St. Louis Restaurants
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Trattoria Marcella
Our favorite story about Trattoria Marcella involves a meal we had there with a friend of Joe’s who writes about restaurants in New York City. It was a meal on short notice at a deeply unfashionable time of day. When we got done, the chap was practically in tears. "Yes, the food was excellent," he
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Stellina Pasta Cafe
Stellina Pasta is so darn cute a diner might be forgiven for initially thinking the food would be secondary. That’s "cute" as in good-looking, its design elements carefully thought out in modern terms. It’s emphatically not cutesy. Notice, for instance, the mosaic star under the big front window. ("Stellina" is Italian for little star.) It’s
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Brunch: Kemoll’s Top of The Met
Comes now the brunch season, and a new, major brunch has joined the city’s list. Kemoll’s, one of St. Louis’ oldest restaurants, still in the hands of its founding family, has begun serving at the Top Of The Met. They’ve used the space 42 floors above their primary operation for catering dinners and receptions, and
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Eau Bistro
We are excited to report on the arrival of a new star—or perhaps it’s the re-appearance of an old one. Or both. Eau, which started out with such a culinary bang in the reborn Chase Park Plaza some years ago and then went adrift, is back. At the helm, as the chef de cuisine, is
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Kim Son Vietnamese Bistro
Another entry in the Olive Boulevard parade of Asian restaurants has arrived. Kim Son Vietnamese Bistro is across the street from the Olive Farmers Market, in another of those buildings that cause St. Louisans to say, "Didn’t that used to be…..?" And yes, Vietnam Star was just the most recent of many occupants. The space
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La Tortuga
There’s not much that pleases us more than finding a little, family-run restaurant that serves good ethnic food. And we’ve found just such a spot on Cherokee Street. There’s not much decor beyond some freshly painted walls in warm, pleasing colors. And the smile from one of the teenaged daughters who tells you to sit
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Rooster: Brunch
Downtown St. Louis, at least here and there, is beginning to resemble New York’s SoHo of the 1980’s. The left-of-center home furnishings boutiques, the funky clothing stores (more, please!) and buildings that are finally beginning to show they’re homes and not just former business sites, all create urban fun. So Rooster, with its two storefronts,
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Mangia Italiano
Good food, low cost–and a European parking experience. What more could you ask for a casual evening’s entertainment? Mangia Italiano, in the food-happy South Grand neighborhood, expanded a few years ago, with a second dining room that’s partly non-smoking. But it’s still a laid-back, slightly artsy sort of joint that features the pasta that’s made
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Flavor Of India
There are more and more Indian restaurants popping up in the suburbs, a good development as far as we’re concerned. St Louis has good restaurants, to be sure, but St. Louisans’ palates, on the whole, are rather conservative, and the spread of the comparatively exotic food of southern Asia speaks of widening our eating horizons.
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Franco
Yes, it probably was too soon. We’ve always preferred to give restaurants some time to settle into a routine before we review them. But once in a while, rules are made to be broken and about three weeks after it opened, we visited Franco. Just across the street from the north side of Soulard Market,