After going dark for the past three years due to the pandemic, The Preston (212 N. Kingshighway) is again welcoming diners into its handsome dining room. This is no mere reopening, though. The Chase Park Plaza Royal Sonesta’s dining crown jewel has undergone a complete overhaul, rebranding itself from a small plates-and-cocktails spot into a traditional French restaurant that celebrates St. Louis’ history. Chef Bruce Piatek recently shared about the backstory behind the refresh, The Preston’s essential dishes, and what he hopes the eatery will add to the city’s dining landscape.
The Concept
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When it first opened, in 2016, The Preston replaced Eau Bistro’s contemporary American cuisine and Cosmopolitans with an of-the-moment concept centered around small plates and craft cocktails. After the pandemic shuttered the restaurant, beginning in early 2020, it gave the Chase’s management team time to think through what they wanted the future of The Preston to look like.
As it came closer to reopening, the hotel’s director of operations, Matthew White, saw an opportunity to embrace St. Louis’ French heritage in the form of a traditional, upscale French restaurant—one that would fully capture the elegance of the setting and give both hotel guests and locals a classic fine-dining destination.
With its stunning atmosphere—a blend of grey-hued plaid and dark wood with gilded fine accents and fine art—the rebranded Preston was designed to suit the grandeur of both the restaurant space itself and the Chase Park Plaza Sonesta overall.
The Menu
Alhough Piatek describes The Preston’s new menu as traditional French cuisine, he’s given himself and his team some flexibility in interpreting what that means for their menu. “We are able to play around; we don’t have the super classics like beef wellington or lobster thermidor, but it is a French-influenced menu with classic items such as skate wing that you won’t find in too many eateries but is very common in French restaurants,” Piatek says. “We are thinking of French influence as not necessarily classic but with a twist. We don’t want it to be old or mundane, and we are focused on presentation and how it reads.”
Dishes that embody this approach include steak tartare, which Piatek describes as being done in a nouveau approach. Classic ingredients such as capers, red onion, dijon mustard, and chopped parsley are all present, but he pairs the dish with gherkins, hackelback caviar, and micro greens.
Seared scallops also embody this contemporary approach. Here, the jumbo scallops are prepared with purple Peruvian potatoes, braised artichokes, salmon roe, and meuniere butter. Another appetizer, the deconstructed lobster, pairs the shellfish with St. Andre cheese, dried apricots, almonds, and curry vinaigrette.
Fried eel, one of the kitchen’s favorite dishes, is served alongside bay scallops and shrimp, pickled diakon, caviar, and tarragon buerre blanc. The steak au poivre (see lead photo), a quintessential French entrée, features an in-house, dry-aged strip steak encrusted in coarsely ground black pepper and covered in brandy peppercorn sauce; the plate is accented with peekytoe crab and sauce choron (a blend of bearnaise and tomato concasse).
Piatek is especially excited about the foie gras, a generous portion that he prepared in accordance with instructions personally given to him by the owner of the esteemed Hudson Valley Foie Gras: seared and crisp on the outside, semi-molten in the middle and cold at the very center. Piatek serves a 4-ounce portion of the Grade A foie with braised salsify, half of a seared white wine poached half pear, candied hazelnuts and pear jus. “To me, this typifies French cuisine,” Piatek says.
Although the Preston’s food concept has been completely overhauled, the cocktail program remains relatively the same. Guests can expect the classics with a twist that the bar has come to be known for, including the Honey, I’m Home (a gin and white wine libation accented with rosemary and honey) and the Goodnight Mr. Preston (a riff on a Manhattan that adds Benedictine to the traditional whiskey and sweet vermouth mix).
The wine list is the biggest change to the beverage program. Diners can choose from an impressive by-the-glass selection that focuses on premium French and American selections. The 275 bottle-strong bottle list leans heavily French and American, though there are interesting offerings from Italy and South America.
The Chef
Piatek, who led The Preston’s kitchen before the shutdown, has been preparing for this moment since he was a teenager. A San Diego native, the chef grew up in the business; both of his grandfathers were in the industry, and he began working at his father’s restaurant when he was just 15 years old. “You can’t escape it,” Piatek says with a laugh. “I was always working for my dad after school, starting out as a line cook. There were times when I wondered whether I wanted to do this, but it is in my blood.”
In 1991, en route home after traveling with a friend, Piatek found himself in St. Louis during a layover. On a whim, he decided to stay—the plan was to work for six months and save money for his next adventure, but he met his wife not long after he arrived and decided to stay. Here, he attended culinary school at St. Louis Community College–Forest Park and went on to get his bachelor’s degree in hospitality management from Le Cordon Bleu. His St. Louis culinary resume includes Cafe de France, the St. Louis Club, and the Hilton St. Louis Frontenac, all of which prepared him to lead The Preston’s new French-inflected kitchen.
Piatek understands that the idea of leaning into an upscale concept at a time when people are eulogizing fine-dining might seem ambitious, but he feels confident that there is a desire for such a way of eating—albeit one that is approachable, comfortable, and wraps people in hospitality. For him, delivering on such an experience is more than just good service—it’s what guides him and his team in everything they do.
“We want to be known as a fine-dining French restaurant that can compete with restaurants outside of the hotel,” Piatek says. “We want to offer something that is warm, comfortable, and inviting—we really want this to feel like home and somewhere people know your name. We don’t want to have an air where we come off as pompous; the food should back up what we say but without the arrogance that can drive people away. That’s where our high comes from: Seeing our guests’ satisfaction through our open kitchen. That’s what keeps chefs going.”
