At Bulrush, chef Rob Connoley serves up a modern interpretation of Ozark cuisine

The long-awaited Grand Center restaurant is an entertaining, well-researched archetype of modern dining.

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The wait is almost over. Rob Connoley’s much-anticipated Bulrush will open its doors tonight at 5 p.m.

The city's dining cognoscenti knows all too well that the Bridgeton native, foraged-foods fanatic, James Beard Award semi-finalist chef, and cookbook author has been working on Bulrush since returning to St. Louis nearly three years ago. (Dare we say that Bulrush has the singular distinction of being on SLM’s “Most Anticipated Restaurants” list for both 2018 and 2019.)

“Believe me, I get it,” says Connoley, who acknowledges that many restaurants open and close in less time than it took Bulrush to open.

The affable Connoley has amused and impressed diners in the interim, first with the whimsical food-and-whimsically named Squatter’s Café and then with a series of pop-up dinners, including a 30-minute speed-dining experience and another featuring only black-colored foods.

An early peek suggests that the misfires, refires, and practice runs have been worth it: Bulrush is an entertaining and well-researched archetype of modern dining. And the food is superb.

Guests are initially struck by a mesmerizing, 90-foot run of long, colorful paint drips that starts at the front door and terminates at the end of a hallway, literally changing its stripes (from predominantly red to deep purple) along the way.

The wall’s color palette ties into the culinary theme of the Ozarkian cuisine of Connoley's youth. The chef took a wild native persimmon to a paint shop, color-matched 12 colors, then invited staff, spouses, and partners to participate. (“Bulrush became three years of my work," he says. "I wanted them to have ownership of the space as well.”) Buoyed by a keg of beer, the group used giant horse-dosing syringes to create the drips. Back in New Mexico, Connoley says he worked with 4-H kids all the time, “so as strange as it sounds, that was something I was familiar with.”

Connoley organized the group into six teams of two, with each team responsible for different colors and patterns. The last team’s instruction was to fill in the gaps. “It was 90 feet of suck and squirt, suck and squirt,” Connolly recalls, admitting the project was a risk. “Worst case, we cover it up with a monochrome color and end up with textural wall and a heck of a story,” he says of the “kindergarten art that turned out beautiful.” He later realized that the wall will become part of many Instagram moments, one of few details he managed not to anticipate.

On the other wall are groupings of Connoley’s cookbooks, their spines mimicking the colors on the opposite wall. Standing by itself is a copy of The Shepherd of the Hills, the 1907 novel that became among the most widely read books in publishing history. Besides being an inspiration to Connoley, the book was instrumental in spurring tourism in the Missouri Ozarks, where Connoley lived during his youth (as did sous chef Justin Bell) and where both became interested in foraging.

In a previous article, Connoley mentioned the focus at Bulrush, from which he hasn’t wavered: "foods rooted in Ozark cuisine, a sub-genre of Southern cooking, using traditional foraged ingredients and wild game.” Bulrush will emphasize curing, drying, pickling, and other preservation techniques, all of with which Connoley and Bell are familiar.

Utilizing two areas of the shotgun space, Bulrush creates a balance between an a la carte menu and a seven-course tasting menu.

The 24-seat, no-reservations bar area (18 bar seats, plus three two-tops along the wall) affords entrée-size portions and a few smaller plates (such as a trio of bologna sliders), “a bar menu but not bar food,” as Connoley puts it. The only crossover menu from Squatter’s Café is a version of the popular Brekkie Biscuit, but look for other Squatter’s items to reemerge when The Hi-Low literary center opens two doors down. Connoley and Bell have agreed to curate that menu as well.

At the rectangular bar in the front area, Chris Voll, former bar manager at Elaia and Olio, echoes the kitchen’s culinary heritage, emphasis on foraged items, and zero-waste mantra. "Using felt coasters and straws made of hay was easy,” Voll admits. "The rest was not.

"Unfortunately, lemons limes, and oranges don’t fit with Ozarkian cuisine,” he adds, noting that it's a challenge to operate a craft cocktail bar without them. So he’s using house-made fruit vinegars instead of citrus and local honey and paw paw puree as sweeteners. (“Paw paw comes from Missouri but tastes tropical,” Voll says. “I can’t explain it.”) 

On the beverage menu are eight regular and eight spirit-free cocktails, two beers on draft, several beers in cans (including Busch!), plus a few glass and bottled wines, the genesis resulting from Missouri rootstock that was shipped back to France (generally to Burgundy, Beaujolais, and southwest France) following the country’s philoxera epidemic. Other vino options, such as a dry Riesling, pay homage to Missouri’s German influence. Voll says the wines are natural, organic, biodynamic, or sustainable in some way.

Destined for signature cocktail status is a the First Epoch (pictured above) with paw paw puree, paw paw vinegar, gin, tequila, house-made honey-brown sugar simple syrup, an angostura bitters floater, garnished with a foraged trout lily leaf (a spotted leaf with lemon, and cucumber flavors). When we visited, Voll was tinkering with a summer sipper (pictured at right) containing foraged wild Missouri mint and Duckett Rum (a lighter, more earthy, “St. Louis-style rum” from Nobleton's Distilling House, a new Beaufort, Missouri-based "cane-to-glass" distillery).

The pricing at the bar—and throughout the restaurant—is inclusive of tax and gratuity, so don’t wince when you see cocktails priced $12–$14. They're steals.

The tasting menu can be paired with beverages in two ways: with alcoholic beverages (wine, beer, or cocktails) or a spirit-free drinks (because, as Voll says, there are times when you don’t want “seven alcohols with seven courses”).

The bar is a casual introduction to what architect/designer Tom Niemeier calls "the dinner theater beyond." It provides a no-commitment taste of the full Bulrush experience. The bar design was meant to build anticipation, providing shadowy glimpses of the action beyond. Connoley added functional homespun touches, including custom jugs, crocks, and wooden countertop kegs containing house-made vinegars and ferments.

Running partial interference for the dining room is a curious distraction: a live-edge table flanked by two love seats, which Connoley has penciled in as a reservation-only, after-dinner experience.

“The bar and the dining are both communal spaces,” he explains. “This one is private.”

Atop the table will be a custom box with tiered, swing-out drawers that conceal, well, surprises... “I know it’s an inefficient use of space,” he says, “but it’s just so incredibly cool.”

The dining “room” is, in fact, an open kitchen surrounded by two brackets of seats, 12 per side. Guests are directed down the hall before entering. Hiding mysteriously behind wood slats (meant to evoke the broken silhouettes of an Ozark forest) are dim lights, black-and-white brick walls, a black counter, low-slung black leather seats, and gray-black carpeting.

Niemeier's vision was that once seated, guests imagine being in the woods, partially in the dark, surrounded by shadows and trees, with the central kitchen playing the role of campfire.

Attention to detail abounds, including ustom dishes and bowls (some by local artist Justin Leszcz) resting atop Tibetan meditation bowl pads, guest checks presented in cast-iron acorns, and the coolest knives in town. Like the other elements at Bulrush, the bathrooms combine deliberate thought with a touch of backwoods (no spoilers here).

Similar to Logan Ely’s Savage, the chef team (Connoley and Bell) cook, serve, and interact with diners from a central hub. Bulrush’s bill of fare is a seven-course tasting menu with the evening’s offerings projected onto a side wall (since Connoley is striving to be a zero-paper restaurant). The per-person price is $100 (inclusive of tax and gratuity) and can be paid  using the Tock platform (a newish, functional reservation system that allows for a pay-in-advance option, including Bulrush’s beverage pairings). “It means you can leave your credit card at home,” Connoley says. “Fewer steps and less paper for us, more convenience for the guest.”

Describing Squatter's Cafe in 2017, we remarked, "This city needs more Rob Connoleys." You'll soon understand why.

Bulrush

3307 Washington, St Louis, Missouri 63103

314-449-1208

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Wed - Sat: 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. (Currently offering only online ordering for pick-up, delivery, and park & dine.)

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