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The following modules appear on the "Food & Drink" home page of stlmag.com and are updated weekly.
Tripel Brasserie: Tripel Brasserie makes it easy to cozy up to Belgian comfort food: start with the basics, like mussels and steak frites, and then experiment with more traditional fare, like Kippenwaterzooi, a Flemish chicken stew. At lunch, our current weakness is the ground-in-house antelope burger (lean and meaty like bison) with goat cheese and candied onion. (And if you're wondering about how to pronounce Tripel, the Belgians accent the first syllable and the French accent the second, so either is considered correct.) 1801 Park, 314-678-7787, tripelstl.com
Superior Service at Giovanni's When frustrated with neophyte servers who don't know a sardine from Sardinia, remember there are places like Giovanni's on the Hill, where tuxedos, tableside preparation, and a three-tirered captain system are the norm. Oh, and by the way, the captain with the least seniority has been at Giovanni's 25 years. 5201 Shaw, 314-772-5958, giovannisonthehill.com
Frozen Butter For us, it's one of the great mysteries of life...a restaurant goes the extra mile to serve a high-quality, fresh-from-the-oven bread product, then sends it out to the table with butter so cold it requires a hammer and cold chisel to negotiate. By the time the butter warms up, the bread is cold. Which leaves us steaming.