Courtesy Rockwell Beer
12" pepperoni pizza from Rockwell Beer Garden, "party cut" into squares
When plans were announced in May for Rockwell Beer Garden in Francis Park—the first true beer garden in a St. Louis city park—the food partner had yet to be determined. Several big local names were bandied about, but the pandemic limited even superstars’ ability to take on new endeavors.
Courtesy Rockwell Beer
Michael Petres
So the owners of Rockwell Beer Co. went on offense and hired renowned chef Michael Petres, a 10-year-veteran of Niche Food Group, to spearhead the operation. Prior to being named Niche Food Group's corporate executive chef, Petres served as executive chef at three of its restaurants, Brasserie, Pastaria, and the former Porano Pasta. He helped open the Pastaria location in Nashville and was instrumental in developing the Porano brand. Last year, Petres briefly worked at Companion and Bolyard’s Meat & Provisions, at the same time that the Rockwell project was taking shape.
“Like many craft breweries across the country, [at Rockwell] we always felt that the quality of food needs to match the high quality of our beers, and we did that with BrassWELL,” says co-owner James Sanders. “We knew we needed a high-caliber chef to do the same at the beer garden, so getting Michael involved was huge."
The Menu
Courtesy Rockwell Beer
“It turns out that everyone was thinking pizza, independently of one other,” Sanders says regarding the culinary focus. The group agreed on “tavern-style” pizza, a super-thin crust pie made with naturally leavened dough, as opposed to St. Louis-style, which uses baking powder as the leavening agent, has less hydration, and cooks a little longer, so the crust is more like a cracker (as opposed to a chewier dough). Tavern-style combines a thin crust with a judicious—but not scant—use of toppings, and it's “party-cut” into squares. The toppings run near the edge, not to the edge, to allow for some bubbling and charring, Petres says, and to expose some of the crumb structure. Asked how long a pizza crust takes to perfect, Petres shoots back “a lifetime”; that constant experimenting and developing is part of the journey.
The cheese is a blend of whole milk and fresh mozzarella. Petres says he'll "have some Provel around, too, if someone wants that.” The tomato sauce is made using Bianco DiNapoli tomatoes, an organic fresh-packed plum variety grown in Northern California. (Bianco DiNapoli is co-owned by James Beard Award winner Chris Bianco of Pizzeria Bianco fame.) Petres' sauce is simple and uncooked, just canned tomatoes puréed with olive oil and sea salt, but the chef says “draining the tomatoes is crucial.”
He calls it an everyday style of pizza. “Pizza for the masses,” echoes Sanders. (Chicago is known for its deep-dish pizza, but Bon Appetit reports otherwise. “Some call it ‘party cut,’ others say it’s ‘tavern style,’ but to locals, it’s just ‘pizza,’" the article notes. “Most Chicagoans will tell you that the city’s greatest pies aren’t made in deep pans drowning in layers of cheese and meat.”)
Courtesy Rockwell Beer
Rockwell's inaugural menu will feature five pies, the basics and a few specialties that are “ridiculous, awesome, and fun,” says Petres. An example of the latter is the Cheeseburger (pictured above), made with ground beef from Bolyard’s, American cheese, mozzarella, raw onion, iceberg lettuce, bread and butter pickles, special sauce, and sesame seeds. “Think of a smash burger in pizza form that kind of tastes like a Big Mac,” Petres says.
Courtesy Rockwell Beer
Courtesy Rockwell Beer
Pizza is the perfect walkaround food and something that a chef can easily build upon, Petres says. “We all know that pizza and beer is a natural. It’s my job to make sure the rest of the menu sets us apart.” Pizza dough can be used for sandwiches and a focaccia-like pizza bread served with dip or as a tortilla-like flatbread that can be rolled up like a burrito, all of which he plans to introduce.
Other options include a simple romaine salad with radishes, snap peas, pickled onions, pecorino, and Rockwell Ranch dressing (pictured at right), a dependable, universally appealing offering where the ingredients change with the season. The salad will springboard to other items as well, “like adding a piece of grilled chicken, and wrapping it in a piece of pizza bread,” Petres says.
Courtesy Rockwell Beer
A surefire sharable is the Chickpea Dip, with marinated green olives, piquillo peppers, herbs, olive oil, and chickpea puree, surrounded by shards of pizza bread. Also expect to see an elevated form of cheese bread, bread with hummus-esque dips, pickled vegetables, and potato chips (or pizza bread chips) and dip. Similarly, Petres is applying the-best-that-it-can-be theory to such staples as chicken wings and nachos, and such basics as potato salad and cole slaw are a possibility. “I’m not going to hate on any food,” he says. “If our customer wants spinach artichoke dip, they’re gonna get a really good one. Pimiento cheese? Can do."
A kid’s menu is also in development, since part of the plan is to provide an opportunity for a family with young children to grab a quick meal and eat it in the beer garden, at the nearby playground, or home. Petres admits that such menus are “the things that most chefs don’t like to cook,” but he jokes that since “he’s an older chef with a kid,” he’s all over it.
“Hey, this isn’t Michael Petres’ pizza restaurant,” he says. ”It’s an amenity to this neighborhood. I’ll cook what the people want to eat. I cook a different meal at home depending on who’s coming over.”
The Beer
Courtesy Rockwell Beer
GM Nancy Etzkorn with Michael Petres
Nancy Etzkorn, a Rockwell vet since the brewery's inception, will manage the project. Etzkorn explains that adding more tanks at Rockwell's brewery means the ability to brew a wider variety of small-batch beers, some of them unique to the beer garden. In a nod to maximizing customer enjoyment, all draft beer and cocktails (some of them batched) will be served in glassware. There will be no bottles, cans, or alcohol to go.
A noteworthy offering will be the polymath beer: tart, light, refreshing, foeder-aged house mix fermentation saisons, many of them fermented a second time over fruit. “Due to the technicalities involved—and the 15-month process from start to finish—most breweries stay away from polymaths,” Sanders explains, adding "but you will see some of those beers at the beer garden.”
Etzkorn says she’s already planning seasonal events since people’s tolerance for heat and cold has changed over the past year. The beer garden is being equipped with heaters, firepits, fans, and sunshades, all designed to provide different levels of comfort.
The Atmosphere
Rendering courtesy JEMA
The kitchen and service area occupy a stone building that previously served as one of Francis Park’s “comfort centers." Ordering and fulfillment takes place at a triple-bay window. The beer and food coolers occupy one of the 230-square-foot former utility garages; Petres’ kitchen and two-deck, electric pizza oven is nestled into the other, a space that he likens to “a food truck without wheels.”
Staking and trenching for the required electric service began this week. Construction should be completed in six to eight weeks, hopefully in time for Brew in the Lou at Francis Park, October 9. Sanders is grateful that he's found himself in a unique situation in St. Louis: "This wasn’t on anyone’s radar screen two years ago."
