1 of 2
2 of 2
Guerrilla Street Food’s Brian Hardesty, already one of the more ambitious chef-vendors in the burgeoning area food-truck biz, has announced he’ll be moonlighting. Next Wednesday, Hardesty will officially begin his night job, as the new executive chef at Nosh, within the Starrs wine and gourmet-food emporium.
Nosh, you may recall, closed down on the main drag in Maplewood last April, and in August (as noted in Relish here), relocated to a cozy niche within Bud Starr’s eponymous Richmond Heights market. One of the principals, Executive Chef Angela Komis, stayed very briefly before leaving to compete on the Food Network show “Chef Hunter” (for the chance to become executive chef at a Merriman’s Fish House restaurant in Hawaii). Before that, in the spring of this year, the space was occupied by Mexican joint Las Brisas for a hot minute. The space has changed hands before and since in a series of comings and goings that, Hardesty acknowledged in an interview, have left “reputation issues” that he hopes to remedy.
Hardesty confessed that he had an extremely poor dining experience at Nosh while secretly evaluating it. He was, he learned, not alone. “The front-of- house staff, according to reviews I read, was godawful and didn’t know anything, so we need to do a complete 180,” he said. “We are switching out the entire staff, and I’m bringing new people aboard.”
Under Hardesty (who wore the toque at the late, lamented Terrene), the menu will be completely revamped as well. “The old menu was trendy B.S. that sounded good on paper but didn’t taste right,” he said. “It was a hodgepodge of Mediterranean, Italian, French, and other influences. We need to be more focused. The menu will be cut in half, with a focus on locally sourced, seasonal, handmade things. There’ll be a couple salads, a couple apps, five or so entrees, a couple of desserts, something like that. We’re focusing on quality, at first, before quantity.”
Fans of Hardesty’s pioneering work creating Filipino street food with a personal touch for the Guerrilla Street Food truck should remain happy, he said. “I’ve got a separate staff for Guerrilla Street Food,” he said. “We prep for lunch the day before, and in the a.m., and later in the day; after lunch, I’ll manage the staff at the restaurant, for dinner service, so the schedules don’t really conflict at all.”
Here’s hoping he can juggle both roles, and rally the Nosh crowd to the point that customers there are as happy with the grub as the Guerrilla Street Food fans are with his fun food-truck fare.
==
Nosh at Starrs
Dinner only, 5 to 9 p.m., Tues-Sat
1135 S. Big Bend
314-781-4734
