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Want a good glass of wine? Point yourself toward the Colonnade Center in Des Peres. The unassuming strip mall on Manchester Road is now home to not one but two wine oases.
Pairings Wine & Dessert Bar, opened last week in Des Peres, just across the parking lot from long-time fine-wine destination Gerard’s, the spiritual successor to the legendary Al Baker’s.
Pairings is owner David Pollmann’s re-imagining of the space in which he previously ran the West County outpost of Jilly’s, which was called Cupcake Bar A-Go-Go. An engineer by trade, Pollmann first became associated with Jilly’s as a consultant on the expansion of its original location in University City.
But Pollmann is also so much of a wine fanatic that he put in a small vineyard – nine 80-foot rows of native grapes – at his house in Des Peres. He also has a bit of line restaurant experience himself, having worked as a chef at one of the former locations of Houlihan’s while he was in engineering school.
Pairings offers about 50 wines in total, with a good 30 of them available by the glass. Daily flights of three 2-ounce pours for $12 are also available.
“We did a lot of research and put together a list of bottles that aren’t easily found at local markets,” Pollmann says.
On the food side, the executive chef is Michael McGovern, who formerly worked at Bleu restaurant in Columbia, Mo. His menu includes small plates like lamb lollipops (three small frenched chops with bleu cheese and a pomegranate reduction, $10, above); a short list of entrees from $17 to $28, including, among others, crispy duck breast and a Cornish hen; and flatbreads (Surryano ham and apple, below) baked in a wood-fired oven that Pollmann shipped in from California.
The “dessert bar” portion of the restaurant’s name is fulfilled by a list of a dozen small dessert plates – “bacon sweet love” is a bacon-and-blueberry bread pudding topped with ice cream – priced at $3 apiece or $8 for ironically named pairings of three (see right). (Which brought back fond memories of my high school gym teacher, Tony Rubich, announcing to the class, “All right, you guys – pair off in threes!”)
Pairings is open for lunch and dinner Tuesdays through Saturdays, but Pollmann says he’ll soon add special wine-tasting and pairing-party events on Sundays and Mondays.
Pairings Wine & Dessert Bar 1131 Colonnade Center 314-821-5455 Hours: Tue - Sat 11 a.m. - 10 p.m. PairingsWineBarSTL.com
