Beginning this fall, The Ritz-Carlton, St. Louis (100 Carondelet Plaza) is giving diners new reasons to make a night of it.
The lineup includes a newly renovated Wine Room tucked behind the hotel’s main kitchen, a six-seat Art of Fermentation dinner in the “fermentation kitchen” at Casa Don Alfonso, and a growing roster of one-night collaborations with local chefs.
Vadim Alexander, the hotel’s executive assistant manager of food, beverage, and culinary, calls it “high-touch hospitality.” For diners, that might mean comparing notes over a blind tasting, asking a chef what six months of fermentation does to honey, or learning to seal a raviolo by hand. Each offers a chance to get to know the chefs behind the meal and leave with something to talk about long after it’s over.
Here’s what to know before you go.
The New Wine Room
Dinner in the new Wine Room begins in the Lobby Lounge, where guests are offered a cocktail and get a chance to become acquainted before heading to the table. Then comes the walk, a long but engaging stroll through the hotel’s inner sanctum, past racks of plates, prep areas, and multiple dishwashing stations. One guest likened the trip to “a $3 cab ride.” Most diners who catch a glimpse of a restaurant kitchen see only “the pass,” where plates get their final touches. Here, the walk gives you a sense of how many people it takes to put a multicourse dinner on the table.
Around a final corner, a gray-and-white forest scene covers the walls of a small anteroom. Four steps up, the palette shifts to a deep navy blue (Benjamin Moore’s New York State of Mind, for the curious), with brushed-bronze wallpaper catching the low light and paintings that evoke the French countryside. Alexander’s team auditioned roughly 50 plates and as many handblown wineglasses before settling on the tableware, which includes delicate stemware from Lehmann.
Designed with a private bar and restroom, the Wine Room feels like a self-contained hideaway within the hotel. The focal point is a recessed, oval coved ceiling with adjustable indirect lighting, as well as three suspended chandeliers made of textured fabric and metal. Even the ventilation received special attention, with air distributed evenly throughout the room to ward off any drafts.
The room doubles as the hotel’s temperature-controlled library wine cellar, currently home to about 400 bottles. It seats 20–22 at one long table and up to 24 in different configurations at smaller tables. The bar doubles as a chef’s counter, so a dish or cocktail can be finished in front of guests.
The kitchen offers four menus as starting points: Mexican, classic French, Mediterranean, and Italian. Dishes can be mixed from each menu, or the menu can be built from scratch. Alexander says the room can even be set for two, “should a couple have a special celebration in mind.”
Service times can vary depending on the scope of an event, from a quick lunch or brunch to an evening-long experience. “The Ritz-Carlton team can translate any desired experience into a special menu to complement it,” Alexander says. “At any time of day.”
Inquire about the wine room by emailing [email protected].
The room’s first event was held last month at a Japanese-themed dinner hosted by world-renowned “Sake Samurai” Monica Samuels. On November 18, the hotel will revisit the 1976 Judgment of Paris, the blind wine tasting in which a Napa Valley Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon topped their French counterparts. This time, guests will do the judging, removing the bias, and letting their senses decide. The identities of the wines will be revealed at the end. Dinner is $300 per person (tax and tip included). For tickets to the Judgement of Paris 50th Anniversary Wine Dinner, click here.
“Our philosophy at The Ritz-Carlton is to leave an indelible mark,” Alexander says, “and wine room events are one way we definitely can do that.”
Art of Fermentation Dinner
On December 3, Casa Don Alfonso will officially launch its six-seat chef’s counter with The Art of Fermentation, a nine-course dinner led by chef Nino Ricupero, the restaurant’s chef de cuisine for the past 20 years. The counter sits alongside the “fermentation kitchen,” where some of the evening’s ingredients have been developing for six months or longer. “This is not a menu where dishes can just be thrown together,” Ricupero notes. “Fermentation does not happen overnight.”
Ricupero drew on techniques that he learned at Michelin-starred restaurants in Italy and Spain, where fermentation has long helped cooks preserve food. At the counter—“the six best seats in the house,” according to Alexander—he’ll demonstrate what those techniques can do for flavor. Microbes, enzymes, and careful control of temperature can change how a familiar ingredient tastes, smells, and feels, he says.
“Besides preserving,” Ricupero adds, “people need to realize that fermenting adds depths of flavor not achievable in any other way,” providing a deeper appreciation for the art. A spinach béarnaise gets its tang from fermented greens, for example, while fermented apple and tomato miso bring acidity to a lamb course.
The opening pairing gives diners a sense of the time involved. A sparkling honey mead, fermented in-house for six months, accompanies a two bite “taco.” Later courses include razor clams with fermented spinach béarnaise; decadent smoked pig; and baby lamb royal. The portions are small and the flavors concentrated. As Ricupero puts it, “Time translates to flavor.”
Dinner is $250 per person (tax and tip included), with wine, cocktail, or nonalcoholic pairings available for an additional charge.
“Fermentation presented on this level is not something new—far from it—but it is new in St. Louis,” Ricupero says.
If the debut finds an audience, the team hopes to offer the dinner on a regular basis.
For tickets to the Art of Fermentation dinner, click here.
One-of-a-kind Culinary Experiences
At Casa Don Alfonso, collaborations can take over the entire menu for one night. Vicia and Balkan Treat Box have each teamed up with Casa for these dinners, which run throughout the evening with reservations at staggered times.
“This is not just a one-time seating,” Alexander explains, “but a reservations-only experience that runs all evening long, a more flexible format that appeals to both early and late diners.”
For the Vicia collaboration, each restaurant contributed three menu favorites, and the two kitchens developed five dishes together, says executive chef Yalcin Arslan. The chefs circulate in the dining room throughout the evening, and Casa’s open kitchen gives diners a view of the prep and cooking process. Alexnader notes, “All are spearheaded by a different chef with different talents telling different stories.”
Elsewhere in the hotel, the Lobby Lounge’s six-seat sushi bar hosts ACHI–The Omakase Experience four times a month, with two seatings per night.
Several times each year, Nicola Pignatelli and Mario Iaccarino, executive chef and owner respectively of Michelin-starred Don Alfonso 1890 in Sorrento lead pasta-making sessions paired with wines from Pignatelli’s family winery, d’Antiche Terre.
And at the chef’s counter, groups of up to six can book Ricupero’s ravioli master class and try their hand at making the restaurant’s signature pasta.
Arslan says the team is planning more events for 2027, with the goal of offering a different culinary experience at least once a quarter, with each shining a light on a different chef. “The chefs are all present in the dining room throughout the night,” Alexander says, “taking guests on that journey.
“These experiences are what is making The Ritz-Carlton an exciting culinary destination,” Alexander says. “This is what we had in mind when we relaunched the Lobby Lounge two years ago.”
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