A fond look back at Painted Plates

In 1993, chef Greg Perez opened Painted Plates in The Loop where Mission Taco Joint now stands. The exuberant Perez took mostly American food—things folks were eating at home—and cranked it up a few notches. Fried chicken? Yes, but it was smoked first. The pot roast had a splash of Madeira. The lasagna was float-off-the-plate light. That sort of stuff. The food also looked gorgeous, which Perez achieved without resorting to the wobbling towers so popular in the mid-’90s. And painted plates did indeed line the walls; the look was modern, though, not the style of an earlier era.

Even today, in my dining room sits an empty double magnum of 1981 Burgess cabernet sauvignon, its label signed by chefs who once gathered to mark the retirement of my husband, Joe Pollack, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s former restaurant critic. The dinner was held at Painted Plates, with each course cooked by a different chef. There were long intervals in between, the rhythm of a grand European dinner. Joe invited photographer Herb Weitman, the longtime photographer of the St. Louis football Cardinals, and sportscaster Bob Costas. We enjoyed plenty of wine, and there was much food chatter (though the chefs kept urging Costas to discuss sports).

In 1996, Perez transformed the space into the Grateful Grill and later moved to Napa Valley. He eventually returned to St. Louis and rolled out a line of hemp oil–based salad dressings. But who knows? Maybe he has another restaurant in him yet.