Food & Wine honors St. Louis chef Steven Pursley of Menya Rui as one of its "Best New Chefs"

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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts

Today, Food & Wine announced its "Best New Chef" awardees for 2023—and one of the 11 nationwide honorees is St. Louis’ Steven Pursley, owner of South City ramen shop Menya Rui. 

The chefs in this 35^th incarnation of the awards “represent a profound shift in the industry," notes Food & Wine editor-in-chief Hunter Lewis. "They’re not only creating exceptional food and dining experiences for their customers, but also cultivating nurturing environments for their teams. As a result, their restaurant are places of celebration, education, and joy.” 

The Hospitality

Pursley understands the importance of customer service. “What happens when you walk in sets the tone,” he says. “Being a food person, I know things like making eye contact and then not acknowledging you is off-putting.”

In Japan, Pursley explains, there’s a welcome ritual when people enter even the most humble restaurants, similar to the 20- and 30-seat eateries where he first worked upon returning to Japan as a young adult. Likewise, when guests leave, the staff says a heartfelt thank-you and goodbye.

At Menya Rui, Pursley has established an atmosphere where those greetings are second-nature to the staff. “It’s not something we do to put on a show,” he says. “It’s genuine. I would like to think it would be on par with restaurants in Japan.”

The Menu

Customers have been lining up for Menya Rui’s ramen since the 24-seat restaurant opened in 2022. The homemade noodles and sauces are quintessentially Japanese, perfected by Pursley during years living and working in his mother’s native country.  There are many odes to Menya Rui’s noodles in every local publication—including SLM.

Food & Wine restaurant editor Kushbu Shah wrote: “The tsukemen was one of the best I’ve ever had: cold, thick noodles with almost as much bounce as a trampoline, served with a bowl of concentrated scallop-infused broth for dipping that bursts with gentle, sweet, oceanic flavor. I followed that with a comforting bowl of chicken shoyu that featured a tare, or seasoning sauce, made with three kinds of soy sauce and lots of dried seafood for an extra umami punch. The thin but elastic noodles slithered around tender pork shoulder chashu and slices of menma (lacto-fermented bamboo shoots). Next was the tantanmen, in a fatty broth enriched with sesame paste and laced with chile oil, followed finally by the aburasoba, a super-savory brothless option, where the noodles are coated in both scallop oil and shoyu tare. Each bowl was thoughtful and balanced; clearly no element was an afterthought.”

The Award

Ramen is an everyday food, so Pursley admits to feeling a bit of imposter syndrome when looking at the list of his fellow honorees. “I provide good food at a good price,” he says.

Among the honorees who will appear in Food & Wine's October issue are such chefs as Nando and Valerie Chang of Itamae in Miami’s Design District, Hannah Ziskin of Los Angeles pizza spot Quarter Sheets, and Amanda Schulman’s supper club Her Place in Philadelphia.

At the national level, previous winners of the 35-year-old award include Rick Bayless, Daniel Boulud, David Chang, Tom Colicchio, and Stephanie Izard. Locally, Food & Wine has extolled Gerard Craft of Niche in 2008, Kevin Willmann of Farmhaus in 2011, Michael Gallina of Vicia in 2018, and Nick Bognar of Indo in 2020.

Photography by Kevin A. Roberts

Pursley has known since April that he was in the running for the award, which gave him plenty of time to prepare for the inevitable onslaught of hungry customers. Within the coming weeks, he plans to add another day of service (Menya Rui is currently open only Thursday through Sunday) and perhaps extend hours.

But one thing is certain, he says: “We can’t let the quality fall. At the end of the day, we’re a restaurant, so if that doesn’t work, everything else falls apart.”