St. Louis Restaurants

  • Flashback: Gian-Peppe’s

    My first visit to Gian-Peppe's – wasn't. My beau, accustomed to the hurly-burly of Boston, felt that in St. Louis one surely wouldn't need reservations at a restaurant, even one who'd recently been reviewed with considerable relish by a certain food critic of the Post-Dispatch. We waited until he, embarrassed, confessed to being too hungry

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  • Brunch: Aya Sofia

    In our perpetual search for morning food, we've hit the eastern Mediterranean with a visit to Aya Sofia. And speaking of hits, there's a first-rate potato dish to be had. You can read about it here in St. Louis Magazine's DINING blog.

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  • Once a Week at The Old Barn Inn

    It’s that time of year for Sunday drives. If you’re headed west, here’s a place to stop for dinner on the way home. The Old Barn Inn is a part of the Inns of St. Albans. It’s an event venue as well as an extremely upscale bed and breakfast. Part of it used to be

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  • Just One Bite: The Scottish Arms

    I’m a sucker for nachos, even the ones with ersatz cheese pumped out of a steel cask. But I don’t often order them in restaurants, preferring to graze on items less frequently seen hereabouts. And an order of them, unless it’s shared with several people, is just too filling to allow for enjoying the following

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  • Flashback: An American Place

    A shooting star? A brilliant flash, then moving across the heavens, then gone? That might describe An American Place, the restaurant that Larry Forgione, who, more than once, was described as the "godfather of American cuisine",  opened in the old Statler hotel downtown. Forgione was an amiable guy, at least to those of us in

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  • Dixon’s Smoke Company

    Does St. Louis need another barbecue place? Pish tosh. That’s like asking if we need another hamburger spot. Barbecue is a birthright, especially in this part of the United States. We can put that argument out of the way right now. And so we have Dixon's Smoke Company, very old school in some ways –

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  • Flashback: Al Baker’s

    If someone’s looking for yet another example of how Time Marches On, recall, please, that Al Baker’s, one of the perpetually popular restaurants of the area, was at Clayton and Brentwood. Ah, the indignity of being replaced by a Linens-n-Things, which, of course, was in turn replaced by a megapharmacy. Al Baker was a guy

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  • Just One Bite: Al’s

    There are a few dishes in St. Louis that are legendary in their greatness. One of them is the onion rings at Al’s downtown. The o-rings there have, in my history, always been at one of the first levels of divinity, and they continue to excel. The batter is tempura-ish, light and flaky, the width

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  • The Muddled Pig Gastropub

    It’s slightly disconcerting to this particular swinophile to say that the salads at The Muddled Pig Gastropub – an establishment dedicated, in part, to the glories of the hog – are quite excellent. Austin Hamblin and Michelle Allender acknowledge that the Berkshire breed, from Missouri farmers, are the focus of their work. We’ve been saying

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  • Brunch: Bixby’s

    Bixby's, on the second floor of the Missouri History Museum has rather a different formula for brunch, part buffet and part sit-down. And, for those who are gourmands (or merely curious) as well as gourmets, one may order as much and as often as desired from the sit-down portion of the menu. One price covers

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