It’s morel season in Missouri. What are the best places to buy them fresh or enjoy them in a local restaurant? —Doug S., St. Louis
April—give or take a few weeks—is peak season for foraging morel mushrooms in Missouri. These prized fungi have already begun appearing on local restaurant menus. There’s even a Facebook group entirely devoted to the annual hunt and special glasses (called Fungeyes) designed to make spotting them easier. Morels are so cherished that foragers often guard their favorite spots more fiercely than their best fishing holes.
My first foray into morel hunting involved being blindfolded and driven 25 minutes to “somewhere west,” apparently, at which point we ditched the car, jumped a fence, and crouch-walked what seemed like 100 yards across a farmer’s property. (“He’d shoot us if he saw us,” I was told.) We then slipped into the woods. After five minutes of hunting, I located a 7-inch honeycombed specimen, at which point my foraging friend called me “the luckiest person on the planet” for so quickly finding “a beer can” (a term for a super-size morel). I’ve fancied the fungus ever since, even though they can be toxic if consumed raw or undercooked.
Find the best food in St. Louis
Subscribe to the St. Louis Dining In and Dining Out newsletters to stay up-to-date on the local restaurant and culinary scene.
Despite the local frenzy, Missouri’s morel supply is notoriously unpredictable. According to Henry Hellmuth of Ozark Forest Mushrooms, a family-run farm that distributes to restaurants across St. Louis, most of the morels found on local menus aren’t actually from Missouri. “Local morels are so random and usually in short supply,” Hellmuth says. Instead, the majority are sourced from the Pacific Northwest, where the season is longer and the harvest more reliable.
In the next week or two, he says, Ozark Forest Mushrooms will begin air-shipping morels to St. Louis and offering them at the Tower Grove Farmers’ Market. “We also sell to over 100 restaurants in the area,” Hellmuth adds. “Thirty to 40 of them buy morels.”
“In a few weeks, you’ll see them on menus all over St. Louis,” Hellmuth says. Among the options:
- Katie’s: The menu currently has morel and ramp pappardelle and a pizza with morel and hen of the woods mushrooms, pickled ramps, teleggio cheese, and truffle honey.
- Sidney Street Café: The Benton Park mainstay is currently offering morels as a side with madeira and Parmesan mousse, as well as in a Parisian gnocchi dish with peas and lemon.
- The Crossing: Longtime chef Thu Rein is topping homemade tajarin pasta with a fistful of meaty morels.
- Ivy Café: The Clayton café plans to bring back the morel tartine “in about three weeks,” according to owner Julie Keane.
- Herbie’s: Years ago, the morel pasta at Balaban’s (made with egg linguine, heavy cream, ruby port, and tarragon) became a rite of spring and triggered a Pavlovian response with many St. Louisans. Its successor has wisely continued the tradition. Expect to see the dish return in some form in the coming weeks.
- And if past history is any indication, expect to see morels pop up on special dishes at Acero, Edera, Little Fox, and Westchester, among others.
This article has been updated from its original version.
Follow George on X, Instagram, the Arch Eats podcast, or send him an “Ask George” email at [email protected]. For more from St. Louis Magazine, subscribe, sign up for the newsletters, or follow us on Facebook, X, and Instagram.
