By George Mahe
Photograph by Katherine Bish
Two friends combined an old building with a dream, added a year’s worth of renovations and a Home Depot’s worth of polyurethane, then finished the walls in the warm colors of sunshine ... and the result is the newest hot spot in Benton Park West. “Beautiful,” “bold” and “old” aptly describe the back bar, but more impressive are the shiny onyx panels laid flush into the bar surface—an effect so calming, you may not even need that second martini. Just don’t overlook the menu, because it may reveal the future of dining: You’ll find only four entrées but nearly a dozen appetizers. (The seafood is off-menu, virtually guaranteeing freshness.) The seafood stew and spinach salad sound ordinary but aren’t; the sirloin Napoleon sounds exotic and is. Above the bar is a bonus—playing on two giant plasmas is The Tube, the new digital-TV station that rolls commercial-free videos from the good ol’ days of MTV ... the days when the content was just as important as the package. And so it is at the Park West Grille.
2917 S. Jefferson, 314-773-7275, parkwestgrille.com. Hours: 11 a.m.–1:30 a.m. Mon.–Sun.
