Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
I could be in 1974, or any year since. A neon A-and-eagle, the old-school trademark of the local macrobrewery, adorns one wall; a table shuffleboard lines another. The crust is cracker thin, and the cheese is a mixture of Provel and Parmesan. It’s timeless St. Louis comfort food, and we’re in a timeless strip mall Italian-American restaurant.
This one is called Cugino’s, which takes its name from the Italian word for “cousin,” because two of the owners are cousins Ben Goldkamp and David Beckham. Cugino’s has occupied this space in Florissant since 2004, but its Italian-American heritage extends much further back, as far back as Domenico’s (which lives on in Jefferson City and at Lake of the Ozarks.) But there’s something here that I couldn’t have ordered way back when: The place has 56 beers on draft.
In the old days, a St. Louis restaurant like this would have had both kinds of beer on draft: Busch and Budweiser. The classy joints, the ones with tablecloths, might have had Heineken. Even today, I doubt I could find more than a handful of area restaurants with anything close to the selection at The Cuge, the nickname favored by regulars.
The place’s credentials as a Provel palace are unquestionable: The menu includes toasted ravioli, cheese garlic bread, pasta con broccoli, and chickens Parmigiana and spiedini. Such dishes as blackened chicken nachos are also there to pair with a Prairie Bomb! or Deschutes’ The Stoic. These aren’t nachos at all but rather fried wonton chips, piled high with olives, green onions, and tomatoes.
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
The strip steak is less than $20, and the pork chop comes with a blend of Marsala and garlic sauces that works perfectly with the pork and matches up with sour or Brettanomyces-brewed beers.
Somewhere in between are pretzels with beer-cheese sauce, about a dozen sandwiches and burgers, and six pastas besides the con broccoli. Among these is a Greek chicken pasta, comprising hunks of grilled breast tossed with olives, green peppers, and artichoke hearts on a bed of linguine.
Cugino’s is clearly a beer geek’s heaven, but you don’t need to be fluent in everything from stouts to fruit beers to make a good selection. The staff is remarkably knowledgeable; I quizzed two different servers on about 10 beers apiece, and they were both right on the money. Pints of craft beer are generally $5 or $6, and flights of four small pours are $10, with upcharges if you choose the good stuff.
As I think about it, there’s one other thing that sets Cugino’s apart from the old days: I’m pretty sure you couldn’t get artichoke hearts on your pizza back in the ’70s.
The Bottom Line You’d probably never expect to hear the words “Provel” and “gastropub” in the same sentence, but Cugino’s makes it happen.
