Photograph by Kevin A.Roberts
Naming the region’s best restaurants is no bite-size undertaking. After sipping, snacking, and occasionally devouring dishes from dozens of menus year-round, SLM’s dining critics compared notes. The results might surprise you—after all, there’s a lot to…digest when it comes to the subject of restaurants.
Perhaps that’s why our biennial list (p. 78) continues to expand, from 35 to 50 restaurants during the past five years. Places that seem to have opened just yesterday have quickly found a place in our hearts—and stomachs: Half & Half, Three Sixty, Cleveland-Heath… It’s a credit to the owners and chefs who recognized a need and executed it with precision.
At the same time, chefs are continually experimenting, looking for new ways to move the local dining scene forward. Perhaps no trend has caught on quicker than meals on wheels: By our count, the number of food trucks throughout the region doubled between last fall and this June. It’s afforded St. Louisans cheap lunchtime options, while allowing aspiring gourmets to try their hands at the industry without signing a lease or spending a fortune to build out a space.
The same thing is happening in other ways, too. The phrase “pop-up”—once synonymous with annoying Internet ads—is now a trend for boutiques and restaurants alike. Resilient entrepreneurs are setting up shop in temporary spaces. One of the most impressive examples could be seen in Forest Park this summer, when architect/chef Sandy Talley erected a temporary shelter, just large enough to fit a 20-seat table and diminutive prep station, near Pagoda Circle for a six-night run. It marked a scenic step forward for St. Louis’ underground restaurants.
Yet it’s not just aspiring entrepreneurs taking chances: Established restaurateurs are doing the same. SLM’s 2012 Restaurant of the Year (p. 98), for example, hosts “No Menu Monday” and introduces new dishes on a weekly basis. And Gerard Craft, our culinary scene’s poster boy, is opening not one, but two restaurants in Clayton’s Centene Plaza this fall: Pastaria, a family-friendly Italian restaurant with high-quality ingredients, and the relocated Niche, Craft’s acclaimed original.
Reflecting on how far our dining scene has come, Craft told SLM dining editor George Mahe, “Eight or 10 years ago, if someone would have said St. Louis chefs would soon be all over Food & Wine and Bon Appètit, people’d have said you were crazy. We’re too quick to downgrade in this town sometimes. We’ve had great restaurants for a while; it’s just that since someone else is now saying it, we’re believing it.”
