The Cooking Channel’s show Cheap Eats ends its second season this Thursday, February 23, here in St. Louis. The show’s premise has creator and host Ali Khan (pictured above) spending only $35 on breakfast, lunch, a snack, and dinner in a designated city. In St. Louis, Khan visited Kingside Diner, the Capitalist Pig, Pint Size Bakery, and Dalie’s Smokehouse in search of good food priced for the average person and good stories from those who choose to work in the food industry despite all the attendant obstacles of the business.
In a recent phone interview, Khan turned the tables, saying, “I’m going to interview you” before I had a chance to ask my first question. A native St. Louisan, Khan couldn’t resist asking THE question (he went to MICDS), and he explained that St. Louis was the perfect place to end a season in which he and his team “explored food scenes that don’t usually land” on the national radar. Other cities Khan found cheap eats in this season include Chattanooga, Des Moines, Omaha, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Louisville, Salt Lake City, and Jackson Hole. All of these cities, Khan said, fit the narrative of a small to medium city that has an up-and-coming food scene beyond dinner.
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After growing up in West County, Khan left St. Louis for school in LA, where he stayed for 20 years before recently settling in Austin with his wife and five-year-old son. Since he never was an adult living in St. Louis, Khan recalls a “compartmentalized” city in which excursions beyond the suburbs were rare—something many other suburban St. Louis children of the late 70’s and early 80’s can relate to. Hangouts included The Galleria and The Loop, with the occasional trip all the way downtown for a baseball game. Feeling nostalgic about his hometown, Khan admitted that because it’s changed so much since he’s been gone—particularly the food scene—in some ways, coming back to do the show was like visiting an entirely unknown city.
A self-proclaimed “natural explorer,” Khan cited Jonathan Gold, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning food critic in LA, as a major influence. Like Gold, he prefers venues that take him into communities where the owners’ dreams are being realized through their food. Pint Size Bakery, for example, is “utterly charming,” he said, and is good for the city. “That neighborhood needs a $4 cookie,” he continued, noting that it’s a testament to Christy Augustin that customers choose to go there rather than buy a pastry at Schnucks or Dierbergs, which dominate the market. For Khan, the bakery is a way for “the middle class to have a little bit of character.”
Khan and his team research a city extensively to find the four locations they will film, and they Skype with the chefs/owners beforehand to make sure there’s the chemistry necessary to sustain an on-camera interview. Beyond the food, Khan wants to know all about why they’re doing what they’re doing, only half joking that someone has to be a “masochist” to open a restaurant given the work involved and high failure rate. The pre-shooting preparation pays off as evidenced by Khan’s relaxed and informative interviews behind the scenes with various chefs and owners.
At Kingside Diner, Khan began his St. Louis food journey with the Kingside Slinger (above) and chatted with chef Chris Vomund whose interest in food began while watching the Food Network with his dad. Khan calls Vomund’s slinger “elevated comfort food,” which led to a discussion of whether or not fine dining is on the decline. “It’s important to change what you’re doing,” Khan said of restaurants needing to reinvent themselves to stay current with trends. “Food can be so fun,” he added, wondering if the “buttoned-up, neck-tie experience is going away.” While in town filming last November, he went to Urban Chestnut in The Grove, claiming it “fits St. Louis’ vibe and what’s happening now” with its “great beer, great charcuterie plate” and nod to the city’s German heritage.
Khan’s background in Theatre Arts is evident on Cheap Eats (full episodes can be found online at Cooking Channel’s site) as is his time spent writing for LA’s BlackBook magazine and a number of blogs including “Bang for Your Burger Buck.” During each episode, selfies in front of the city’s landmarks intermingle with interviews and hands-on cooking demonstrations behind the scenes. The selfies and the way Khan takes a picture of each dish before he digs in recall his blogging background and lend an accessible vibe to a show that also provides explanations of technical terms for cooking methods and ingredients.
Ron Buechele (right), the owner of the Capitalist Pig who is a former police officer with a BFA, is the perfect subject for Cheap Eats. The fact that the restaurant is housed in a Soulard art gallery that used to be a Third District police station elicited an enthusiastic “insane” from Khan, who said that Buechele “could have been selling frozen White Castles and we would have made a trip.”
Khan referred to both Buechele and Skip Steele (right), the owner of Dalie’s Smokehouse—the final destination—as “personalities.” Barbecue is central to the episode because Khan believes it defines St. Louis beyond Provel cheese and toasted ravioli. Khan marveled at how the area’s pitmasters are “smoking local” with native cherry and apple woods, helping distinguish St. Louis barbecue among other cities’ cues.
When he would visit St. Louis from LA just after college, Khan would fill a backpack with sandwiches and toasted ravioli from The Hill, a “treasure trove of St. Louis goodies” he’d share with friends back in LA. But St. Louis “isn’t that anymore,” he said, identifying where he’d like to visit next time he’s in town for a friend’s wedding: Cherokee Street, South Grand, Bosnian restaurants, and “the rest of Missouri,” particularly Kansas City.
On Thursday night, Khan will be sharing part of what St. Louis is with a much wider audience, revealing not just how much St. Louis has changed since he lived here but how it helped launch his career.
The St. Louis segment airs February 23 on Cooking Channel at 9 p.m. CST.
