Dave Lowry Pops Into St. Louis' First Pop-Up Restaurant, Demitasse 665 (And boy does that server look familiar)

Shame is not, admittedly, the normal gateway into a kitchen. In the case of local architect Sandy Talley, though, shame’s what did it.

“I was 45,” he says, while jabbing purply beet slices into hockey puck timbale forms that are already charged with creamy goat cheese, “and standing at a potluck dinner party, the only guy there who hadn’t brought anything.” Talley recalls, “I realized I was an adult and I couldn’t cook. Anything. So I got to work."

That, more or less, is how Talley has come to be standing in a crowded kitchen of an eating space he’ll be using as a restaurant only for another week or so. He’s topping, with beet-stained fingers, his salad timbales with pale green sprigs of fresh cilantro, while twenty soon-to-be diners flutter around in what used to be a neighborhood watering hole, introducing themselves, hoisting champagne, and waiting for the action to start at Demitasse 665.

The fun, to be precise, is a “pop-up restaurant.” Like pork bellies, cupcakes, and Giada’s décolletage, they’re something of a fad in the food world. It works, roughly, like this: A chef wants to try out a new concept. Or a dedicated amateur cook wants to get a feel for what it would be like to play Rocco Dispirito for a few days. So they rent some vacant space: a closed eatery, a kitschy coffee shop, the local Herman Cain campaign headquarters. And for a few days or weeks, they feed diners lucky or connected enough to make reservations. It’s not meant to last. It’s just a lot of fun, delightfully ephemeral, a moment that makes for some enjoyable memories. Think of it as a dining version of a Kardashian marriage.

“We’ve been doing Demitasse 665 for two years now,” Talley says, “in our home.” Demitasse 665 is one of the better known examples of what’s come to be called “underground dining” events because that sounds more chic than calling it what it really is, which is, of course, a “dinner party.”

The evenings of Demitasse dining have come once a month chez Talley, with Talley and his partner Marie Jary hosting, and they are among the hottest destinations for serious eaters in the area. But Talley’s been itching to do more. The idea of a pop-up restaurant intrigued. He found the right location, the old John’s Town Hall and, more recently, Caitlin’s Green Eyed Grill, on the first floor of The Dorchester on Skinker, space that’s been sitting empty for almost six months now.

“It was pretty bad when I first saw it,” Talley said. Which was not his biggest initial obstacle. “The manager at The Dorchester told me to get lost when I asked about the possibility of using the abandoned space.” A while later, the manager reconsidered. He’d cruised the internet, found pop-up restaurants were hot, the Nicki Minaj of the dining world. When he agreed to Talley’s proposal and Talley returned to look at the place, he was the one who was doubtful.

“There was a layer of grease everywhere,” he said. “The interior was dirty, dingy.” He consulted with restaurant pros on the proper way to chisel off a few decades of grime from every surface in the joint. He and his family and friends went to work. A few gallons of paint, industrial cleaner, and weeks of work later, Demitasse 665’s pop-up incarnation looks better than many of the upscale dining rooms in the city. The table is twenty diners long, set almost flawlessly when we all arrive, sparking with crystal and silverware, candles glowing. The paintings on the walls? All lifted from Talley's home, some of his own hand. That handsome backgammon table and those easy chairs? Similarly pilfered.  

While the others sip champagne in what was once a brass rail-equipped bar (above right) that looks like Norm will be shambling in shortly, we duck into the kitchen to pester the cook. It’s what we do. He’s amiable, not nearly so frantic as one would expect a non-professional who is only minutes away from having to produce a meal that will, in theory at least, last in memory longer than the restaurant itself. We notice the wall above the prep board. We could tell Tally’s an architect. He’s pinned up detailed diagrams, in colored pencil, of every planned course (below). They don’t look half bad, at least not in two dimensions.

The beginning of a meal like this has to produce a significant bang. This whole idea of an eatery with a lifespan shorter than Jerry Sandusky’s Facebook Friends list is already so weird the kitchen’s going to have to commence the night with something that not only gets the diners’ attention—it reaches out and grabs them by the palate. Especially considering that first course features Yorkshire caviar, Talley manages fairly effectively. The opener is a crispy wonton square, the size of a large USPS Christmas stamp, puffy-fried, stuffed with a puree of butternut squash and leeks, sitting on a bed of mushy peas that have the consistency of grainy mashed potatoes (above right). Mushy peas are a usual accompaniment to fish and chips in England. They got the “Yorkshire caviar” name because people of that town are legendarily tight—too stingy to buy anything like real caviar. The taste is peppery and light; just the right contrast for the butternut wonton. What diners noted too, was the finishing touches, subtle, essential for rendering a good dish absolutely outstanding. A scatter of chopped English walnuts and a sliver of fried sage leaf (placed precisely at a 45-degree angle) provided that last detail. Delicious.

Marie Jary has appeared, bottle in hand. She’s a wine enthusiast, as serious about it as her cohort is about his food. She’s done well here. The bottle is an Albarino Burgans, Spanish, lightly lemon in hue, balanced, fruity, with a mineral bite, that’s well-matched to this appetizer.

How come this space never made it as a restaurant?  That’s what we were thinking when the dish, empty, save for a couple of scrapes of the mushy peas we wanted to go after with our spoon but figured it might be a trifle déclassé, was cleared away. Probably it’s because of the lack of parking. The Dochester’s apartment residents have all the good spaces. Customers here would have to take their chances on Skinker, and dances with cars tends to deplete one's clientele. Still, it’s too bad. The place would make a nice eating establishment. It certainly is tonight.

The salad course we’ve already watched during assembly, back in the kitchen. It looked tasty then. It looks even better now, plated on a big square white plate. A round of goat cheese, studded with beets, dried cranberries, and fat chunks of buttery emerald avocado, the cilantro and some other lacy greens hit with a few pumpkin seeds, surrounded by a dark, mottled swath of balsamic reduction that worked on that goat cheese better than a teenager thumbing an Android.

The salad gone—it went quickly—we thought about all the work that goes into a project like this—and how people like Talley and his wife must enjoy entertaining appreciative diners. That’s a lie. Actually, what we were really thinking about was that this kind of group dining, all of us at a single table, doesn’t facilitate the swift presentation of courses. We’re only through two, five more to go. And we’re hungry. It could be a long night. Turns out, though, that Talley’s recruited a staff for these next couple of weeks that know their way around a kitchen—and a dining room (more on that later). We don’t even have time to feel get grumpy before a magnificent bowl of soup is in front of us.            

The color of October maples, it’s a puree of carrots, with a scarlet swirl in the center, of chili oil, and a little puddle of cumin-scented crème fraîche. It’s incredible. The taste of autumn in a spoon, the fiery chili oil, a few nubbins of fried onion that add a textural touch. And again, a surprise. This time it’s garam masala, the Indian seasoning. So what was a fine pumpkin soup becomes an extraordinary sensation: coriander, ginger, garlic, turmeric, and other tastes too complex or exotic to be distinguished, all working together. A couple at the table make a joke about the possibility of seconds. And those seconds appear, in a moment. We were irritated. This is something we should have thought of.

At least some of the fun of these sorts of dinners is meeting new people. Those around us, it turns out, are all old movie aficionados. The movies they like are old, not them. Just to be clear. These people could pull the names of actors and actresses from the Thirties out of the very ether. They start talking about The Thin Man and Orson Welles and how Anthony Perkins auditioned for Tony Curtis’s role in Some Like It Hot and we kind of drifted, thinking about some kind of clever line we could use to score seconds on the next course. And then came the sorbet. 

It was a palate refresher. A sorbet. A big green marble of it, icy and herby and citrusy, with ground fresh basil, freshly-squeezed orange and lemon juices, and a touch of sugar. Only a couple of chilly bites. And consider our palates refreshed.               

By now, another wine has appeared magically in our glass, a Laporte Cabernet Franc, and just in time for the main course. It is supposed to be a cut of lamb Porterhouse. It probably is not. The bone is too large for a lamb. This is a steak from a hogget, a sheep just past under the yearling stage. It is wonderfully tender. The surface is caramelized, crusty; inside it’s full of flavor, exquisitely done, accompanied by a splatter of chimichurri sauce and another sauce, equally as tasty, of figs and chili (below left). The only drawback with the meat is that bone. Even with a good knife, it’s tricky to separate the flesh. One diner solves the problem.    

“Look,” he says, pointing to the window that looks out onto Skinker. “It’s Jennifer Lopez.” Everyone turns to look—and he takes the moment of misdirection to grab the bone and quickly gnaw off the last bits of meat. Well played, sir.

There are details, again subtle, to make the evening memorable. An unannounced course arrives, haricot verts, perfectly cooked, bright grassy-green with butter, crumbles of salty pancetta, and slivers of almonds. And there is the crystal in which the sorbet arrives, aperitif, liqueur, and cordial glasses, like delicate flowers, all different, some hollow cut, with intricate printies ground into their surfaces (above right).

Each table setting here comes with a demitasse and saucer (below left). Ours was crafted in Occupied Japan, scarcely larger than a daffodil blossom. Talley explains, standing at the head of the table after the last course as appeared: the cups belonged to his mother. They were gifts to her from his father, who collected them during his military service, all over the world. Espresso-strong coffee poured into these family treasures is served continental style, right at the table, in mixed company, instead of English style. So we had no opportunity to tell our best joke, the one about the Lithuanian midget and the kangaroo. Then comes dessert. It’s a twin tower of sticky toffee pudding (below right), still warm, drizzled with runny, golden, salted caramel syrup. and along with the coffee a few more sips of cellar temp Tempranillo, limpid with notes of cherry and spice, not much more can be done for an already delightful cake.

Service? One hesitates to be too critical at what is so obviously a labor of love. As we noted, the number of diners at a single table, along with a rather narrow dining area, are not-inconsiderable impediments to a quick presentation of courses. The staff works hard. Among them is Our Boss here at the magazine, Jorge "Il Bruto" Mahe.

Before assuming the full-time position of turning our literary gold into dross, Mahe has been involved in various aspects of the restaurant trade since Taillevent was whipping up snickerdoodles for France's Valois kings. It is diverting to be on the dining side of things while Our Boss does the serving. He moves swiftly and surely for a man of his advanced years; the other, decidedly younger servers do as well. All are hampered by logistics. Narrow-necked carafes of water eliminate the need for the house to refill glasses--diners can do it themselves--but necessitate someone to come around periodically with ice and tongs and  chill individual glasses. Further, with each plate schlepped from kitchen to table, diners at one end are faced with either watching their food grow cool, waiting for those on the other end to receive theirs, or digging in while fellow diners--or, at the moment--non-diners, look on enviously.

We noted above too, that the table is almost flawlessly set. The exception we note is, again, one not entirely comfortable to fault. The demitasse cups and saucers are family treasures, the namesake of the whole event. That said, demitasse cups do not belong on a formal setting. Among the graces of formal dining, the presentation of coffee in this diminutive cups has always been that it affords the opportunity for diners to get up from their chairs, to mill about, engaging with others who may not have been seated within conversation distance, drinking coffee that have been filled by servers, butlers, or maids--and giving their collective bums a stretch.         

It’s nearly ten o’clock; we’ve been eating—and talking about old movies, for three hours now. We’ve lost count of the bottles of wine that have been emptied. Dining with people like this, though, usually assures at least one thing: there’s more wine. Somewhere close. Indeed, Sue remembers she’s got some excellent vintages—and she lives only a few blocks away. And why not carry the party over there?

We, however, are headed home. It’s been seven courses, 72 ingredients. Even we have our limitations. And the ride home gives us the chance to savor the experience. It’s unlikely we’ll have another such opportunity anytime soon. It’s only 20 diners a night, for only the next two weekend nights. And then it’s gone. It’s a shame. But since shame’s what got Talley here on this evening, maybe it’ll work again on him. And maybe this version of Demitasse 655 will become more than just a passing moment on a winter’s night.

Editor's Note: At this writing, the only remaining seats for Demitasse 665 are on December 9 and 14. If interested, reserve at demitasseunderground@gmail.com. You may also be asked to be put on the waiting list. After December 17, the city's first pop-up restaurant will disappear, as will the restaurant footprint as we know it--we're told the space will soon be gutted...to make way for a dentist's office.