Photograph by Kevin A. Roberts
Compiling a list that recognizes the top of the town is never easy—and never-ending. Year-round, we look for the region’s must-try things: a memorable main course, designer shoes at a discount, that under-the-radar lounge. We also poll readers about the city’s best—and this year, we received an overwhelming response, with nearly 168,000 votes.
Some of the winners are the usual suspects, those who manage to remain relevant even after decades. Others are newcomers, those who add an element to St. Louis that was missing. And still others are oft-overlooked gems that we can’t wait to share.
Along the way, SLM’s staff also gathers a wide range of anecdotes that we can’t possibly squeeze into 28 pages. For culture editor Stefene Russell, it was standing on Cherokee Street during the Southern Graphics Council International Conference and watching a marching mélange that included the Banana Bike Brigade, a fire-breather, and a giant, “anatomically correct” bull-shaped piñata. “It felt like a mummer parade in England,” she recalls, “silly but reverent.”
For assistant editor Rosalind Early, it was taking a class at The Scoop, a pet-friendly Pilates studio. As a roomful of women strained to hold the proper pose, Early spotted a cocker spaniel yawn and lie down in one corner.
For dining editor George Mahe, what wasn’t written could fill a book—so instead, he teased a bit. Of Peel Wood Fired Pizza, for instance, he wrote, “Hands down, the best combination of bicycling and dining in the area. Worth the drive no matter how many wheels you’re on.”
For contributing editor Christy Marshall, it was taking her two 6-year-old nieces to Mr. Harry’s Carnival Foods, where a delirious sugar high ensued from cotton candy and funnel cakes.
And for staff writer Jeannette Cooperman, it was interviewing SLM’s first-ever A-List icon, Ted Drewes, at his Chippewa location’s staging area. “We talked while his granddaughter-in-law taught a new Eritrean worker how to be patient but not too chatty at the window while people make up their minds, and his son-in-law helped the chief mixers, and people yelled orders for macadamia fudge and hot caramel and TeDad cookies.”
Drewes recalled four decades earlier, when the custard shop “had a gravel parking lot and no icemaker—we actually chipped our own ice. We were in the Dark Ages in so many ways… But we had a quality product.”
The others on this year’s A-List can all say the same.
