One 19 North showcases new chef at July 12 wine dinner

Owner Pat Carr brought chef Ben McArthur on board at One 19 North during the winter. Under McArthur’s leadership, the kitchen has evolved toward a streamlined menu featuring seasonal local ingredients in delicately executed dishes.

A wine dinner on July 12 will include off-menu items, as well as wine pairings from Bommarito Wine & Spirits.

Here’s what to know before you go.

The Wine Dinner

The Farm, Fork, & Fermentation Wine Dinner will begin with a welcome reception at 5:30 p.m. Guests can enjoy light bites with a Spanish bubbly Raventós Blanc de Blancs before the dinner:

The first course is a tuna aguachile verde with cherry tomatoes, watermelon, and pickled red onions, paired with an Alois Lageder “Misto Mare” field blend from Italy.
It will be followed by a Henri Perrusset chardonnay from France, a light counterpart to a grilled peach salad with whipped burrata, basil, smoked ham, and arugula.
For the third course, McArthur plans a pressed chicken entrée with cippolini onions, bacon, roasted cauliflower, and fresh herbs. The wine pairing is a Robert Sinskey Vin Gris Rosé from California.
The fourth course is smoked and red-wine braised beef cheek served vol-au-vent style, with puff pastry, wild mushroom ragout, and pickled cherries. The wine pick is Adelsheim pinot noir from Oregon.
The dessert course is a chocolate ganache tart with fig honey, pickled blueberries, almond granola, and whipped cream. It’s served with an Italian Braida Brachetto d’Acqui, described a the Wine Enthusiast as “a berry patch in a glass.”

Tickets for the chef-crafted courses and curated wine pairings are $95 per person, excluding tax and gratuity. They can be purchased here or by phone at 314-821-4119.

The Regular Menu

Items like the crispy artichoke hearts have been staples since One 19 North opened, and McArthur has embraced such traditions. The dish features Breaded Artichoke Hearts served over a homemade romesco aioli, fresh herbs, and pecorino cheese.

Among the newly introduced dishes are the Cast Iron Seared Scallops—and the description Carr and McArthur weave together demonstrates the intricacies the chef has introduced. The dish includes a smoked sweet potato bisque and sous vide-cooked purple yams, which are served with maple-black pepper glazed pork belly, fava beans, and pea shoots from a local producer in Cottleville. “It has a lot of color—there’s orange, purple, green, and yellow—and within one bite, you have a range of flavors from smoky bisque to sweet yams,” Carr says.

Other new items include the 119 Smashburger (a house-blended hamburger patty made of chuck, brisket and short rib, served with with dill pickles, white cheddar, bacon, lettuce, tomato and onion with a bistro sauce on a toasted brioche bun) and the Short Rib Street Tacos (three braised short rib tacos served with cabbage, fresh chopped chimichurri and cotija cheese).

One seasonal dish not to be missed is the 119 Farm Fresh Salad, mix of local greens topped with toasted bread crumbs, pecorino cheese, cucumber, radish, heirloom tomato and carrots, tossed with a roasted shallot-sherry vinaigrette. This and other menu items spotlight ingredients from producers such as Bee Happy, Double Star, Greens For You, and Local Pastures.

Cast Iron Roasted Daily Catch (salmon shown)

The bar program is robust for a venue with such a small footprint (just under 2,400 square feet total). Along with the wine menu—a perennial standout—Carr highlights the summertime rotating drink of the week. “We do a 100 percent fresh frozee with flavors like watermelon,” he says. That’s in addition to the seasonal drink specials, which change four or five times per year.

The Atmosphere

One 19 North has been a fixture in downtown Kirkwood for 16 years, but Carr says many guests are rediscovering it as a date-night spot and celebratory venue versus a hangout for tapas-style get-togethers. The lounge, which seats 24, is particularly popular for everything from celebrations of life to baby showers.

The restaurant has scaled back its opening times from seven days a week to five. It’s also open for lunch on Tuesday through Friday. Carr says this transition, along with the addition of McArthur, has energized the staff because they now have fixed days off and a closer-knit team between the front and back of the house.

“It’s fun having the front-of-house team excited and telling customers, ‘You have to try XYZ new dish,’” Carr says.

The Team

McArthur has extensive experience cooking and consulting across a variety of St. Louis restaurants, ranging from casual (such as the Red Dirt Revival food truck and Taco Buddha) to fine dining (like Balaban’s, Moxy, and Old Hickory Golf Club).

He also partnered with his father and stepmother on J McArthur’s An American Kitchen. As a chef-owner, he established relationships with local suppliers—and learned to pay close attention to the bottom line when conceptualizing dishes.

At One 19 North, McArthur draws on all those experiences when balancing detailed execution with budget-friendly practicality. For the smoked bone-in pork chop, for instance, the kitchen cuts the bone-in racks into chops, brines them in sweet tea overnight, then smokes them at 165 degrees for two hours before finishing them to order on the grill.

“We have good people working with us in the back, and I give them a ton of credit,” McArthur says. “It takes some of the pressure off my plate and lets me focus on creativity.”