A new option for Grand center pre-theater and -music dining? You bet. A half-block from Powell Hall, Sweetie Pie's Upper Crust puts soul food in elegant new digs. And speaking of elegant, this is, as a lot of people know, the project of the elegant Robbie Montgomery, the third location for her restauratnt. The OWN Network is currently filming the third season of "Welcome to Sweetie Pie's", the reality show about Miss Robbie's, and on most visits, there will be fans from out of town mingling in line with the locals.
It's a cafeteria with lots of additional help to bring guests their drinks, help with trays, and offer carryout boxes, because, yes, St. Louis, these are generous portions. Lines can be long, but the interior is so roomy, it's not because folks are waiting for a seat. After church on Sunday, for instance, the line rums out the door. (But on any visit, there always are folks getting take-out, also easing the demand for seats.) There's also a room for private functions and a nice patio adjacent to that.
The stars of the line, not surprisingly in this cuisine with its rural American roots, are the vegetables. Other items glow, but it's the side dishes that stand out in memory. It makes the habit of some traditional Southern restaurants of offering a plate of nothing but three, four or five vegetables quite understandable. Not that these are vegetarian, at least not the great majority of them. But the macaroni and cheese is. A far cry from anything Kraft produced, the consistency is a little iregular, the top chewy-cheesish, all properly comfort food-esque. The greens are definitely, defiantly, not vegetarian. Generous shards of ham run throughout the greens, whose flavor is so deeply complex, smoky and peppery, that it's easy to see how people could make an entire meal of them. It's the sort of dish I'd like to set before a French chef and see his reaction.
For those of us who grew up on dense, caramelized sweet potatoes, Robbie's are amazing. Light and tender, sweet and slightly citrusy, there's also some cinnamon swooping around. And dumplings, as in chicken-and-, are clearly homemade, again with numerous pieces of chicken in the surrounding gravy, all richly chicken-savory, a little celery chiming in. (If you order it as a main course, it comes with a piece of either light or dark chicken, pan roasted.) Not up to those high standards are the cornbread dressing, dark and moist and tasting mostly of celery, and the potato salad, surprisingly underseasoned.
Main courses headline a rocking fried chicken, including huge wings, available solo, dipped in a crunchy, garlicky/oniony batter and absolutely greaseless, the best fried chicken in town until someone feeds me a superior bird. Hot braised wings, almost as large, are meaty but the braising sauce is closer to sweet-and-sour than spicy. A reliable, sturdy meatloaf that's not loaded with filler seems very Mom-ish. Some days there's liver, and ox tails as well. Alas, I never caught either of those, being particularly fond of ox tail, a meat that will charm anyone who likes osso bucco or pork shank. Catfish and jack salmon on Fridays. (Why wait for Lent?)
Corn bread, of course, surprisingly tender and barely sweet at all, and rolls on Sunday. The dessert case is full of options, but most folks opt for one of the two cobblers sitting on the steam table. The peach is a constant, although my editor at St. Louis Magazine moans over a pear version he encountered a while back. I grew up on blackberry cobbler, the empress of all cobblers, and have a tendency to look down on the peach, but this is sublime, seasoned with what seems to be a pas de deux of nutmeg and cinnamon. And it's a real cobbler, with pastry crust top and bottom, not the cake-batter-poured-over-fruit thing that's reared its ugly head in recent years. Caramel cake features a brown sugar-y icing on a close-grained pale yellow cake with a slight hit of almond in it.
If your idea of a soul food restaurant is frugal surroundings and a $5 dinner check, this will change your mind. It comes close to lavish. Service? Help carrying trays if needed, and sometimes even if it isn't, and refills of iced tea ad infinitum. Lots of smiles and lots of happy folks eating. A little post-prandial stroll to your seat at the Fox won't take more than 5 minutes.
Sweetie Pie's Upper Crust
3643 Delmar Blvd.
314-371-0304
Credit cards: Yes (for over $10)
Wheelchair access: Very good
Smoking: No
Entrees: $11 – $14 (including vegetables)