Tour de Toast: Egg in Benton Park
The popular South City spot serves up breakfast with a Latin American twist.
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In this ongoing series, Ann Lemons Pollack investigates brunch options in St. Louis—and an occasional breakfast joint for good measure.
The South Side has become a veritable Petri dish for creative cuisine, the arts, and unique business concepts—and, in some neighborhoods, all three intersect. Case in point: Egg, located in Benton Park's old Polar Wave Ice and Fuel Building, just a few blocks east of Jefferson and Gravois. It’s the kid brother of Spare No Rib, whose graphics are still visible although the ‘cue spot moved to South Jefferson. This temple of morning food has a menu with a Latin American focus.
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Start with the cornbread Benedict. (Egg believes so deeply in cornbread, it’s used in place of biscuits as a base for gravy, either sausage or mushroom.) There are two varieties: one with smoked pork belly and another with sautéed spinach and avocado. The eggs were perfectly poached, the edges irregular from their time in a hot-water bath, the yolks just a wee bit runny. A generous ladle of rich Hollandaise sauce topped it all off.
Breakfast tacos at Egg are not the sort found at drive-thrus, nor even Mexican restaurants in Texas. They’re large and moist enough to demand a knife and fork. Six-inch corn tortillas are stuffed with scrambled eggs and your choice of ingredients: carnitas, chroizo and queso, carne asada, veggie and queso fresco, or spicy rib. The carnitas were full of porcine pleasure and crowned with a spicy salsa.
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Sopés are composed of the cornmeal dough called masa, shaped into small cups and quickly baked or fried. They, too, can be topped with various proteins or veggies; the chorizo version came with a perfect sunny side-up egg and a mild, well-seasoned tomatillo salsa.
The bacon is prepared differently than most American bacon. Purchased from Wenneman Meat in St. Libory, Illinois, it's thick-cut and most closely resembles barbecue, with a smoky flavor—like nothing else in town. The potatoes are also memorable, with lightly fried cubes and plenty of onion.
To drink? Egg is serious about coffee, from a strong cup of joe to a hot espresso martini. And the orange juice squeezed to order at the bar, which makes a fine perch for solo diners.
The 2,000-square-foot space feels relatively small on weekends, especially when it’s busy. (Egg doesn't take reservations for parties of fewer than six, so go early.) On a recent morning, it was all hands on deck, and, as things got busy, not all of the entrées arrived simultaneously at some tables. But the servers were well-versed with the menu—a big plus when trying a fresh take on breakfast.
