Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
yogurt with blackberry jam, exploding spheres, and house granola
Critically acclaimed chef Rob Connoley first introduced whimsical breakfast-and-lunch options to Grand Center at Squatter’s Café. Now he’s providing many of the standards at the shuttered café at The High Low, the Kranzberg Arts Foundation’s new literary center and next-door neighbor to the chef’s well-received restaurant Bulrush. Front and center in the high-ceilinged room is a quartz-topped coffee bar, operated by Blueprint Coffee. From 8 a.m.–3 p.m. daily, baristas are busy crafting beverages at high temps (pour-over coffees and teas) and low (cold-brew coffee). The sunlit space is lined with whitewashed poplar bookshelves, in which Connoley displays some unexpected victuals: in the early hours, mini-Bundt cakes and cinnamon croissant rolls, overnight oats, and a white chocolate sphere that sends encapsulated huckleberry juice into house-made yogurt. At lunch, look for healthy bowls made with such heirloom grains as blue emmer faro, Connoley’s now-famous biscuits and gravy, and snacks like chocolate bars that pair with Blueprint’s espresso (yes, Connoley is a chocolatier as well). With a library, café, and gallery on the first floor and writers’ suites and offices (including one for St. Louis’ poet laureate) on the second, The High Low aims to equalize high and low art, using seating areas patterned after novelist James Baldwin's well-known “welcome tables,” at which some guests were famous, some not. The first installation of the progressive library features St. Louis authors, appropriate dining companions for sure.
