As 2017 draws to a close, we look back on another year of dining and... Wait. What? It’s 2018? Wow, somehow 12 months of sand slipped through the hourglass far too quickly, and it's probably because there were just too many distractions, too many good meals, too many memorable dining experiences. The number of restaurants that opened this year is remarkable, and those that continue to please is even more impressive. We know. We ate in a lot of them. Here are some of the high and low points from the past year.
Best Apostrophied Dining: The Benevolent King features Moroccan fare like j’ben (a fennel-dusted pudding-like cheese), s’men (a salted, fragrantly fermented butter), m’samem (a crunchy flatbread), and the pureed eggs and olive oil ikra. They’re mostly vowel-free but definitely not lacking in flavor. If your range of Middle Eastern cuisine is limited to hummus and pita, this cool little spot in Maplewood will be a delightful surprise (and except for that creepy monkey portrait, we had a happily memorable dinner here).
Best Dish That’s Totally Not What You Think: “Hog balls” could be the most amazing side dish of 2018. And no, Porky didn’t contribute what you might assume here. Instead, they’re a unique take on hush puppies, a deep-fried cornbread-based batter with slivers of pork, cheddar cheese blobs, and green pepper nibbles. They’re a specialty at Big Woody’s BBQ in St. Peters. No meal (notably, the brisket on Texas toast) is complete without them.
Best Place for Lunch That’s Totally Not The Same Ol' Thing: DD Mau—essentially Vietnamese for “get out of my hair”—is an alternative to the burgers and sandwiches lunch destinations of which you’re weary. Perfumed bowls of beef broth pho, banh-mi baguettes, and other Vietnamese fare are quickly prepared here, living up to the restaurant's name.
This Year’s Coveted Mama Mia Award Goes To…
We all know that what St. Louis needs is more Italian-American restaurants, right? OK, kidding. We’ve got enough Nonna-style trattoria, osteria, enoteca, and ristorante to feed the entire A.C. Milan soccer club fan base. What’s so often lacking, however, is Nonna herself. At Del Pietro’s, Nonna is in the house. Mary Rose Del Pietro is a force of nature as she moves through the dining room, touching shoulders, schmoozing, and making the whole place feel like a Sunday afternoon gathering of the whole familia.
Alas, There Isn’t Any Beer
We got a hint there was great fried chicken joint in Alton at a place called Fast Eddie’s. Not that one. This Fast Eddie’s is a little joint in a quiet neighborhood in Alton that’s been turning out the browned bird for decades, a sort of sister eatery to the famous one. It’s friendly and fun, and it was the best fried chicken we had all year.
The Best Way to Annoy Diners
A new symbol of hip in the restaurant biz is apparently to spend all of the money you'd normally invest in a business phone on a largely useless website. This year, we encountered more than one restaurant without a published phone number. Perhaps not coincidentally, we also found more restaurant websites with no way to navigate to a menu. Yeah, we know: Most people use an app to make reservations. While we’re terribly impressed with your Yousuf Karsh-quality website graphics, it’d be swell if, along with your “mission statement” and “food philosophy,” you’d show us your menu and hours, too.
Best Example of A Chef With Good Sense, Which is Better Than Good Fortune: We reviewed Good Fortune this year and enjoyed it, and we thought the menu was fine but that it tried a little too hard to be all fusion-y and avant nouveau Chinoise. As the year ends, we hear the chef is redoing things. He took a chance. More impressively, he realized he’d gone in a direction that wasn’t the best for his place, and he had the courage to try a different tack. We look forward to see what happens.
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Nudo House
Best Dessert Ramen: Well, not ramen. But still… It’s a tall order—taller than most might think—to turn out a decent bowl of ramen and even harder to make one of the caliber to be enjoyed at Nudo House. The broth, the essence of all ramen, is ambrosial here. Ingredients excel. But just when you think it can’t get better, there’s dessert: house-made ice cream, soft-serve, in far-out flavors, from mango to pumpkin spice to coconut. The sweetness of such a dessert is heightened by the salty broth of the ramen; it’s a fine way to finish a lunch or dinner.
Reviving Our Faith in The Course of Human Progress One Pound at a Time: Having doubts about the goodness of Western civilization? Check out this choco chico malo, and take heart. A pair of half-pound Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups appear only for the holiday season. Each is the circumference of a dessert plate and the thickness of third base. It's a sort of chocolate and peanut butter Ozymandias. We came across them at the candy shelf at Ace Hardware—and bought a wheeled dolly to help cart one to the car.
Most Romantic and Tasty Lighting: The atmosphere at Hamilton’s Urban Steak House is cool and luxuriously shadowy, which makes the candle that arrives at your table all the more lovely. The flame flickers charmingly—and then you dig in. To the candle, that is. It’s a taper made of cooled bacon fat. Lighting the wick releases the alluring aroma. The kicker? You swipe hunks of rustic country bread into the melted fat. It's truly a luminous appetizer. We’re hoping they have carpaccio napkins at our next visit.
Best View We Weren’t Expecting: There are restaurants in St. Louis that offer dramatic vistas. J. Devoti Trattoria is nothing like that. The windows look out on a tiny courtyard. We ate dinner back in October, on an evening when leaves were falling and being blown into little tornadoes, rattling against the panes. It was autumn beautiful and contributed an unforgettable taste to a plate of risotto studded with squash and other harvest vegetables.
Photo courtesy of We Eat Stuff
Best Antipasti: Louie is one of those nearly perfect little neighborhood eateries, snuggled into an atmospheric, tree-lined streets of the DeMun district. It’s also home to the best antipasti we ate in 2018. It's simple—a plate of prosciutto de Parma sliced so thin it looks like pink paper and tastes like it came from an angelic pig. Flakes of Parmagiano Reggiano are fragrant, rough-grained, and Vache Rosse is a cheese aged longer and creamier than any other of the Parmagiano varieties. Order it with a Merlot, and you have one of the best starter courses in town.
Most Delicious Masala-Flavored Vindication: The tikka masala and sag paneer combination at India’s Kitchen tastes not just authentic but the location—in the Saint Louis Galleria's food court—makes it especially delightful. We've long believed these courts would support independent eateries, and this place is flourishing right next to all of the predictable chains.
The Scorched Tongue and Totally Worth It Award: When eating soup dumplings, savvy diners know to make a little nip on the top to allow the rich juices to flow out onto the spoon, where they can cool. Inevitably, though, we walk on the wild side, popping those magnificent dough purses in our mouth, enjoying the combination of garlic- and ginger-flavored broth and the ground meat on bottom. Soup Dumplings STL puts out bamboo steamer baskets of these incredible delights in a no-frill setting. You’ll be going back as soon as that tongue heals.
Best Chef Quote of The Year: Auggie’s The Original is a quirky little food stand below the Arch that we visited last summer. It serves toasted ravioli in long strips that resemble plump Pop-Tarts—and are quite tasty. We asked proprietor David Brown about the biggest hurdle he faced in starting such a business. His answer: explaining what toasted ravioli are—then explaining what the toasted ravioli dogs are now—because the clientele are mostly tourists visiting the Arch. “The real problem was that I’m not in the business of teaching people,” he said. “I’m in the business of selling them food.” It was the most brilliant comment we heard all year regarding the restaurant business, and every chef in town should post it on the walls of their own kitchens.
Best...However You Say “Lagniappe” in Spanish: In April, we had a Burrito Supreme at Taco Bell. Even though we didn’t order it, they added, like, almost double the amount of sour cream. So instead of just getting that blob either at the beginning or end of the burrito, like normal, there was sour cream in every bite. Friends, it’s those little things that make life worth living.
