Restaurant recommendations for St. Louis?

Pappy's Smokehouse

Get there early

/thread

Pappy's, Bogarts, and Sugarfire for Bbq.

Post-Dispatch's top 100 Restaurants

You are an idiot.

The smarter people are on the Food and Drink Board.

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23hella

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In all seriousness my wife went to WashU and I visited there a ton. Email me and I can give you tons of advice.

Thanks I will do. What's your email?

I waited in line for hours at Pappy's was very disappointed in the food. Nothing special at all.

I'll admit that I didn't think things out regarding arrival time and the wait, but I wasn't impressed with the food. I was really excited to try that place too!

Here's my standard St. Louis post, which is starting to get a little dated. Also: Side Project Brewery.

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As promised, here is my GREAT ST. LOUIS FOOD POST (tm).


We do periodic food trips up to St. Louis, so I'll just paste in some emails from my friend who lives up there and gives us recs. I apologize that he had linked URLs on a lot of these, so I'll just put the names of the places in parentheses where applicable. Also, it's a collection of emails, so it may be disjointed:


This place (Juniper) is doing the very much en vogue ‘southern’ style with a twist type of thing; we went and I loved it. The chef-owner was doing a series of pop-ups for a long while before finally going with a set name and a rotating menu. The menu here appears to be their newest one as it is slightly different from the one we had 2 months or so ago. Casual but need a reservation.



This place (The Tavern) is becoming a local ‘empire’ in a sense, in that they have three or four different places all under one ownership group. The Tavern does a lot of fish, which is nice. Last time we went I thought we had a fantastic meal. Also, it’s the only place on my list here not in the city (about 10 mins away from our house).



This place (Bahn Mi So #1) is our favorite Vietnamese, I believe K has already mentioned it to you. It’s a mom-n-pop type place and service is very slow. Pop runs the front and mom runs the kitchen, but it’s fantastic. It’s not glamorous in the least and the neighborhood is sorta bad also but, best curry shrimp I’ve ever had anywhere.



This place (Planter's House) we have not been to but it is owned by StL’s most prominent mixologist (I can’t believe I just typed that sentence…) and the reviews have been good. It is primarily cocktail oriented as you can imagine.



We haven’t been to this place (The Libertine) either however it also gets good reviews, again as a southern-type thing. Chef was displaced from NOLA following Katrina, wound up staying…


Blood and Sand This is a membership only place. They allow non-members to try it out once before they join. We haven't been yet but have heard all great things. They post no prices, but I could call and get the range. I'm assuming entrees $20-35.

Niche is great--same owner and chef as the Brasserie where we went the night before the wedding. This is their nicer place, "fine" dining. We've been a couple of times, but not for their Monday night thing. It's a pre-fixe 3-course meal for $35 a person. I've heard that Mondays are "fun".


Farmhaus (known for fish, hot chef in town)

BBQ has exploded in StL the last couple years (along with whiskey bars). Pappy’s sorta became a gold standard but, similar to Gerard Craft, they’ve had acoloytes go on to open their own, just as good (and not as crowded) establishments, like Bogart’s (which we prefer) and a brand new place called Adam’s Smokehouse.



Bogarts has awesome, awesome ribs and, strangely, pastrami, which is also fabulous. Adam’s apparently does their own salami, in addition to all the regular bbq items. Both guys worked at Pappy’s for a long time. We’ve not been to adam’s.



Another BBQ place I know that is not Pappy’s related at all is called Southtown Pub, basically up the street from where we used to be in the city. They do BBQ and oysters. BBQ was very good the one time I went, no idea on the oysters.

There's also the Fountain on Locust. We could take the boys for Vietnamese if you think they'll like that. In Maplewood there's a new place called Strange Donuts that might be fun to pop in, and there's a little pie place right next door to that. There are a half dozen or more really good local breweries here now, too--some are family friendly and have small menus of good food. Also there are a couple of delis that are very good if we just need a sandwich one day.



Other possibly good kid thing is Bailey’s Range. Another outpost in one of our local, StL restaurant empires. Basically they do everything in house, burgers and ice cream/milkshakes, plus craft soda, booze, etc. Not our favorite burgers (altho they are pretty good, just overcooked) but seems like the type of place a kid would like.

For The Hill we went with an upstart rather than the old stalwarts: Anthonino's Taverna. It was really good. Does some Greek as well.

Also ate at Rooster which is part of Bailey's empire. It was great. Only open for brunch and lunch.

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Best fine dining in St Louis is The Crossing in Clayton. Fresher and more interesting food than Tony's, and just flat-out more competent, consistent and professional than Niche, Sidney Street Cafe, etc.

Fine cocktails and small plates at Taste by Niche in the Central West End (better, more consistent food than at Niche itself).

Italian in The Hill is overrated (with a notable exception - see next sentence). Charlie Gitto's has the best food and wine list in that area, but the officious service and stuffy atmosphere turn me off.

The single best dish in St Louis is the salam de testa/"hot salami" sub sandwich at Gioia's Deli in The Hill. The meat is something like an Italian version of hogshead cheese - unique and great.

The best Vietnamese restaurant I found in my three-year sentence in St Louis was Truc Lam on Gravois - far better than Pho Grand, Bahn Mi So, Lemongrass and the rest. Truc Lam's pho is as good as any in New Orleans.

There's respectable Cantonese at Wei Hong on south Grand - not awesome, but better than anything in New Orleans.

South Grand also has first-rate Ethiopian (Meskerem) and above-average Persian (Cafe Natasha).

There's a great German-style sausage maker on south Kingshighway called G & W - their garlic brats are better than any bratwurst or knackwurst I ever had in Chicago, Milwaukee or Sheboygan.

St Louis-style pizza is garbage - cracker-thin unyeasted dough, tomato-paste sauce tasting solely of dried oregano, covered with a processed cheese with the taste and texture of Elmer's glue. Yuck.

The "barbecue" at Pappy's and Bogart's is utter shite - cooked too hot, barely any smoke flavor, all meat and smoke flavors masked by a sticky-sweet glaze. Every trick in the book designed to please a childish palate ignorant of the art of meat plus smoke.

Therefore, of course, it's a smash hit in St Louis.