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Photographs by Mark Gilliland

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Stephen Gontram

chef/owner, Harvest Seasonal Market Cuisine

Nearly all of us have heard about Stephen Gontram's passionate belief in using only the freshest, most organic ingredients--not canned, not frozen--in the seasonal cuisine at Harvest (which doesn't attempt to offer lunch because it takes all day to prepare for dinner). But back in 1996, when Gontram returned from San Francisco after gradu-ating as valedictorian from the California Culinary Academy and working in the restaurants of Wolfgang Puck and Bradley Ogden, his approach was new to St. Louis. Insisting on the creative use of high-quality local produce and proteins not only earned Harvest a devoted local following and national acclaim from Gourmet and The New York Times but also proved a pioneering approach: Ten years later, the best restaurants in town are those offering changing, seasonal menus based on fresh products. And many of the finest chefs list Gontram as an inspiration.

"I like thinking of the restaurant as a magnet to the industry," says Gontram. "We see a lot of people coming in who work for fine restaurants. That's a compliment, and I take it very seriously."

Seasonal cuisine necessitates regular changes to the menu, and in more than 80 menu changes over 10 years, Gontram admits to a few outright flops. But the dishes that "just don't work" have been far fewer, he adds, than the dishes that work but don't sell. "There are some things in St. Louis that just don't move," he says. "My prime example is squab. It's probably my favorite fowl--it's the most delicious bird, very rich and very versatile--but we can't sell squab to save our life. We can sell quail, we can sell duck, we can sell capon--but we can't sell squab."

Gontram says St. Louis has "many more good restaurants per capita today than there were 10 years ago." He has only two major gripes: "Restaurants that simply don't put out an effort and the whole vegetable medley thing--the same vegetable on every dish, no matter what. Restaurants have started to call this medley 'seasonal vegetables,' but they're not seasonal at all."
 
On St. Louis favorites: "I'll rarely order toasted ravioli because nobody makes them fresh; they're all frozen. We do use a lot of products from Volpi."

Indispensible kitchen utensils: "My good Japanese chef's knife and a pair of tongs."

Favorite class in culinary school: "Wine appreciation."

Recommended for the home cook: "The Joy of Cooking and the Slow Food website, slowfood.com."