Photograph by Kevin A. Roberts
Saint Louis Galleria
Richmond Heights
314-726-5300
Lunch and dinner daily; brunch Sat and Sun
Average Main Course: $18
Dress: Galleria-appropriate works just fine.
Reservations: It’s big, but it’s busy. So yes.
Chef: Jeff Lathrop
Located at the Saint Louis Galleria’s north end, BlackFinn is big—bigger than it looks—with 10,000 square feet just on the main level, and the menu is commensurately large. The restaurant has three separate dining areas, two with bars, plus covered outdoor tables (although why people want to eat next to a parking lot escapes me). It’s part of a small chain in the midst of a fast expansion, and as one of the newer places in town, it can be pretty busy.
The BlackFinn salad has, among other things, briny Kalamata olives, tender greens, pine nuts, and a buttermilk-Parmesan dressing; it came almost but not quite overdressed. And (very faintly) seared ahi tuna, tender and sliced so thinly as to be carpaccio, bears cracked pepper on the edges, a leaf-sculpture of wasabi, and some sliced ginger, plus a small bowl of soy sauce.
Flatbreads typically mean elongated pizzas, but BlackFinn’s version is served on lavash, the unleavened bread that makes an Imo’s pizza crust seem as thin as an English muffin. With six pieces, the dish is ideal for sharing or as an entrée. There’s even a flatbread offered “St. Louis–style”—meaning red sauce, pepperoni, Parmesan, and “Provel-style cheese.” The barbecue-chicken flatbread sports a little bacon, a zippy tomato-based barbecue sauce, cheddar-jack cheese, caramelized onions, and a shower of green onions—the whole thing spicy-crunchy and a worthy experiment.
Chilean sea bass, presented in a soy-ginger-garlic-sherry sauce, maintains its moisture, and the plate isn’t drowning in sauce. Two large rice cakes (larger than the fish), seasoned with coconut milk, are grilled and used as a base. Snow peas, their tails and strings intact, seemed unseasoned—until roughly a teaspoon of minced garlic was discovered at the bottom of the pile.
Humdrum pineapple upside-down carrot cake perks up with the accompanying whipped cream. Described as “cream cheese whipped cream,” it seems to have had some salted caramel beaten in, and it helps revive the dish.
When we visited, approximately a month after the restaurant opened, BlackFinn’s service still showed room for improvement. On one visit, no server seemed to be assigned to our table, and three different people dropped by to assure us that someone was coming. After the order was placed, a runner arrived with two plates of food and tried to serve us someone else’s calamari—but what turned out to be held above his head and beyond my line of sight was my salad, which we discovered only after he’d circled the room. Dishes weren’t removed until the following course arrived, and a fork wasn’t replaced. A server brought the check without offering dessert. Upon inquiry, his response was, “Well, what would you like?” When encouraged, he remembered three of the six desserts on the menu.
Another night, in the bar during happy hour, the food arrived quickly, but service was dodgy in other respects. It’s worth noting that a club-soda refill was billed as another drink, something rarely seen in St. Louis. In general, BlackFinn’s prices are higher than the service and portion sizes would lead one to expect, though perhaps the hints of Ralph Lauren/hunting lodge in the decor should be a warning. Put another way, diners often expect a chain restaurant to hit its cruising altitude almost immediately; in that case, BlackFinn appears to be encountering some “light chop.”
The Bottom Line: The adage says “With age comes wisdom”; may it also bring consonance.
