One day in 1996, my husband, recently retired from being the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s restaurant critic, came home from lunch. Yet another modern American restaurant had just opened. After so many of them recently opening, we felt a tad jaded—but Joe’s never-flagging curiosity drove him out the door. When he returned, he was practically bouncing. “This place is gonna be good!” he said.
The restaurant was Harvest.
Soon—and for months, even years—reservations were nearly impossible to get. Despite the popularity, people would often come in thinking they were at Cyrano’s, the dessert-focused restaurant located there years earlier. “If we could convince them to try the bread pudding,” recalls former chef and co-owner Steve Gontram, “they were always glad they’d stayed.”
Harvest was one of the first spots in town to list the farms that supplied ingredients. It was far enough ahead of the curve that a Napa winemaker was nonplussed when he saw that on the menu.
Patrons were so satisfied with Harvest that when New York restaurateur (and St. Louis native) Danny Meyer told Gourmet it was his preferred special-occasion restaurant in town, it hardly caused a ripple except among the restaurant staff.
Eventually, though, Harvest morphed from The Hot New Place into what seemed a comfortable middle age. Then, suddenly,the restaurant closed its doors this June.
What happened? Sometimes, establishments just run out of steam—there’s always somewhere new, and longtime favorites get pushed aside. But Harvest will remain in St. Louis’ memory.
