Photographs by Katherine Bish
The best. Sure, we know what it means in terms of naming everything from caviar to chocolate chip cookie recipes, from soccer stars to samba singers.* But it’s tougher when it comes to naming the best restaurant in St. Louis. We’ve done it, of course. We’re professionals, and it’s our job—but afterward we always find ourselves ruminating about all the other places of note, places you really ought to consider when you’re looking for the best in St. Louis dining. So this year, we decided to give you choices.
*Our picks: Osetra (the sturgeon that produce it swim deeper than other species do, and their diet’s richer); ours; Stanley Matthews, when he played for Blackpool; Astrud Gilberto.
Sidney Street Café
Best Restaurant the Supposed Closing of Which Caused Culinary Conniptions Throughout the Land
When Sidney Street Café closed briefly a while back for remodeling, vacation or whatever (the Weekly World News is hardcore journalism compared to the reliability of restaurant-related rumors in this city), you’d have thought that the Cardinals were closing Busch Stadium—again. There was considerable rending of garments and gnashing of teeth from devoted fans of this eatery near Busch Brewery, all of which turned to joyful noise when the place reopened. A pleasant century-old brick exterior gives way to smooth wooden floors, big polished lamps and mirrors that reflect a soft, quiet ambience. An atrium room, flooded with natural light and lots of potted plants, is perfect for private dinner parties. The main dining areas are staggered on different floors, adding to the cozy appeal.
The menu achieves that rare trick of making diners think that at least half of the dishes have been concocted with them personally in mind: airy puffs of pastry stuffed with blue cheese and topped with pesto, potstickers plumped with veal and spinach, duck breast smoked with applewood and served with the bird’s leg as a confit alongside a fricassee of wild mushrooms. Breathtakingly rich is a chicken, lightly breaded, then roasted with a stuffing of montrachet cheese, artichoke hearts, spinach and prosciutto, then topped—just in case you’re still calorically deficient—with a cream sauce. Montrachet, a Burgundian chèvre, is a tangy and excellent choice for the subtle flavor of the roast chicken. Beef (in steaks, filets and tenderloins) and lamb chops are presented dramatically, accompanied by such surprises as roasted-garlic oil, wasabi and a lobster-and-langostino stuffing. The sweet-potato steak fries are crispy, salty slivers of poetry on a plate.
Still not convinced that Sidney Street Café is a worth-while dining destination? Four more words should do it: Triple. Layer. Fudge. Cake.
Monarch
Most Successful at Living Up to Enormous Pre-Opening Hype
Heralded with as much hoopla as the MetroLink expansion—and probably costing a little more—Monarch opened a few years ago in the Maplewood area. Unlike the MetroLink expansion, however, Monarch has lived up to the hype surrounding it, becoming one of the premier restaurants of the region. Every aspect of dining is luxurious here. In an overall scheme of warm oranges and yellows that reflect the hues of their namesake butterfly, brocade pillows and sparkling chandeliers provide a setting that ranges from plush to opulent. A wine bar and bistro are attached and worthy of second and third visits.
If it’s your first time at Monarch, though, go for the formal dining room. Once you’re seated there, the seduction begins with appetizers like a warm salad of romaine, shredded shiitake mushrooms and scarlet runner beans dressed with a piquant blue-cheese vinaigrette and tossed with meltingly tender chunks of a warm duck confit. There’s also a house-made foie gras paté; the buttery-smooth paté is adorned with just a touch of portwine jelly and plopped atop crostini. (Please, no salad and foie gras together. The vinegar in the former will always compromise the latter.) Then it’s on to a fillet of grouper, pan-seared and drizzled with a satisfying beurre blanc and blood-orange sauce. Lamb chops are also worthy, encrusted in smashed pistachios, then seared and presented with a Bing-cherry demi-glace and tourné potatoes. (These little seven-sided footballs of potato are subtle but impressive evidence of a skilled hand in the kitchen.) Desserts like the creative crème caramel will consummate the encounter, and you will be deep into an affair that cannot be satisfied without regular return engagements. Monarch’s consistency is extraordinary.
Trattoria Marcella
Best Restaurant for Which You’d Better Get Reservations Now If You Want to Have Dinner There Before You Die
“Rustic Italian.” When food writers describe restaurants that profess to feature such cuisine, the term gets tossed around like a beach ball at a high-school graduation. Mostly what’s rustic is the service, but here’s a clue: When you see rabbit on the menu, the place just might be serving real rustica cucina. At Trattoria Marcella, Peter gets cubed and slow-stewed in a nice herby gravy that’s poured over polenta. Bingo.
Wildly popular since it opened, this stylish eatery on a decidedly unstylish stretch of Watson Road expanded a few years back. Even so, you’ll have better luck getting a seat at a public flogging of Eminem than securing a Saturday-night table here. Bright reds and yellows dominate the interior of this always-crowded, immensely convivial trattoria. In addition to hearty, Italian style country fare—and the house-made bread—the kitchen turns out a rewarding array of imaginative dishes. Appetizers include a crispy fried squid atop a verdant bedding of fried spinach, the two brought together by jagged shreds of Parmesan cheese and a spritz of lemon wedge. Paillards of meaty swordfish get a stuffing of chopped eggplant and fresh tomatoes. Wedges of polenta are french-fried and served with a delicate porcini sauce. A creamy Alfredo sauce enlivens goat cheese–flavored gnocchi. Odes have reportedly been written about the lobster risotto here, its sweet chunks of lobster folded into the rice, both at the perfect peak of tenderness. From lasagna to linguini with clams, the pasta entrées are consistently among the best around.
The wine cellar is on view to diners and stocked with professional care, including vintages that range from the affordable to the ludicrous. Despite its popularity—or maybe as another reason for it—Trattoria Marcella sets remarkably affordable prices. An evening here will be memorable—and if you start calling for reservations now, there’s a distinct possibility that you’ll have your dinner before the close of the decade.
Niche
Closest to a Real Bistro, Because Most So-Called Bistros Really Aren’t Bistros at All (Which Famously Irks Us)
Tucked into an attractive space in a corner of one of the city’s most attractive rehabbed neighborhoods, Niche is appropriately named. Bistro fare is featured in this Benton Park eatery, which means that the menu is limited but designed to show off the kitchen’s best and brightest. There are rarely more than half-a-dozen main courses, yet every one will be worthy of consideration.
Slabs of grilled flatbread spread with an olive tapenade get things off to the right start. What political causes they neither understand nor appreciate are to Hollywood celebrities, braised lamb shanks are to the serious eater, eliciting a near-Pavlovian response. Shanks arrive on a big platter here, glistening and dark brown, transformed during the long, gentle braise so the meat gives way to the first touch of the fork. On the side is a hefty dollop of polenta, arguably the ideal accompaniment to such a dish. A chocolate-cake bombe tops desserts here, though a pumpkin bread pudding has become a house favorite.
Although billboard-sized windows at the front give the illusion of space, this restaurant isn’t large. Your local license office can accommodate more customers than Niche can—although the license office’s bar isn’t as much fun. All that to say this: Reservations can be hard to come by, but they’re worth it. Dinner here is a treat.
Busch’s Grove
Best New Restaurant to Survive an Inordinate Amount of Post-Opening Backlash
It’s been around since 1896. Unless we’re talking geological epochs, isn’t that stretching the definition of “new restaurant” a bit?
Yes, they were serving steaks there when valet service involved watering your horse. But Busch’s Grove, after fading into a long and undistinguished twilight late in the last century, has been so dramatically and spectacularly revived that it qualifies as a new place—or at least a new incarnation—and it is fabulous. Parts of the interior look like a museum of modern art, others a rustic stable, others a classic plush wood-paneled men’s club—and the formal dining room rivals any in the country. A magnificent bar and racks of mezzanine-level wine storage add to the atmosphere, and well-spaced tables and comfortable chairs don’t do anything to spoil the mood.
Come on; it’s a glorified steakhouse for the blue-hair, white-shoes crowd.
Um, the Arch is finished now, and the Innerbelt goes past Page and, hey, everybody’s got TV with color! Busch’s Grove has changed. That’s obvious with the first spoonful of an incredibly silky lobster bisque. Plump fried oysters are smoky with bacon and leeks and a roasted-garlic aioli.
The kitchen here is putting out excellent steaks and chops: a 22-ounce ribeye splashed with a thick Cabernet-and-shallot reduction, lamb chops grilled and paired with a dollop of polenta redolent with goat cheese, a veal rib chop with a wild-mushroom risotto. But the place is also taking some worthy and interesting culinary diversions, like the toasted-almond couscous that comes with a slab of Norwegian salmon and the fillet of sea bass adorned with salty prosciutto cracklings. Presentations are wonderful and imaginative, but the emphasis is always on the food itself.
What about service problems?
True, there’ve been too many complaints about slow or unpolished service, and we’ve experienced the frustration of a poorly planned valet-parking system. What’s interesting is that fewer complaints have been heard the longer the restaurant’s been open—which at least connotes a management that’s sensitive and responsive to customers.
But, but—it’s in Ladue!
Yep, and it’s easy to find—one more reason Busch’s Grove is a must-go destination for the serious diner.
