Harvest has morphed from a Hot New Thing into a consistently reliable favorite with St. Louis diners and with lots of visitors, too. We never stop by for a meal or a late-night dessert that we don’t see at least one table of local business folks, others holding out-of-towners and always celebrants, often Washington U. students with visiting parents. Some are brought by local connections, some have come to dine because of consistently respectful remarks about Harvest in the national press, from the New York Times to Gourmet magazine.
We’d describe Steve Gontram’s food as modern American comfort food with regional overtones, from the killer onion rings to the bread pudding, nearly all of which arrives in St. Louis-sized portions – which is to say generous. Service is warm but not hovering. The dining room is semi-divided into three areas, a central, main room with a fireplace, a raised area along the west wall, and what the house terms “the café,” beyond arches leading to what Ann refers to as the wisteria room because of the decor. When it’s busy, it can be noisy with the sound of folks having a good time.
It’s almost impossible for us to avoid ordering the thinly-sliced crispy onion rings with the cayenne-blue cheese dip that brightens the flavor, though the real onion-lover will take them separately. But we went in another direction, smoked trout on tiny blini-like pancakes, although these weren’t made with buckwheat flour, the way blini are. The slightly sweet cure on the trout was punctuated with a drizzle of yogurt zipped up with some Meyer lemon, bringing a nice combination of salty-smoky-sweet-tart. They’re on the spa menu, which features dishes low in fat and cholesterol, and has some other intriguing options as well.
Gontram’s take on what’s becoming a bistro standard in the U.S., a salade lyonnaise, is remarkably good. He uses curly endive, a green that’s tough enough to stand up to his warm dressing. For those who remember the old Ozark/Southern dish of wilted lettuce, this is a happy throwback, the endive slightly wilted under the mustardy vinaigrette and a generous hand with crunchy bits of bacon, the whole thing topped with a fried sunny-side-up egg, a fine substitute for the traditional poached. This is a dish we’d happily eat over and over again, and could serve as a main course for a light eater who wanted to leave room for dessert. (Or some onion rings?)
One of the perpetual favorites on the entree list is the hanger steak. Sometimes the urge for beef is too much to resist, but you’re not up for a whole sirloin. This is the answer. Hanger, a very flavorful cut, requires careful slicing at just the right angle, and the work is done for you here, with five generous slices draped in mid-plate and served with a fat horseradish-laced potato cake and some spinach that’s described on the menu as creamed. Actually, we thought it was more like a buttery saute, both for the color and the lack of ooze that often shows up with creamed spinach. The house’s own steak sauce, a ruddy-colored sharp-sweet mixture, rings it all, available but not interfering for those who prefer their deeply flavored beef straight.
Duck choucroute? Well, yes. Topped with slices of duck breast cooked to order, rare in our case, it included beans, red cabbage, fingerling potatoes, and, in a burst of surprise, small pickled red grapes, a tart punctuation that made the entire tasty dish even more so. A final flavor burst came from a slice of house-made bacon, cooked to the proper crisp. Rich and fully earning its stick-to-the-ribs reputation, it was just the dish for a cold, dreary night.
Gontram always has had a splendid wine list, with superior choices throughout the price spectrum, and proper offerings from the by-the-glass list. We sampled a wine-list special, a California Terre Rouge, mostly Shiraz (Syrah in France and the U.S.) blended with with other red varietals. It was rich and tasty, with a deep flavor and long finish. At $12, or more than $40 by the bottle, it was on the high side, but it was a splendid choice for a celebratory dinner. Another winner was a Cabernet Sauvignon from Trefethen, a venerable name among California winemakers.
Bread pudding is the signature dessert, made with brioche and served warm, of course, with a caramel sauce. But we went in search of something new, and found it in pineapple upside down cake, baked to order, the tart and slightly chewy pineapple tingling against the spice cake. And the caramel ice cream that came alongside was remarkable. (That flower-ish thing on top is a thin, thin slice of dried pineapple, great fun, and definitely an edible garnish.)Caramel-flavored desserts are sometimes not caramelly enough; that certainly wasn’t the case here, with a fine depth of flavor and velvet texture. A perfect combination of excellent individual items. We also tasted the blood orange sorbet, a lovely color, but the flavor was almost completely overridden by bitterness from the orange pith.
A consistently reliable house with food for everyone from the conservative to the adventurous.
Harvest
1059 S. Big Bend Blvd., Richmond Heights
314-645-3522
Dinner Tues.-Sun.
Credit cards: Yes
Wheelchair access: Good
Smoking: Yes
Entrees: $18-$27
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How can an upscale restaurant like Harvest, that aspires to fine dining, that cares about ingredients, that even has a spa menu, permit smoking? My gosh, it is 2009; even Virginia has banned smoking in restaurants. It is time for the vast majority of St. Louisans who don’t smoke to vote with their wallets and credit cards and support those places enlightened enough to prohibit the few smokers from infringing on the enjoyment of the other diners.