Cinder House, the Brazilian-themed restaurant created and operated by Gerard Craft’s Niche Food Group at the Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis, will close on January 8, 2024, upon expiration of its five-year contract.
In a mid-day release, Alper Oztok, general manager of Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis, said, “Gerard Craft is an amazing talent and huge champion of the St. Louis restaurant community, so we are thrilled to have collaborated with him on Cinder House. He has been an incredible partner and together we have accomplished so much. As our partnership comes to a close in early 2024, we look forward to seeing his next creative venture.”
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In the same release, Craft said Niche Food Group has been working closely with the Four Seasons team over the course of the past year to make the transition as smooth as possible, and guests will still be able to enjoy the restaurant’s wood-fired fare until the end of the contract.
He added that he wished the Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis team the best of luck with its new concept and that his team will focus on its ongoing and existing projects, such as the upcoming speakeasy cocktail lounge, None of the Above, and Expat BBQ, both opening at City Foundry STL, and the return of Porano in a new location.
Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis plans to open an as-yet-unannounced new dining concept in the second quarter of 2024. From January 9 until that time, the release noted, meals will be offered in Mississippi Bistro, its pop-up restaurant located in the Mississippi event space on the eighth floor.
The Backstory
In 2018, at the Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis, the decision was made to update Cielo, the restaurant that had served breakfast, lunch, and dinner since the hotel’s inception in 2008. General manager Alper Oztok wanted to invite a local chef to take the foodservice to the next level, someone who could attract regional and national attention to the property. “And who better than Gerard Craft?” he told SLM at the time.
Craft’s original idea was to do interpretations of global barbecue, based on the idea that all cultures have cooked something over wood. “Then it morphed into the foods of my youth,” he told SLM at the time, “which was a lot of South American food,” cooked by his childhood nanny, who was Brazilian. The Cinder House menu graphic evoked flame, smoke, and embers, indicative of the live-fire cooking methods used to cook the steaks, chops, seafood, piri piri chicken, and the assortment of meats for the feiojada, a national dish of Brazil and a signature item at Cinder House.
The restaurant encompassed a sprawling eighth-floor terrace, with several seating options for drinking and dining. Seated at the outdoor bar, guests were rewarded with a commanding view of the Arch and Mississippi River. Over the years, Cinder House remained a go-to, brag-about spot for friends, family, and out-of-town visitors.
