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St. Louis has what we think is its first restaurant-within-a-restaurant. Jim Fiala recently opened Liluma's Side Door inside his nine-year-old Liluma, utilizing its little-used, smaller dining room to the south. With red-checked tablecloths and without reservations, it feels vaguely like a neighborhood cafe. Small plates comprise the entire menu, but with ordinary-sounding names delivering riffs on the expected. The restaurant has its own entrance on Euclid Avenue, or just walk through Liluma.
When we asked about the fried bologna, our server cheerfully explained it was mortadella, the Italian sausage on which bologna is based, cubed and crisped up, with a drizzle of balsamico. It was first-rate mortadella, the sauté concentrating its flavors and adding texture, and some high-grade balsamic vinegar for contrast. Good stuff, indeed.
One of the more forthright descriptions is the shiitake custard and crostini (above). The custard is warm and succulent, full of mushroom and onion flavor, perhaps the don't-miss dish of the house and delicious spooned onto crisp bread. Both dishes were in the “Bites” section of the menu, for $4 each, as was the fresh tomato toast, bruschetta topped with halved cherry tomatoes seasoned with a little oil and garlic, their flavor sprightly, the toast crunchy. Sweet potatoes were the only failure among the group; diced and braised, seasoned with sage and bacon, the combination lacked excitement, not tasting nearly as good as it sounded.
The next section, labeled "Pillows," at $7, is stuffed pasta. Ducks in a Lake brought inch-big dumplings stuffed with chopped duck confit, paddling around, so to speak, in a rich chicken broth enhanced by Parmesan cheese during the cooking and later sprinkled on top. A dish labeled Bacon and Egg arrived as a single large raviolo (at left). Inside, it held egg yolk, warm and still runny, and a silky sauce that showed cream, bacon and cheese, much like fettuccine Alfredo in a circle. Rich but somehow light, it was irresistible.
A couple of small fillets of tilapia were battered in cornmeal, fried and paired up with house-made potato chips, described as fish and chips, part of the "Snacks" section, at $10. Surf and Turf was back to the surprise mode, though, with two large scallops, crisp on top and bottom and not overcooked inside, posing atop a potato-pancake-like patty of spaghetti squash. Surf: scallop. Turf: vegetable. Okay, we get it. The scallops were gorgeous and delicious, but it'll take more than Fiala's skill to get us enthusiastic about that bland vegetable.
There's a doughnut du jour, described as brioche dough fried with varying ingredients, in the $5 "Afterthoughts" division. On our visit, apple was planned, but all had been harvested; ours wore a substitute, a drizzle of bittersweet chocolate, more like warm ganache than Hershey's Syrup, and the doughnut clearly had been fried to order. Tasty and pleasing, if without fireworks. We subbed salted caramel ice cream for the usually-served vanilla; it was good, but it was butterscotch, not caramel. Tart-sweet apples with a slight hit of salt topped a tender crust in Side Door's excellent take on apple pie (at right).
No wine is over $15 on the list, with most of them unfamiliar to the average diner, but certainly worth exploring at that price. We drank a non-vintage Portuguese vinho verde, which translates as "green wine," but the adjective refers to youth rather than hue. It was vinified as a rosé, and it was light, pleasant, filled with fruit, and just the thing to go with lots of different flavors. Reds and whites, too, and the price makes the risk easy.
The server knew the menu well and was comfortable with our ordering two or three dishes at a time. One hitch: Liluma's Side Door needs a consistent and later closing time for post-event snackers.
Liluma's Side Door 236 N. Euclid CWE 314-361-7771 fialafood.com Dinner Mon.-Sat Small plates: $4-$10 Photographs by Kevin A. Roberts
by Joe and Ann Pollack
