The long-awaited relocation of Companion Baking’s headquarters is officially fully-baked.
Originally slated to open last August, the $5 million multi-purpose facility in Maryland Heights will open Tuesday, February 2.
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The 41,000-square-foot building includes all of Companion’s bread baking operations, a private event space, teaching kitchen, and a 60-seat café open for breakfast and lunch, the same dayparts as Companion’s two other cafes (in Ladue and Clayton).
One of the city’s premier chefs, Josh Galliano, was hired last June to manage the facility’s bread production, a departure from finer dining that came as a surprise to many in the local dining community. (In a September 2015 Q&A with SLM, Galliano explained it as a quality of life issue, and that “it wasn’t all about the dough.”)
Less of a surprise was the announcement this week that chef Cassy Vires (right) would head up Companion’s baking/cooking school/teaching kitchen. An experienced instructor, Vires taught classes at the former Viking Cooking School in Brentwood for three years. After she closed her restaurant Home Wine Kitchen in late 2014, she ramped up her teaching schedule at the Kitchen Conservatory, Dierbergs, local farmer’s markets, as well as cooking demo appearances at local high schools on behalf of the culinary arts program at Hickey College.
Vires told SLM that her position at Companion came about almost by accident. “Josh [Allen] reached out to me to pick my brain about cooking classes and cooking schools,” she said. “He asked a bunch of detailed questions and after a while I paused and asked, ‘Is this a job interview?’” And he said, “Twenty minutes ago, I decided it was.”
Vires says that unlike her other jobs, where there was always some trepidation, she was “100 percent excited about the teaching program at Companion…no reservations whatsoever.”
Asked when she would officially clock in, she quipped, “It’ll definitely be after January 29,” the due date of her first child.
In truth, classes will begin in mid-April. The curriculum will be a mix of both professional and entry level baking (75 percent) and menu-driven cooking classes (25 percent), akin to the appetizer/entrée/dessert format she’d taught in the past.
Classes will be scheduled five nights per week, with no class on Tuesday or Wednesday nights. Companion’s baking staff will be responsible for the baking curriculum, according to Vires. Expect Chef Galliano (right), a gifted instructor in his own right, to teach classes as well.
Individual classes are priced from $35 to $295 for a two-day immersion. One difference, Vires says, will be the value component. “In other classes, students rarely get to go home with anything…often eating what they just made,” she explained. “At our classes, we’ll send people home with lots of pizza dough, boxes of cookies, a dozen baguettes….” which helps justify the $75 – $125 average price per class.
Vires is currently lining up restaurant/chef collaborations and scheduling guest chef appearances. The curriculum will include classes for kids, teens, families, and men. “We’re in the process of setting up a beer class and a whiskey class right now, “she says, “that should coincide with Father’s Day.”
For more information on the cooking class schedule, keep tabs on Companion’s website here.
Companion Baking’s West St. Louis Campus (headquarters and cafe)
2331 Schuetz
Maryland Heights
314-352-4770
Opening date is Tuesday Feb. 2, then Mon – Fri: 6 a.m. – 3 p.m.; Sat – Sun: 7 a.m. – 3 p.m
Follow George Mahe on Twitter @stlmag_dining or send him an email at [email protected]. For more from St. Louis Magazine, subscribe or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
