4071 Keokuk
Bevo/South City
314-772-3100
Lunch Tue–Fri, dinner Tue–Sun
Average Main Course: $15
Dress: Casual attire is fine.
Reservations: Accepted, but usually not necessary
Chef: Ermina and Senada Grbic
This time of year, appetites turn to the hearty foods of home—sometimes ours and sometimes someone else’s. Grbic in south St. Louis is all about rich, indulgent, home-style food. While the restaurant’s technically Bosnian, owned by immigrants to St. Louis, its dishes are found (in infinite variations) all over Eastern Europe and Mitteleuropa. The large restaurant, with a look of European craftsmanship, has all sorts of cozy touches that offset its size, including intricate inlays in the stone walls and a lovely wooden bar that the Grbic family’s ancestors would salute.
Among other appetizers, we tried the mussels, set atop a tangy, chunky tomato sauce. The shrimp Dijon had a mildly mustardy note and avoided overcooking—too often, shrimp in St. Louis has the texture of a pencil eraser.
Our favorite appetizer here is the cevapi, finger-size sausages of what’s probably lamb and beef ground together. Juicy and succulent, they’re accompanied by a tomato sauce that greets the mouth with oregano and then goes mad with heat; it’s fun, but the cevapi don’t need it. Also on the plate—and nearly as irresistible as the meat—are chunks of bread, grilled in the meat juices. Fresh tomato and crumbles of white cheese garnish the sausages, served generously enough to be an entrée.
Thence to the goulash: It appears here as both a soup and an entrée. The soup is thinner, certainly, and studded with vegetables and diced beef. The entrée is beef of a high quality, with no gristle or fat, swathed in a velvety red sauce that makes the mouth expect tomato, though there is none; the sauce is red from sweet paprika, the flavor of the pepper lightly gliding along with the sour cream.
A simple veal schnitzel has a crunchy, greaseless breading, with spaetzle—the soothing, slightly chewy dumplings that trademark this kind of cooking—riding alongside. Huge, meaty stuffed cabbage, or sarma (pronounced with a rolled R), is mild indeed, leaving us yearning for a more aggressive seasoning (Joe’s mother and grandmother made it as a sweet-and-sour dish).
Something the menu labels “Swiss special” stars mushrooms in a creamy sauce laced with brandy. A few veal pieces are along for the fun, but it’s really the mushrooms’ show. What’s a Voldostana? Spaetzle baked in an onion-and-mushroom sauce, topped with slices of steak and cheese before being thrust under a broiler—it’s rich, of course, but quite delicious. Nearby, we saw an immense platter of grilled meat and sides that a table of four devoured. Next time.
For dessert, we ordered apple strudel, warm with tart apples. In our experience, fruit strudels are never crisp; by the time we get to them, the juices have gotten to the pastry. So it was here, but it tasted good. So did the palacinke, thin crepes holding crunchy toasted walnuts, whipped cream, and a little chocolate syrup. It’s simple, surprisingly light, and very much in the spirit of the restaurant.
The evening was quiet, and our service was fine. We’re told that it can get a little wonky on busy nights, but we’ll visit earlier in the week, when we don’t feel odd about getting up to look at all of the restaurant’s design details, courtesy of the Grbic family craftsmen.
The Bottom Line: A marvelous South City throwback to times and tastes of long ago.
By Joe and Ann Pollack
