Photograph by Kevin A. Roberts
Resembling a rustic lodge plucked from the hills near Hermann—or maybe Healdsburg, Calif.—EdgeWild could be a slick restaurant with an all-season patio, a diverse private-event space, a wine bar (stocked with Bissinger’s chocolates, no less), or a winery (judging from the new oak wine barrels and its EdgeWild wine label). It’s all of these. And it’s in Chesterfield. But how do you wrap a culinary barrel hoop around 10,000 square feet of sprawl? SLM asked executive chef Aaron Baggett, a Culinary Institute of America graduate and veteran of seven restaurant openings. He was unfazed—and ready for No. 8.
What’s it like working with Chris LaRocca, one of the city's restaurant veterans?
When you join hands with a guy whose business is conceptualizing and opening restos, you have no idea how much or how little you're getting into. We opened Triumph in 2008, then Kota, Stadium Grill in Columbia , Mile 277 in Crestwood, and now EdgeWild.
You guys are a generation apart. Do you see the business the same way?
We hardly ever see things the same way--but we always find the common ground. That's why I'm still with him. He has perspective. He'll say "we made that mistake 20 years ago...a few times," so I value his take and his honesty.
There have been a lot of dining innovations recently.
Yes, but mixed in with a lot of rehashing. If you think about it, it's just food....and it's probably been done before.
When did the culinary light bulb light up for you?
When I was in high school, I took a job--and later became kitchen manager--at a Chinese place in Farmington called Ho Wah. I was amazed how everything could be so different than my mom's Southern cooking--the woks, the lack of cheese, butter, and bacon fat--yet so good.
How's your Mandarin?
Some Mandarin, a little Cantonese. I still remember the basics.
Were there ever any other career aspirations?
I wanted to be an architect until I realized in college that after working in a kitchen so long, I couldn't sit long enough to take the drafting classes. It was my sister who told me to go become a chef.
Are you a St. Louisan?
I'm a Central Missourian, but I went to culinary school at the CIA [Culinary Institute of America], back when they had only the Hyde Park campus, and Greystone [the Napa Valley offshoot] was still someone's dream.
Like Harvard, the CIA is a great line to have on one's resume. Where did that take you?
I didn't realize the importance of methods and technique and how they relate to indigenous items. Different countries and regions have different groupings of ingredients. New Orleans has its trinity...well, trinities are found all across the world.We were taught to stop and examine such things. The school is a machine.
How so?
It's taught in six-week blocks, with no breaks and no time off. Plus there was culinary math, restaurant law, the philosophy of cooking and running a business, courses that you could not take anywhere else. At that time, the CIA was the only culinary college in America. Daniel Boulud's kid was there...that was validation enough for me. So I moved there with my young daughter and just did it.
Where did the name EdgeWild come from?
Historically, with Lewis and Clark, St. Louis was the edge of the wild and my job is to make the food edgy and a little wild as well. Plus, [co-owner] Andy Kohn's wife, Dee Dee, grew up in a subdivision in Peoria...called Edgewild.
Break down the menu. Is it small-plates driven?
No. It's what I call fusion but wish there was another word for. Like Maryland style crab cakes made using lump crab and little filler, with a little smoke in the crabmeat and a red curry Thai cream sauce on the side. We have tried to take a unique perspective on most items...things I haven't had or tasted that same way anywhere. Our pasta is fresh-made; our house salad has a red wine grape vinaigrette.
Will you fuse local food with non-local?
You have to, but it as much an ode to St. Louis as it can be—folks like Volpi, Kaldi, Serendipity, and Salume Beddu and all local breweries for the beer. It's a mystery why this local thing is just catching on...this kind of thing should have been going on forever.
What's your favorite item on the menu?
I put thick shavings of parmesan into my bison meatloaf that melt slightly to provide an unexpected, but subtle, flavor.
Did your Chinese-food beginnings find its way onto this menu?
The glaze for the Thai steak salad is wonderful, a carryover from a marinade I remember from my days at Ho Wah. The flavor profile works, despite not being Thai at all. Another interesting fusion mix is the Kahlua Buns: Hawaiian-style roasted pork with an orange-achiote glaze, served inside of steamed bao.
And only a few fried items.
Three. And I'm proud of hat. But there are half a dozen entree-type salads that I predict people will be talking about. [Co-owner] DeeDee Kohn felt strongly about these, and now we all do.
How will you handle bread?
Gratis table bread us a bit of a hot potato these days. As a wine place, many of our items are served with croutons, crostini, bread, some flour-based product. Do you really need to have more bread with that? No. But if you have to have it, we will provide it. We just don't feel like we need to do it.
Obviously, the food-wine connection is important here. How will you emphasize that?
First, we created items that paired well with wine, but just as importantly, stayed away from things that didn't, like fish sauces, briny foods, super-spicy foods...
How many wines will there be?
Thirty—20 from outside of Missouri and 10 from Missouri, some of them sweet.
So there's still a demand for sweet wines?
Look on the tables on any day at any Missouri winery and you'll have your answer.
You've opened eight restaurants. You planning to hang around or move on?
This one most fits my style of cooking. Conceptually, we can get away with running a boar special on a weekend just to see where it takes us. It may be the best thing we've ever done, or a total flop.
EdgeWild has 320 seats; another new place just opened with 250. I thought big restaurants were dead.
Our exposure is way less than it was for the early tenants, so although it's big, the cost of those 300-plus seats is much more reasonable. Plus, we feel the residents around here want more locally-owned restaurants. Annie Gunn's is a special occasion restaurant. Well, how about one for no occasion?
What's the target demo? Couples? Families?
Yes... You know at Chandler Hill, 60 percent of the clientele is women. That may happen here as well.
Why the partnership with Bissinger's?
Three reasons: chocolate makes for a reasonably-priced dessert or snack, it pairs great with wine, and Bissinger's--a local since forever--makes darn good stuff, including some unusual stuff like chocolate-covered wine grapes.
Describe the wine experience. I know it's unique.
There are still many locals who've never tried a Missouri wine, so we will showcase several state wineries without driving through the state. Mr. Kohn [who's also a minority investor at Chandler Hill Vineyards in Defiance] also buys vineyard lots outstate, then winemakers finish them with the EdgeWild label. We will do some barrel aging here onsite as well, so once we bottle it here, it becomes neither an outstate nor a Missouri wine, but an American wine.
But you buy excess grapes as well, correct?
Ultra-premium winemakers have excess grapes--those that may not exactly fit their profile-- that Mr. Kohn can now buy to make our own almost-as-high-end, but not ridiculously-priced, wine. So at EdgeWild you can buy, for $40, the equivalent of a $75-$150 that has someone else's label on it.
Can you say "and this wine came from grapes from Caymus" or whatever?
No. There are non-disclosure agreements that prevent the buyer from saying where the grapes came from and who made the wine. People who are hung up on labels may have a hard time with that, but the proof is in the bottle.
I like the arrangement.
There are even some cases where, like with plain label goods, the winery stops the production line, changes labels, and keeps bottling, so there's zero change in quality. This is true for six or seven of our 30 wines.
I didn't know that existed.
Apparently, we have also arranged for consultants to buy grapes on spec for next year, which will become our wine or our blended wine. It's quite an evolution. The way I understand it, 99% of restaurants can't do what EdgeWild can do: we're a wine seller, a bonded manufacturer, and a distributor. By law, other Missouri restaurants have to buy their wine from distributors.
Plus you'll have a full bar?
With wine-infused cocktails. We will use fruit wines to infuse our food items and desserts.
What do you think of people who bring their own wines to restaurants?
We just want people to enjoy wine and enjoy themselves. Our corkage fee is cheap: $10 a bottle.
People will be coming out here just to drink wine.
I hope not. I'd be out of a job.
Editor's Note: This article has been updated to reflect that Andy Kohn is a minority investor at Chandler Hill Vineyards.
