Heading into his first summer at the helm of The Pennywell Hotel’s bar and restaurant, executive chef Antoine Bailey has launched an elevated seasonal menu inspired by home-cooked, Southern-style food.
From grilled watermelon salad to scallops seared in bacon fat to deep-fried potato pavé, the dishes reflect Bailey’s fine-dining background and dedication to enhancing dishes while letting each ingredient shine.
Find the best food in St. Louis
Subscribe to the St. Louis Dining In and Dining Out newsletters to stay up-to-date on the local restaurant and culinary scene.
The Menu
Bailey is particularly enthusiastic about the scallops entrée, a customer favorite (pictured below). The scallops are seared in bacon fat and served alongside two Southern delights: sweet potato purée enhanced with herbs and nutmeg and collard, kale and mustard greens braised three or four hours in a house-made broth. Shavings of summer truffles provide a finishing touch.
“Before I even go into the kitchen to start a new dish, I know what I want it to look like,” Bailey says. So he knew how he wanted to present another popular new item, the Spanish-influenced Calabrian octopus appetizer (pictured below) atop rich, spicy San Marzano tomato sauce. It comes with a 15-layer potato pavé, each layer alternated with herbs, the whole tower deep-fried to a crisp. An arugula salad with lemon zest, shaved fennel, and olive oil is an added bonus and a steal at $12.
Other re-envisioned Southern appetizers include tender, light jalapeño hush puppies (pictured above) with hot honey drizzle and house-made coleslaw and barbecue remoulade; deviled eggs (pictured below) with smoked bacon, fried serrano peppers, and Cajun aioli; fried green tomatoes (pictured below) with tangy jalapeño-citrus aioli. Hummus (pictured below) is made fresh to order and served with spikes of fried naan.
The chef is all about understanding the science behind cooking techniques, and he’ll happily chat about the Maillard effect and caramelized meat or the perfect process for blanching green vegetables to preserve the chlorophyl and keep their vibrant color. The grilled watermelon salad demonstrates the care that he takes with flavors, colors, and textures. Even though the watermelon is pressed for 24 hours before being dusted with Bailey’s own special barbecue spice blend, grilled and dressed with shallot vinaigrette, it retains the appeal of freshly harvested fruit—and holds its own next to the creamy burrata with sweet heirloom tomatoes (pictured at right).
Because the Pennydrop is a hotel dining room, it’s open for three meals a day. Bailey hasn’t tweaked the breakfast to go fully Southern, but if you look closely, you’ll see telltale connections to the theme, such as duck on the eggs Benedict, a parallel to a salad option on the lunch and dinner menus. Likewise, the cocktail menu has plenty of bourbon and rye options, including a powerful Old Fashioned with Whistlepig Piggyback 6-year rye, demerara syrup, and bitters, served in a personal flask.
The Atmosphere
When he gets an opportunity to sit down, Bailey chooses to be in the heart of the hotel’s dining area, the section closest to the bar. It’s surrounded by tall metal railings that evoke the feeling of being in the heart of a bank—which is what the eight-story Merchants–Laclede Building was after it opened in 1888. It has been a Hilton Hotel for more than two decades, but visitors to the previous iteration may not even recognize the white marble lobby in its current configuration (pictured at right). The open breakfast area to the left (pictured below) abuts an elegant private dining room; the lunch and dinner crowds dine in more intimately configured alcoves.
Bailey and the front-of-house team coordinate the details that make the space feel cozy, right down to the lively, up-to-date background music. They’re aware that the hotel business is seasonal, and there’s a whole lot of dining competition on Olive and Fourth Streets. The Pennydrop Bar + Kitchen might find its niche as a casual, high-quality restaurant that’s a middle ground between a local business networking vibe and tourist browsing, a place dedicated to friendly connections, even if only for the length of a meal.
The Chef
Bailey’s culinary resume includes a long list of St. Louis institutions: Chase Park Plaza, Jazz at the Bistro, Charlie Gitto’s, Frank Papa’s. He started at another local classic, Panera Bread, and worked his way up to team lead at age 16—and the 31-year-old chef has never ventured outside the restaurant and hospitality industry since.
He’s crossed paths with local luminaries such as the St. Louis Club’s Pierre Chambrin and restaurateurs Ben Poremba and Gerard Craft. He never officially worked with Rob Conolly, but he volunteered to help the Bulrush chef-owner make chocolates when the two worked next door to each other in Grand Center. “At my catering business, I make some of the best bonbons and tempered chocolates around,” Bailey says. “You don’t have to work for someone to gain knowledge from them.”
He counts legendary St. Louis chef Ramon Cuffie, whom he met while helping open Parigi in Clayton, as one of his mentors. “I’ve been blessed—I can’t take that for granted,” Bailey says. “A lot of people don’t get the opportunities I’ve been presented. For me to be from this city and work at the top level at those places, it’s just an honor.”
Bailey grew up in North St. Louis. He never met his father, but his mother (who was “not a great cook,” he says with a laugh) used to watch cooking shows with him before school and started turning over kitchen duties to her son. “By third grade, I was making spectacular omelets on a gas stove before church,” he says. “That sparked my interest.”
The Pennydrop role is not Bailey’s first executive chef role, but it is the first time that he’s put together a team from scratch. Since starting in October 2022, he’s added six members of the seven-person crew. “Starting fresh and building a team is probably the hardest part of this journey,” he says. “But when you see everything come together, it’s so rewarding.”
Cooking comes naturally to the L’Ecole Culinaire graduate, but delegation does not. It’s one of the many things he’s learned role by role about the business beyond the kitchen, such as calculating food costs, taking inventory, pairing wines, hiring staff, and gauging customer demographics. “As you evolve in your role, there’s always more to learn,” he says.
