The Key Bistro opens in the Missouri History Museum

Name: The Key Bistro opens in the Missouri History Museum
Item: The Key Bistro
Author: Amy De La Hunt

Restaurant operator Pierre Chambrin II and chef Kevin Green serve French-inspired fare at the sit-down restaurant and express counter.

by Amy De La Hunt

August 17, 2023

3:45 PM

Photo by Amy De La Hunt

Photo by Amy De La Hunt

In many ways, the French-inspired fare at The Key Bistro, the newly revamped restaurant at the Missouri History Museum, embodies the Show-Me State: It's deceptively modest but bursting with sophisticated surprises. Restaurant operator Pierre Chambrin II and chef Kevin Green treat visitors to a taste of their food adventures, including noteworthy recipes from renowned French master chef Pierre Chambrin Sr., longtime executive chef at the Saint Louis Club.

The Key Bistro Express counter opens on Friday, and the sit-down restaurant officially launches next Wednesday, August 23, after a soft opening this weekend. Here’s what to know before you go.

The Menu

Photo by Amy De La Hunt

The key ingredient to a memorable lobster bisque is a properly executed lobster stock.

Alongside the quintessential lobster bisque are other standard bistro dishes: French onion soup, Caesar salad, quiche Lorraine, Reuben sandwiches, butter cookies, and apple tarts. Several signature items are available at both the express counter and sit-down restaurant, such as the lobster bisque, the charcuterie board, and a French dip sandwich with brisket, Provolone, and horseradish cream. Some items are only on the express menu, including the breakfast sandwich, turkey croissant, and caprese baguette, while burgers, baked brie, crème brûlée, and the like are only available in the restaurant.

Photo by Amy De La Hunt

The finished product: The Key Bistro's lobster bisque

“Standard brunch and lunch items are better if you source better products and implement better training,” Chambrin II says. “A ham and cheese sandwich is better if you source superior ham and a great baguette and make sure the staff is preparing and serving it correctly.”

Chambrin II and Green are adapting to the constraints of operating a restaurant within a museum. For example, there’s no smoker or deep fat fryer. “Even with a hood system, both can affect the museum artifacts,” Chambrin Jr. says. The upside is that the museum’s clientele includes a range of guests, from families on the move to friends meeting for a leisurely lunch.

Photo by George Mahe

Simply delicious: The Key Bistro's butter cookies

For visitors whose museum explorations are best fueled by caffeine, there are also sodas, iced tea, and coffee from Kaldi’s—one of many local companies from which The Key Bistro sources food and beverages. The bar selection includes red and white wines, Budweiser products, and craft beers on tap from local brewers such as 4 Hands and Modern Brewery.

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Photo by Amy De La Hunt

Charcuterie board

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Photo by Amy De La Hunt

Caprese baguette

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French dip sandwich

In the coming weeks, The Key Bistro plans to add Sunday brunch service with live music (a popular tradition over the years at the Missouri History Museum) and a Thursday evening happy hour.

The restaurant space will be available in the evenings for private parties, and the kitchen staff will be available for catering.

Photo by Amy De La Hunt

Made in house pastries: fruit tarte, pain au chocolat, chocolate knot

The Atmosphere

Photo by Amy De La Hunt

Visitors come to the Missouri History Museum to learn, and a meal in The Key Bistro is intended to fuel their voyage of discovery, says Chambrin II. The concept of a Parisian bistro—a small restaurant that serves moderately priced, simple meals in an unpretentious setting—fits perfectly with that mission.

The first thing that hungry museum-goers will see when they approach the second-floor restaurant is the express pickup counter, located beneath a huge purple CAFÉ sign. It blends into the décor so well that one might think it’s a continuation of the exhibits. Look closely, however, and you’ll see tables neatly fitted into the alcoves and lining the balcony railing.

Photo by Amy De La Hunt

The full-service restaurant is tucked farther back from the express counter. On one side, the large room is flanked by a curved wall, where vintage maps from the museum’s collection offer a peek back at neighborhoods from Clayton to Berkeley, as well as key turning points such as the Great Fire of 1849, which destroyed more than 400 buildings. On the other side, floor-to-ceiling windows look out over a bucolic section of Forest Park.

Photo by Amy De La Hunt

The Team

If there were interpretive signage for the restaurant, it would start with the westward journey by the Chambrin family. It started in France, where Chambrin Sr. trained at Ecole des Metiers de L'Alimentation in Paris before coming to the U.S. to work in some of the best restaurants in the country, as well as in the White House from 1992–1994 under Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Photo by Amy De La Hunt

Chef Kevin Green

For the next stage of his storied career, Chambrin Sr. chose the Saint Louis Club, where he spent nearly 25 years as executive chef. He fostered the careers of many up-and-coming culinary professionals over the years, including Kevin Green, who met his wife, Marion, at the Saint Louis Club. The couple eventually started their own restaurant, West End Bistro, which launched in 2019, shortly before the pandemic.

Meanwhile, after moving to St. Louis as a teenager, Chambrin II eventually forged his own path in the restaurant industry, working as a server, bartender, and manager at Table 3, 801 Chophouse, The Capital Grille, and Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse and Wine Bar, among other restaurants. He also worked in restaurant tech, giving him a solid understanding of another facet of the business.

Although Chambrin II and Green haven’t worked together before now, their reconnection through The Key Bistro is symbiotic. (Green will be also joined in the kitchen by his nephew, chef Michael Green.) Chambrin II and Green both embrace a classical approach and authentic recipes such as lobster bisque—which Green learned to make from Chambrin Sr.—as well as a dose of levity in the form of anecdotes from the past.