here if it were served by itself in a bowl. In previous years, I have led this joint entry with Private Kitchen instead, where you must make a reservation and order ahead of time from Lawrence’s menu, which focuses on the cuisine of Shanghai. Right now, Lawrence told me, that menu is available only for takeout. Given the beauty of his platings, I am willing to wait and let Soup Dumplings STL take center stage this year instead.

📍 Where Soup Dumplings STL, 8110 Olive Boulevard, University City • More info 314-445-4605; facebook.com/soupdumplingstl • Hours Lunch and dinner daily [closed Tuesday] • Pricing $

📍 Where Private Kitchen, 8106 Olive Boulevard, University City • More info 314-445-4605; facebook.com/privatekitchenstl • Hours Contact via text for hours and availability • Pricing $$-$$$$

Sultan Mediterranean Restaurant • Mediterranean, Middle Eastern

At Sultan Mediterranean Restaurant in the Grove, chef and owner Jenar Mohammed has built a menu from both family recipes — she and her husband came to the United States in the 1980s from the Kurdistan region of Iraq — and dishes she has learned from YouTube cooking videos. You would never guess which items she has been cooking for years and which she has taught herself more recently. You could begin with the dish that shares the restaurant’s name, Sultan pilau: Also known as pardu pilau, it delivers both lamb and rice cooked in lamb stock with raisins, carrots and nuts under a crisp, delicate phyllo shell. You could also point to the menu at random, from fragrant, garlicky chicken biryani to plump muntoo [steamed dumplings] in tangy yogurt sauce to the Palestinian flatbread with chicken musakhan. A cup of Sultan’s excellent curried lentil soup is complimentary when you order a main course at lunch. In any other circumstance, you must purchase it instead — and you must.

📍 Where 4200 Manchester Avenue • More info 314-390-2020; sultan-stl.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Sunday [closed Monday] • Pricing $-$$

Sureste • Mexican

Alex Henry first drew attention as the second executive chef of Ben Poremba’s Nixta. A native of Mérida, Mexico, Henry brought the cuisine of the Yucatán to that Mexican restaurant’s already acclaimed menu. Later, I noticed some Yucatecan touches during his time as executive chef of Cleveland-Heath, though he mainly kept that Edwardsville restaurant on its upscale-comfort-food track. In October 2021, Henry opened his debut restaurant inside the Food Hall at City Foundry: Sureste, a marvel of Yucatecan food and, as often as possible, locally sourced ingredients. Henry serves citrusy cochinita pibil, turkey in a smoky, earthy burnt-chile sauce, and other vibrantly flavored dishes in bowls with freshly made corn tortillas on the side [tacos guisado], or stuffed with the toasted baby lima bean and ground pepita dish toksel in a crispy Mayan-style fried roll [pibihua] or atop bean-filled tostadas [panuchos]. Sureste also impresses with its seafood, especially ceviche and shrimp in a lime juice-based green aguachile as refreshing in its tartness as it is searing in its chile heat.

📍 Where Food Hall at City Foundry, 3730 Foundry Way • More info cityfoundrystl.com/directory/sur-este • Hours Lunch and dinner daily [closed Tuesday] • Pricing $

SweetArt • Bakery & Desserts, Breakfast, Sandwiches, Vegan, Vegetarian

SweetArt chef and owner Reine Keis recently launched a line of plant-based baking mixes called Love + Magic, which would also be a fitting name for her Shaw cafe if SweetArt wasn’t already synonymous with terrific and entirely vegan baked goods and breakfast and lunch fare. SweetArt didn’t shift from curbside pickup to takeout until late 2021, and the dining room didn’t open until early this year, so it’s still a new relief to be able to peruse the bakery’s display counter once again and pick out a simple and not overly frosted caramel cupcake, a decadent peanut-butter brownie, a gooey cinnamon roll you can’t help but pull apart with your fingers. Keis also slings vegan biscuit sandwiches and breakfast tacos and one of the original and best St. Louis vegan burgers. It doesn’t try to imitate meat. You’ll love it anyway.

📍 Where 2203 South 39th Street • More info 314-771-4278; sweetartstl.com • Hours 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Thursday-Saturday [closed Sunday-Wednesday] • Pricing $

Taberu • Catering & Delivery, Japanese, Seafood, Sushi

Taberu, by the chef Heidi Hamamura, is neither a traditional restaurant nor a pop-up, but an autonomous operation that can deliver a sushi platter for two to your front door or cater a wedding for 200. However you want to categorize it, Taberu is one of the most exciting developments in St. Louis sushi in recent years. If you don’t know Hamamura herself — her experience has included Elaia and the St. Louis Club — you might recognize her last name. Her father, Naomi, is an iconic St. Louis sushi chef [and ice sculptor]. With Taberu, Hamamaru is charting her own course, packing her platters with exceptional nigiri, flavorful [but not overwrought] maki, and a surprise or two. The first time I ordered one of her platters, the surprise was a piece of nigiri that looked like duck breast and tasted both meaty and smoky; it was, in fact, smoked duck breast. I can’t guarantee you will land that particular piece, but Hamamura says customers often ask about her smoked octopus, spicy torched scallops and white tuna. A platter for two begins at $125, and Hamamura takes orders through Taberu’s Instagram account, where the photos will sell you on her sushi if I haven’t already.

📍 Where Catering and delivery service • More info instagram.com/taberu_stl • Pricing $$$$

Tacos La Jefa • Mexican, Tacos

A portrait of Heriberta Amescua now overlooks the cramped back corner Tacos La Jefa occupies inside Urban Eats. Since September 2020, diners have thronged the Dutchtown food incubator for the weekend pop-ups featuring Amescua’s beef birria. They order it as a platter in takeout clamshells wobbly with the heft of meat, rice and beans. They order it especially as quesabirria, birria and cheese folded into a tortilla tinged the dusky sunset red of the consommé in which the beef is cooked. During the birria boom of recent years, the consommé served alongside the tacos is how you can separate keepers from pretenders, and Tacos La Jefa’s is the best in town, prickly with chiles and spices, so rich that it is somehow simultaneously velvety and sticky. Opening the pop-up was the next step toward Amescua’s dream of a restaurant. The native of Guadalajara, Mexico, had already cultivated a fanbase for her cooking at area Hispanic festivals and pop-up events in her own backyard. She died in April 2021, but under her portrait and in her spirit, her family works to continue her legacy.

📍 Where Urban Eats, 3301 Meramec Street • More info facebook.com/tacoslajefastl • Hours Lunch Saturday; check Facebook or instagram.com/tacoslajefastl for additional/changed services • Pricing $

Tai Ke Shabu Shabu • Taiwanese

The Taiwanese restaurant Tai Ke closed its original location in late 2020 ahead of the long-delayed, Costco-anchored commercial development that had targeted its University City building [and several others] for demolition. When it reopened in January 2021 in Olivette, it did so with a slightly different name for its new digs: Tai Ke Shabu Shabu. The dining room features a central counter where diners sit in front of individual pots of bubbling broth to which they add their choice of main ingredient and any number of add-ons. The hot-pot option is enjoyable, and I look forward to exploring it further in the coming year. Fans of Tai Ke should also know, however, that the new Olivette location includes standard dining tables as well, and chef-owner Calvin Koong continues to offer the Taiwanese dishes — popcorn chicken, three cup chicken, gua bao and other street snacks, among them – that has made this restaurant a mainstay of the STL 100.

📍 Where 9626 Olive Boulevard, Olivette • More info 314-801-8411; taikeshabushabu.com • Hours Lunch and dinner daily [closed Tuesday] • Pricing $$

Taqueria Durango • Mexican, Tacos

When a fire gutted Taqueria Durango in early March 2020, St. Louis restaurants rallied around the Overland mainstay. Brian Hardesty of Guerrilla Street Food organized a GoFundMe campaign that raised more than $14,000 for owners Miguel and Isadora Lopez. The arrival of COVID-19 scuttled plans for a follow-up fundraising event, but only months later, it was the Lopez family helping those in need, distributing donations outside their shuttered restaurant during the first pandemic summer. Both stories say more about Taqueria Durango’s importance to the community than anything a restaurant critic can offer. For what it’s worth, though, Taqueria Durango’s reopening in June 2021 inspired me to eat inside a restaurant for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. The menu has added the lately inescapable duo of quesabirria and consommé to such signature dishes as the wide variety of tacos, the chori pollo and the torta ahogada. The birria is welcome, but Taqueria Durango doesn’t need to follow trends to thrive. This is a restaurant built — and rebuilt — to last.

📍 Trong đó 10238 Trang Đại lộ, Overland • Thông tin hơn314-429-1113; facebook.com/taqueriadurangosaintlouis • Giờ và bữa tối hàng ngày • Giá $-$$ 10238 Page Avenue, Overland • More info 314-429-1113; facebook.com/taqueriadurangosaintlouis • Hours Lunch and dinner daily • Pricing $-$$

Nhà hàng tuyên bố vào cuối tháng 8 rằng họ sẽ tạm thời đóng cửa; Ben Grupe không còn là người đứng đầu, nhưng chủ sở hữu đã không nói rõ. Gà với bí butternut, quả lúa mì và mầm Brussels. Ảnh của Ian Froeb, Post-Dispatch

Tempus • đương đại • Contemporary

Ben Grupe, đặc biệt 2016-18 với tư cách là đầu bếp điều hành của Elaia đã gắn thẻ nhà hàng đầu tiên của ông, Tempus, là một trong những lần ra mắt thú vị nhất của St. Louis, trong những năm gần đây. Con đường không điển hình của anh ấy thông qua nhà bếp câu lạc bộ quốc gia và các cuộc thi ẩm thực uy tín đến bán kết Giải thưởng James Beard cho thấy anh ấy sẽ đáp ứng những kỳ vọng cao cả đó theo cách riêng của anh ấy. Tại Tempus, đã bắt đầu dịch vụ ăn tối vào tháng 11 năm 2021 sau năm đầu tiên chỉ mang đi, Grupe và nhóm của anh ấy giới thiệu các kỹ thuật rực rỡ: phế liệu bánh mì được tái sử dụng như một miso chua trải qua bơ nhà; một ức gà được xếp lớp với xúc xích của con chim, thịt tối và một lớp da bị mất nước và dày dạn của nó cho những vết cắn hoàn hảo giòn; Táo nấu chín cho món tráng miệng được kết xuất gần như giòn như trái cây tươi thông qua nixtamalization. Tuy nhiên, Tempus gấp những món ăn này thành định dạng ba món sắc sảo, đổ mồ hôi cho các chi tiết dịch vụ và coi niềm vui của Diner là đồng bằng với tầm nhìn đầu bếp. Đây là một bữa ăn phù hợp cho cả một dịp đặc biệt và vòng quay nhà hàng thông thường của bạn.

Trong đó 4370 Đại lộ Manchester • Thông tin khác314-349-2878; Tempusstl.com • GiờDinner Thứ Tư-Thứ Bảy [Đóng cửa Chủ nhật-Tuesday] • Giá $$$$ 4370 Manchester Avenue • More info 314-349-2878; tempusstl.com • Hours Dinner Wednesday-Saturday [closed Sunday-Tuesday] • Pricing $$$$

Khủng bố tacos • Mexico, Tacos, Tex-Mex, thuần chay, ăn chay. Ảnh Post-Dispatch • Mexican, Tacos, Tex-Mex, Vegan, Vegetarian

Một bức tranh tường bên trong khủng bố Tacos có những gì tôi đã mô tả trong bài đánh giá năm 2021 của mình khi là The Grinch vượt qua với một chiếc Jalapeño trỗi dậy từ một chiếc bánh taco cũng là một mặt trời ác mộng. Tôi lặp lại ở đây một phần vì các từ thất bại khác, một phần vì loại tranh tường này truyền tải trải nghiệm ăn uống tại nhà hàng Tower Grove South Vegan Tex-Mex này lấy cảm hứng từ Death Metal, Skatoarding và Horror Phim. Chủ sở hữu Brian Roash đã vẽ bức tranh tường. Anh trai và đồng sở hữu của anh, Bradley Roach, là đầu bếp. [Họ đánh vần tên cuối cùng của họ khác nhau.] Cách tiếp cận thực đơn thứ tư có thể là thái quá. Chứng kiến ​​The Behemoth: Một taco vỏ cứng được bọc trong một chiếc tortilla mềm được nạp phô mai đậu và [thuần chay], lần lượt được bọc trong một pita với guacamole, kem chua và jalapeños. Các loại đá thực phẩm không có ngoại lệ, bao gồm cả người khổng lồ, từ seitan housemade có thể đóng vai trò của birria, carne asada [cuộc tàn sát asada burrito] hoặc chorizo ​​[người tình cam quýt] Yến mạch.

Trong đó3191 Đại lộ Nam lớn • Thông tin thêm314-290-9996; Terrortacos.com • Giờ và bữa tối Thứ Ba-Thứ Bảy [Đóng cửa Chủ nhật-Thứ Năm] • Giá cả $ 3191 South Grand Boulevard • More info 314-290-9996; terrortacos.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Saturday [closed Sunday-Monday] • Pricing $

Đầu bếp nhỏ bé • Bát Bibimbap Hàn Quốc. Ảnh của Colter Peterson, Post-Dispatch • Korean

Melanie Meyer điều hành nhà hàng Hàn Quốc của mình, Tiny Chef, từ một nhà bếp ở phía sau Bevo Mill Pinball Bar The Silver Ballroom. Bạn có thể thấy cô ấy nấu ăn khi bạn đặt hàng ở cửa sổ, lên tiếng để nghe thấy tiếng kêu law quầy bar: bibimbap; tacos đường phố chứa đầy thịt lợn char siu hoặc đậu phụ, thịt bò hoặc gà bulgogi; Một món đặc biệt như món súp gà có hồn cho Seoul, được tải theo khuyến nghị của Meyer, với gạo, phô mai và một quả trứng. Bất kỳ thực đơn buổi tối nào có thể là nhỏ, nhưng Meyer đảm bảo bao gồm các lựa chọn ăn chay và thuần chay. . Meyer đã làm việc trong các nhà hàng trong khoảng hai thập kỷ, nhưng cho đến những năm gần đây, cô mới khám phá giá vé của Hàn Quốc. Là một người nhận nuôi từ Hàn Quốc, cô ấy nói với tôi trong một cuộc phỏng vấn, cảm giác như tôi gần như đã chôn cất một phần của bản thân mình trong một thời gian để thử và, bạn biết đấy, phù hợp, [vì vậy] tôi bắt đầu nghiên cứu văn hóa của mình. Gần đây, cô tìm thấy và kết nối với mẹ ruột và hai em trai ở Hàn Quốc. Cô ấy sẽ đến thăm họ vào mùa hè này. Đầu bếp nhỏ bé có một tương lai lớn, nhưng Meyer nói, trước khi tôi mở rộng hoặc làm bất cứ điều gì có tính chất đó, tôi phải ôm mẹ tôi.

Nơi phòng khiêu vũ bạc, đường 4701 Morganford • Thông tin thêm 314-832-9223; facebook.com/tinychefstl; Instagram.com/tinychefstl • Giờ ăn tối Thứ Sáu-Sunday [đóng cửa Thứ Hai-Thứ Năm] • Giá cả $ The Silver Ballroom, 4701 Morganford Road • More info 314-832-9223; facebook.com/tinychefstl; instagram.com/tinychefstl • Hours Dinner Friday-Sunday [closed Monday-Thursday] • Pricing $

Tony’s • Classic Fine Dining, Italian

Speculation that Tony’s might leave downtown had been swirling off and on for years when owner James Bommarito made it official in April 2020: The fine-dining institution was leaving Market Street for the new Centene Plaza C Tower in Clayton. Tony’s new location, which debuted in March 2021, is a stunning, split-level space with the more casual Anthony’s Bar upstairs and the formal dining room on the ground floor. [An enclosed patio is also now available.] The address has changed, and the décor has been refreshed, but maître d’ Ken Bollwerk still greets you inside the entrance, and longtime Tony’s diners will recognize many familiar faces among the captains and the rest of the front-of-house staff. The menu, too, is essentially unchanged under executive chefs Pete Fagan and Gerald Germain and pastry chef Helen Fletcher, the dishes both old-school and timeless [beef tenderloin tartare; the classic ravioli and other pastas; steaks, chops and grilled seafood]that wait for each next generation to catch back up again.

📍 Where 105 Carondelet Plaza, Clayton • More info 314-231-7007; tonysstlouis.com • Hours Dinner Tuesday-Saturday, lunch in Anthony’s Bar Monday-Friday [closed Sunday] • Pricing $$$$

Union Loafers • Bakery & Desserts, Contemporary, Pizza, Sandwiches

You don’t need more evidence why Union Loafers has become St. Louis’ premier bread bakery. But consider that when Pastaria — a restaurant that knows a little something about dough — opened sandwich spinoff Pastaria Deli & Wine in 2020, it chose Union Loafers hoagie rolls for the bread. Those rolls make for a fine sandwich bread at Ted Wilson and Sean Netzer’s Union Loafers itself, supporting a rosy pile of rare roast beef with havarti, pickled peppers and the spicy-sharp house Bistro Sauce [the Bistro Beef]. Or maybe you would prefer something sleeker, like the Toscano: salami and pecorino Toscano with the Bianca bread, the same base as the restaurant’s pizza rossa. Meanwhile, not only does Union Loafers serve some of the very best pizza in town, but its New York-ish pies are also well suited to takeout. If you want to eat the slices straight out of the box, I won’t tell. It’s been a helluva two years.

📍 Where 1629 Tower Grove Avenue • More info 314-833-6111; unionloafers.com • Hours Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Saturday [closed Sunday] • Pricing $-$$

Veritas • Brunch, Contemporary

When I returned to the Ellisville restaurant, wine shop and specialty market Veritas this March, its understandable COVID-mitigation efforts had altered one of St. Louis’ best dining perches, a seat at the counter along its open kitchen. The individual bar seats were gone, and plexiglass now separated chef Mathis Stitt and his team from diners. The staff had only recently placed a couple of high-top tables by the counter, where I happily sat. Veritas isn’t the only open kitchen in town, of course. But watching Stitt and staff cook and plate his complex fare efficiently and precisely in the narrow space remains as thrilling and inevitable as watching Adam Wainwright set up a hitter for the curveball. Stitt’s dishes always push one or two elements past what most chefs would include — mussels, shrimp, scallops and housemade lamb sausage with tomato, fennel and bok choy not simply in seafood broth, but in lobster bisque — but the parts never fail to click together.

📍 Where 15860 Fountain Plaza, Ellisville • More info 636-227-6800; veritasgateway.com • Hours Dinner Wednesday-Saturday, brunch Sunday [closed Monday-Tuesday; store hours vary] • Pricing $$-$$$

Vicia • Contemporary

Though this year’s STL 100 doesn’t rank the Top 25 restaurants, I can assure you that Tara and Michael Gallina’s Vicia remains among the very best of St. Louis’ very best. Before the pandemic, Michael and then-executive chef Aaron Martinez hit upon a smart replacement for the traditional tasting menu: the Farmer’s Feast, a three-course, family-style meal showcasing the kitchen’s current bounty of ingredients and inspiration. Now, aside from snacks at the bar, the Farmer’s Feast is the only way to dine at Vicia. Which is good, because I couldn’t have chosen just two or three options from the flurry of plates at my dinner in March. These ranged from the small bite of a caramelized-onion financier hiding a bright heart of thyme oil to delicate poached white asparagus in an electrifying lemongrass broth to the stunning celery-root schnitzel that carried the same satisfying heft as the strip steak with smoked beef fat served in the same course, but that also sparkled with lemon and caper. Vicia has emerged from the past two years with big plans for the future. The Gallinas have elevated Martinez to be a partner in their restaurant group, and he will soon launch a taqueria in Vicia’s new outdoor space. Meanwhile, longtime Vicia cook Jane Chatham is now the executive chef who will lead this vital, forward-looking restaurant further into the future.

📍 Trong đó4260 Đại lộ Công viên rừng • Thông tin thêm314-553-9239; Viciarestaurant.com • GiờDinner Thứ ba-Thứ Hai • Giá $$$$ 4260 Forest Park Avenue • More info 314-553-9239; viciarestaurant.com • Hours Dinner Tuesday-Saturday • Pricing $$$$

Cafe Vine Địa Trung Hải • Lebanon, Địa Trung Hải, Súp đậu lăng Trung Đông. Ảnh của Laurie Skrivan, Post-Dispatch • Lebanese, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern

Cafe Vine Địa Trung Hải đã khai trương vào năm 2009 tại Tower Grove South, và với nhà hàng Meskerem Ethiopia, đã ra mắt hai năm trước đó trên đường phố, nhà hàng Lebanon này đại diện cho thế hệ neo mới cho hành lang South Grand Essential nhưng không bao giờ tĩnh. Đặc điểm của đầu bếp Ali Mohsen, nấu ăn ở đây là sự tươi mới và kiên nhẫn-pita ấm áp, phồng lên mỗi ngày và thịt bò và gà shawarma thể hiện cả char rang nhổ và sự ngon ngọt và hương vị xuyên suốt của một món ướp dài. Cây nho có thể làm các loại thịt nướng [kebab cũng như shawarma đã nói ở trên] và cái nóng hung dữ khi nó được bảo hành [nước sốt shatta sạc Jalapeño của shatta gà charbroiled], nhưng không nên nhìn ra những thú vui tinh tế như súp đậu lăng. Trong năm nay, ST STL 100, tôi đã ra lệnh mang đi từ cây nho, và trong khi tôi bỏ lỡ việc có thể đặt mua nhiều pita tươi hơn cho nhà hàng Humm Summus, sự sống động của hương vị Shawarma, bọc và ép vào bánh sandwich vẫn tỏa sáng.

Trong đó3171 Đại lộ Nam lớn • Thông tin khác314-776-0991; Thevinestl.com • Giờ và bữa tối hàng ngày • Giá cả $-$$ 3171 South Grand Boulevard • More info 314-776-0991; thevinestl.com • Hours Lunch and dinner daily • Pricing $-$$

Whisk: Một bakeshop bền vững, poptimism • Bakery & Desserts từ trái qua: muối biển Cantaloupe, nước chanh việt quất, dưa hấu, phô mai dê blackberry, húng quế đào và dưa chuột đá vôi. Ảnh của Laurie Skrivan, Post-Dispatch • Bakery & Desserts

Kaylen Wissinger đã bán bánh cupcake của mình tại khu vực nông dân chợ trước khi cô mở cửa vào năm 2012 tại Công viên Benton. Gần như thời gian dài, cô đã bán những chiếc Ice Pops đã đạt được thương hiệu poptimism của riêng họ, xe tải thực phẩm và kể từ tháng 8 năm 2021, một trong những khán đài bên trong hội trường thực phẩm mới tại City Foundry. Tên đầy đủ của Whisk là Whisk: Một Bakeshop bền vững. Sự tăng trưởng của nó là hữu cơ. Wissinger thành lập nó không có gì khác hơn là tiền đám đông và một khoản thừa kế nhỏ từ người bà quá cố của cô. Được sửa sang lại vào đầu năm 2020 để tăng không gian sản xuất, Whisk đưa đồ nướng Wissinger, được trưng bày tại quầy: Cupcakes, tất nhiên, không quá lớn hoặc quá mức; Bánh quy sô cô la lớn, mềm mại; Pop tartlets gần như bong tróc và bơ như một chiếc bánh sừng bò. Đối với Poptimism, Ice Ice Pops, Wissinger có thể lấy cảm hứng từ tiền thưởng theo mùa [đào và húng quế, mận và gừng] hoặc các món ăn khác [kẹo bông, bánh rán pharaoh]. Nổi tiếng, cô phục vụ một bản nhạc nhạc pop có hương vị. Nếu đó là thủ thuật cho bạn, hãy để mắt đến cua Rangoon Pop của cô ấy.

Wherewhisk, 2201 Cherokee Street • Thông tin hơn314-932-5166; Whiskstl.com • Giờ 8 giờ sáng-4 p.m. [hoặc cho đến khi bán hết] Thứ Năm-Thứ Bảy, 8 giờ sáng đến 3 giờ chiều. [hoặc cho đến khi bán hết] Chủ nhật [đóng cửa Thứ Hai-Thứ Hai] • Giá cả $ Whisk, 2201 Cherokee Street • More info 314-932-5166; whiskstl.com • Hours 8 a.m.-4 p.m. [or until sold out] Thursday-Saturday, 8 a.m.-3 p.m. [or until sold out] Sunday [closed Monday-Wednesday] • Pricing $

📍 Wherepoptimism, Food Hall at City Foundry, 3730 Foundry Way • InfopOptimismStl.com • Giờ hàng ngày [đóng cửa thứ ba] • Giá cả $ Poptimism, Food Hall at City Foundry, 3730 Foundry Way • More info poptimismstl.com • Hours Open daily [closed Tuesday] • Pricing $