Photograph by Kevin A. Roberts
So we were invited (natch) to St. Louis Magazine’s Best Dressed List soirée, with the admonition that we “dress to impress.” What’s more impressive, we figure, than a knee-length Indian sherwani, with its très-cool Nehru collar? Fortunately, we know there’s an Indian clothing shop in Des Peres’ Colonnade Center strip mall. We’re off. Not only do we find a stylin’ sherwani, but a couple of doors down is Gerard’s, which Wine Spectator keeps raving about. And so, to dinner there.
Most people can’t pull off the sherwani thing—but Gerard’s? Definitely worth a visit. Dining areas are suitably divided into a couple of larger rooms and smaller, more intimate spaces; the place is bigger than it first appears. With Carole King softly warbling through Tapestry, décor like the smoked-mirror wall tiles lends the restaurant a distinctively ’70s vibe.
Seafood gets a lot of attention at Gerard’s. Specials are posted on a board at the door, and much of the regular menu is maritime. Linguine is tossed with what tastes like the prepared seafood available in local Asian groceries: baby octopus, shrimp necks, and chunks of fake crab. But the dish is given a delightful house-made touch with the addition of cracked crab claws, mussels, and whole clams. A sauté pan is the only suitable fate for a plateful of pencil eraser–sized cape scallops. Nut-sweet and buttery, the bivalves are perfect with a side of risotto. Canadian walleye, meaty and firm, doesn’t make many appearances in St. Louis; this is a fine place to try it. Salmon is prepared broiled or poached.
Filet mignon, Chateaubriand steak, a rib-eye with steak butter: With a wine list that’s got more reds than a university faculty meeting, it’s a cinch that beef isn’t going to be neglected. The best—though awesomely rich—choice is a tenderloin, slit and stuffed with chunks of crab and laid in a pool of Madeira sauce. A rack of lamb is similarly opulent, dressed with a persillade—a rub of garlic, rosemary, and parsley, all blended with olive oil—and rolled in bread crumbs and roasted.
Veal Franchese is a plate of American culinary nostalgia. In the ’60s, when everything French, from Coco Chanel to Renault cars, was in, Italian restaurants started calling veal piccata “Franchese.” Transportation strikes and Zinedine Zidane came along, however, and French chic faded, leaving only memories like this still-misnamed dish. It’s piccata, the meat pounded into thin cutlets, lightly breaded, then sautéed and drizzled with a lemony butter glaze that accentuates the meat’s delicate texture. Consider also veal osso buco, the shanks braised in a rich, red vegetable sauce. A scatter of lemon rind dusts the presentation, adding a tangy zing.
Other highlights: Pigzilla obviously contributed the double-bone pork chop here, a massive hunk o’ pig, fire-roasted, the meat pink perfection. We matched it with a side of gnocchi in a light tomato sauce that complements the pork. Poulet à la crème, a French bistro standard, uses roasted chicken to delicious effect and is slathered with mushroom sauce, studded with corn, and spiked with sherry.
Pastas, healthy portions of them, offer pleasant variations worth trying: rigatoni in a cream sauce with salsiccia and red pepper, linguine tossed with porcini and sun-dried tomatoes.
Those scooped hollows of garlicky butter in the plate are the Cher to escargot’s Sonny. Restaurant snails are best judged by the bread used to sop up every parsley-flecked drop. At Gerard’s, warm petals of aromatic bread do the job. The earthy snails are enlivened, too, with a thin crust of melted Parmesan that adds an almost sweet undertaste. Red onions, along with caper sprinkles, do much the same to a plate of papery, beefy carpaccio.
Caesar salads are tossed tableside, lending formality to the dish; the dressing, with anchovy paste and stone-ground mustard, works its salty-tangy magic on the chopped Romaine lettuce. Fresh-baked bread arrives with a honey- and tarragon-infused butter. Remember what we said about those garlic-butter pools and snails, though, and leave a slice or two for dipping.
The wine list? It’s pointless to describe it, save to say if you remember the prepubescent joy of the Sears Wish Book, you have the idea. The stock of great French Bordeaux here is probably unmatched anywhere in the country. Mouton Rothschild. Cos d’Estournel. Margaux. Latour. The names roll off the tongue as beautifully as the wine rolls across it. Note the careful selection of vintages. There’s scarcely a clunker year to be seen. Every one is pitch-perfect. The ’80s output of California’s Opus One Winery, for instance, is represented by the ’82, perhaps the only vintage of that decade that hasn’t slid over the hill. And the cellar’s fully stocked with the ’92 through ’97, all of which are just coming into their prime. Note that prices range from the noticeably warm to the blistering. Wines by the glass are desultory. Too bad. This would be the place to fork over some extra bucks for a glass of what would be unaffordable in a bottle. That said, it is easy to see why Gerard’s has a wall full of accolades from Wine Spectator.
Gerard’s is a dining surprise: It’s hard to imagine an outstanding formal restaurant in a less likely locale. Hard to imagine us, though, mixin’ and minglin’ at the Best Dressed List soirée in our stylin’ sherwani, either. Life’s full of the happily unexpected, isn’t it?
Average Main Course: $22
Dress: No dope sherwani? Go for simple and stylish.
Reservations: Of course.
Chef: Robert Zerillo
The Bottom Line: Excellent French and Italian offerings and the most extravagantly spectacular wine list in the region.
Colonnade Center
12240 Manchester
Des Peres
314-821-7977
stlgerards.com
Dinner only, Mon–Sat
