January 2016 Feast Magazine by Feast Magazine

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Inspired Local Food Culture | Midwest

2016

feastmagazine.com | january 2016

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Long live the king of all-American wines. Oh Norton, official grape of Missouri, from you comes a fine wine I find divine. I savor your dry flavor and how you pair with such flare. You and your fellow “Show Me” State varietals, inspire this somewhat wordy recital. But I’ll conclude and invite all to take a look, by downloading my Missouri Wines ebook. Visit MissouriWine.org, download the ebook and discover the poetry of Missouri Wines for yourself.

MissouriWine .org | #MeetMoWines

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Inspired Local Food Culture | Midwest

JANUARY 2016 froM the staff |8|

| 45 |

| 46 | heaLthy aPPetIte

from the PUBLISher

Start 2016 off right with the ultimate detox salad.

Toasting tastemakers.

| 10 |

dIgItaL content

| 48 | myStery ShoPPer

What’s online this month.

| 12 |

Buy it and try it: umeboshi.

feaSt tv

| 50 | menU oPtIonS

A peek at the January episode.

| 15 |

| 27 |

DrINK This month we’re sipping local beers at a new brewery in Festus, Missouri, and matcha lattes at a community-focused coffee shop in Effingham, Illinois. We also talk to three local breweries to learn how they’re experimenting with flavored milk stouts.

| 37 |

Savor a taste of Italy with rich and warming vegetablestudded minestrone.

DINe This month we visit three restaurants, including a globally inspired restaurant in St. Louis and a Kansas City eatery where simple and seasonal entrées share space with indulgent desserts. In our monthly travel piece, Road Trip, writer Amy Lynch travels to Pokagon State Park in Indiana, where a ¼-mile refrigerated toboggan run is only one of the outdoor winter attractions. We also talk to three chefs to learn how they’re cooking with leeks this season.

shoP We visit two regional shops this month – a new wine and artisan food shop in St. Charles, Missouri, and a new organic market in Grandview, Missouri. We also catch up with Sean Baltzell, founder of Knife & Flag Survival Union, to learn about the company’s popular aprons and accessories for chefs, bakers and craftspeople.

cooK

| 52 | Sweet IdeaS Pastry chef Christy Augustin upgrades weekend brunch with a sweet and indulgent dutch baby with fresh ricotta and prune compote.

| 54 |

2016 tasteMaKers Meet the innovative restaurant owners, chefs, artisan makers and food-and-drink producers who are capitalizing on industry trends and driving the local culinary scene forward.

COVER ART By ALExAndREA dOyLE TABLE OF COnTEnTS PhOTO OF PInCKnEy BEnd dISTILLERy (P. 56) By hAnnAh FOLdy

Magazine Volume 7

| Issue 1 | January 2016

Vice President of Niche Publishing, Publisher of Feast Magazine Catherine Neville, publisher@feastmagazine.com

Hand Crafted Coffees Importing Fine Coffees from 20 Countries • QUALITY • EXPERIENCE • SERVICE

Director of Sales Angie Henshaw ahenshaw@feastmagazine.com, 314.475.1298 EDITORIAL Senior Editor Liz Miller, editor@feastmagazine.com Managing Editor Nancy Stiles, nstiles@feastmagazine.com Associate Editor Bethany Christo, bchristo@feastmagazine.com

Full Service Coffeehouse & Restaurant Supplier Fourth Generation Family Owned Coffee Roasters Since 1930

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Digital Editor Heather Riske, web@feastmagazine.com Kansas City Contributing Editor Jenny Vergara St. Louis Contributing Editor Mabel Suen Editorial Intern Macy Salama Proofreader Christine Wilmes Contributing Writers Christy Augustin, Ettie Berneking, Sherrie Castellano, Gabrielle DeMichele, Pete Dulin, Mallory Gnaegy, Hilary Hedges, Valeria Turturro Klamm, Amy Lynch, Brandon and Ryan Nickelson, Matt Seiter, Matt Sorrell, Shannon Weber ART Art Director Alexandrea Doyle, adoyle@feastmagazine.com Production Designer Jacklyn Meyer, jmeyer@feastmagazine.com Contributing Photographers Zach Bauman, Sherrie Castellano, Hannah Foldy, Jonathan Gayman, Tytia Habing, Aaron Ottis, Anna Petrow, Jennifer Silverberg, Christopher Smith, Starboard & Port Creative, Mabel Suen, Alistair Tutton, Landon Vonderschmidt, Cheryl Waller FEAST TV

producer: Catherine Neville production partner: Judd Demaline of Graine Films

saturday, April 2, 2016 2-6pm

To distribute Feast Magazine at your place of business, please contact Jeff Moore for St. Louis at jmoore@stldist.com, Jason Green for Kansas City at distribution@pds-kc.com, and Dirk Dunkle for Jefferson City and Columbia at dadunkle@columbiatribune.com.

a variety of local and out of state breweries

tickets available at 4 hands and lupulincarnival.com

Reproduction or use in whole or in part of the contents, without the prior written permission of the publisher, is strictly prohibited.

beer | live carnival acts | food trucks | games

Produced by the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis, LLC

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ContrIbutors

01.16

MAINSTAGE

jonathan gayman St. Louis, Photographer Jonathan is a commercial photographer based in St. Louis with a focus on food, beverage and product photography. His keen eye for light and composition fuels thoughtful and inspired photography, whether he is shooting in St. Louis, Chicago, New York or on location around the country. Jonathan is a regular contributor to many food publications including Feast, and his work has appeared in national and global publications including advertisements, marketing materials and annual reports for some of the nation’s top businesses. For more than eight years, Jonathan has been bringing his unique photographic perspective to clients all over the country.

BY JAMES GOLDMAN

January 6 – 31 | DIRECTED BY EDWARD STERN STUDIO

alistair tutton Kansas City, Photographer My name is Alistair and I am an Englishman. I feel this is important to tell you before we speak to each other, as you may find yourself momentarily rendered speechless by my magnificent use of the Queen’s English. I have been a professional photographer in the colonies – I mean the States – since 2006. Although I’m based out of Kansas City, I travel extensively throughout the U.S. for my clients and occasionally just for myself. My wonderful clients include local, regional and national companies as well as global ad agencies. I believe that the best photo shoots begin by asking the right questions and listening closely to the answers. By completing the front-end research, my clients and I both understand what shots are needed, while still allowing for the spontaneity that distinguishes good images from the great.

sherrie castellano

Studio Season Sponsor

Ann & HugH Scott

January 20 – February 7 |

BOOK BY WEST HYLER AND MATT SCHATZ MUSIC AND LYRICS BY MATT SCHATZ ADDITIONAL MUSIC AND LYRICS BY JACK HERRICK DIRECTED BY WEST HYLER

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St. Louis, Writer & Photographer Sherrie Castellano is a certified health coach, food writer and photographer based in St. Louis. Originally from upstate New York – although she has spent most of her adulthood in Denver and Philadelphia – Sherrie has recently moved to Missouri and calls the Midwest home, for now. She writes and photographs the seasonally inspired vegetarian and gluten-free food blog, With Food + Love, which was a finalist in the 2015 Saveur Blog Awards. Sherrie’s work has been featured on the pages of Driftless Magazine, Vegetarian Times, Food52 and Urban Outfitters, among others. You can find her hanging with her aviation-enthusiast husband sipping Earl Grey tea, green juice and/or bourbon.

jenny vergara Kansas City, Contributing Editor As a food writer, restaurant marketer and culinary event planner, Jenny Vergara knows what’s good and what’s going on in the food scene in Kansas City. In addition to her role as contributing editor for Feast and writer for the magazine’s news blog, The Feed, Jenny also writes a food blog, The Making of a Foodie. She is perhaps most well known as the founder of Kansas City’s first underground supper club, The Test Kitchen, which has now expanded to include chapters in Missouri and Oklahoma. Her tribe of faithful followers is more than 5,000 strong.

February 10 – March 6 |

BY AYAD AKHTAR DIRECTED BY SETH GORDON

314-968-4925 repstl.org Inspired Local Food Culture

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FeAst eVeNts

publisher’s letter

culinary entrepreneurship drives the industry forward. That practically goes without saying. However, the exact focus on innovation and investment in the food-anddrink industry shifts each year as consumers’ tastes and expectations change.

stl

Thu., Dec. 31; Sanctuaria Wild Tapas; sanctuariastl.com

Join Sanctuaria as the entire restaurant is transformed into a Prohibition-era speakeasy. Imbibe authentic cocktails and enjoy a fourcourse meal inspired by the era, all lit by candlelight only. stl

st. louis Mardi Gras Wed., Jan. 6 through Sat., Feb. 6; Soulard; St. Louis; stlmardigras.org/events

Kick off Mardi Gras with a series of events in St. Louis’ Soulard neighborhood, including a family winter carnival; a wine, beer and whiskey tasting; a Cajun cook-off; the Southern Comfort Taste of Soulard; the Beggin’ Pet Parade; and the Mayor’s Mardi Gras Ball. KC

Take, for example, the exploding nationwide trend toward fast-casual dining. a decade ago, hungry people who were in a hurry had only one Visit feastmagazine.com to find the pimento cheese and collard choice: fast food. now, there greens recipes featured in the January episode of Feast TV. are quick, high-quality and relatively inexpensive options in a range of flavors, from Italian to Middle Eastern, and a number of these concepts are homegrown. Turn to p. 62 for managing editor nancy Stiles’ piece examining this up-and-coming segment of the restaurant industry.

New Year’s eve at sanctuaria

Kansas City restaurant Week Fri., Jan. 15 through Sun., Jan. 24; kcrestaurantweek.com

Enjoy multicourse lunch menus for $15 and dinner menus for $33 at more than 135 of the Kansas City area’s best restaurants. KC

Midwest Flavors Cooking series: the New Gin revival Sat., Jan. 16, 6:30 to 9pm; Culinary Center of Kansas City; $75; cookingschoolsofamerica.com/kcculinary

Join 2015 Feast 50-winner Pinckney Bend Distillery of New Haven, Missouri, as they bring one of their amazing Gin Labs to the CCKC kitchens. Pinckney Bend Distillery specializes in handcrafted spirits and holds numerous international awards for its American and Cask Finished Gin. stl

schnucks Cooks: Minestrone Wed., Jan 20, 6 to 9pm; Schnucks Cooks Cooking

another trend that is driving industry growth (which is closely related to the fast-casual boom) is the expanding desire for easy access to great food. Consumers are unwilling to sacrifice quality for convenience and there are an increasing number of businesses meeting this growing demand. Senior editor Liz Miller dives into this phenomenon on p. 66 and introduces you to people behind pedal-powered restaurant delivery services, a drive-up grocery store and ready-made meals for everyday dining.

School; $40; schnuckscooks.com or 314.909.1704

Join us in the kitchen and learn how to make minestrone, mixed greens and roasted red pepper salad, Black Forest ham and Italian fontina flatbread and housemade vanilla ice cream topped with espresso. In this class you’ll learn how to thicken soups with cheese rinds and properly chop vegetables. You’ll also learn how to make fresh affogato at home. stl stl

Sat., Jan. 23, 7 to 11pm; Saint Louis Science Center; $50 for members or $55 for nonmembers;

Other of-the-minute trends we explore in this issue include the rise in craft distilling (p. 56), our increasing desire for piping hot bowls of ramen (p. 60) and heaping plates of Southern food (p. 74), a new focus on branding and audience engagement (p. 82), locally designed furniture and restaurant interiors (p. 70), the huge growth in artisan food products (p. 78), plus the expansion that is uniting our region’s culinary industry (p. 86). This is a great issue, one to which each member of the team here at Feast has contributed. and I want to send a shout-out to our art director, alex Doyle, for her innovative cover design and feature layouts. not only is this issue’s content compelling, but the design is also as cutting-edge as the entrepreneurs profiled.

science on tap slsc.org/science-on-tap

Enjoy a beer-tasting event for your brain featuring 80-plus beer tastings, science demonstrations, live music and more. Learn about the chemistry and science behind the entire beer brewing and bottling process. This total sensory experience will let you be handson with some of beer brewing’s most popular ingredients. Learn how different colored glass affects the taste of your beer, discover how buoyant your beer is and compete against your friends in our beer-goggles challenges. stl

the st. louis Food & Wine experience Fri., Jan. 29 to Sun., Jan. 31, The Chase Park Plaza, pricing varies, foodandwinestl.org

Excite your taste buds and discover new flavors with friends at this international food and wine festival. Look forward to a fine wine VIP reserve room, tasty food vendors and more than 900 wines to sample, all to benefit The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis.

until next time, stl

Cat’s picks Wednesdays, 8:35am; The BIG 550 KTRS

Tune in as Feast publisher Catherine Neville chats with host McGraw Milhaven and gives her weekly picks for the best places to eat and drink in the St. Louis area.

Catherine neville publisher@feastmagazine.com

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j a n u a r y 2016

@cat_neville

JANUARY 29 - 31

14TH ANNUAL ST. LOUIS FOOD & WINE EXPERIENCE THE PREMIER TASTING: A CELLAR-MAKER’S DREAM FRIDAY, JANUARY 29

The Chase Park Plaza Hotel Starlight and Zodiac Ballrooms 7:00 – 10:00 p.m.

ONE-DAY GENERAL ADMISSION & THE VIP RESERVE ROOM SATURDAY, JANUARY 30 SUNDAY, JANUARY 31

The Chase Park Plaza Hotel The Khorassan and Lindell Ballroom Noon – 5:00 p.m.

PURCHASE TICKETS TODAY!

Online at www.foodandwinestl.org, at The Rep Box Office [314] 968-4925 or at participating Schnucks locations.

Inspired Local Food Culture

J A N UA RY 2 0 1 6

DIGITAL CONTENT

hungry for more?

feastmagazine.com

connect with us daily:

fACEbook. Get a sneak peek of upcoming Feast TV segements (like Magnolia’s in Kansas City) at facebook.com/feastmag.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MABeL SueN

thE fEEd: StL The iconic Memphis-based Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken opened an outpost in the St. Louis area in early December, serving up crispy fried chicken with a signature kick.

tWIttEr. Follow @feastmag to see where we’re

dining and drinking each month (like the tonkotsu ramen at Ramen Tei in Ballwin, Missouri).

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHeRRie CASTeLLANO

thE fEEd: mId-mo Chef Craig von Foerster’s Harvest is now open in Rogersville, Missouri, serving farm-to-table fare including Nantucket bay scallops and a beet salad with Terrell Creek goat cheese.

PIntErESt. Kick off the New Year with healthy recipes (like Brussels sprouts and kale salad) on our Salads board at pinterest.com/feastmag.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY eTTie BeRNeKiNG

PHOTOGRAPHY BY KATie’S PizzA AND PASTA

morE on thE fEEd: Keep up with what’s happening in the region’s food-and-drink scene by visiting our daily updated news blog, The Feed, at feastmagazine.com/the-feed. We recently took a look at Plate, a new restaurant from the owners of Season + Square in Kansas City, and shared news of Pint Size Bakery’s expansion into a much bigger St. Louis space. SPECIAL GIVEAWAY: Win a pair of tickets to Science On Tap at the Saint Louis Science Center on Sat., Jan. 23. Just head to the

Promotions section at feastmagazine.com for all the details.

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J a n u a r y 2016

InStAGrAm. Hashtag your local food-and-drink photos with #feastgram for a chance to see them in Feast! Details on p. 90.

Watch our videos and Feast TV.

youtube.com/FeastMagazine

at the

Saturday, January 23rd • 7– 11pm • Featuring 70+ Beer Tastings • 4 Tasting Plates

• Science Demonstrations • Live Music: The Bottoms Up Blues Gang

Join Starlite Events at the Saint Louis Science Center on January 23rd for a beer-tasting event for your brain. Learn about the chemistry and science behind the entire beer brewing and bottling process. This total sensory experience will let you: • Be hands-on with beer brewing’s most popular ingredients • Experience molecular gastronomy with your favorite beer

• Discover the buoyancy of beer • See beer ingredients under the microscope • Learn how Sam Adams Nitro technology works

Tickets on sale now!

$50 Members, $55 non-Members or $60 at the door the day of the event. Ticket includes entertainment, four tasting plates, beer tastings, parking and more! slsc.org • 314.289.4400 SPONSORED IN PART BY:

Inspired Local Food Culture

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FEAST TV

PHoToGRaPHy By JoNaTHaN GayMaN

Look for the Feast TV splat throughout the magazine. It tells you which articles are part of this month’s episode!

in this month’s episode: Get a taste of contemporary Southern food like red velvet waffles, crispy hot chicken, and shrimp and grits at Magnolia’s in Kansas City. Learn how Vain Foods in Kansas City has turned a baking staple – vanilla extract – into something truly special. Stop in at crushed red, a fast-casual restaurant in Clayton, Missouri, where diners can build their own pizzas and salads. Ride along with Food Pedaler, a bicycle delivery company in St. Louis that delivers food from some of the city’s best restaurants right to your door.

Find out more about Crushed Red’s fast-casual pizzas (pictured here) and salads as well as those served at Topp’d in Kansas City, on p. 62.

feast tv is brought to you by the generous support of our sponsors: Missouri Wines

WhoLe Foods Market

L’ écoLe cuLinaire

In January, reach for a bottle of Stone Hill Winery’s dry rosé. Feast TV producer Catherine Neville pairs it with collard greens and pimento cheese.

Get cooking at home! Pick up the recipes and ingredients from Catherine Neville’s January Feast TV demo at the Brentwood and Town and Country locations of Whole Foods Market in the St. Louis area.

In St. Louis and Kansas City, L’École Culinaire offers high-quality culinary education. From basic culinary skills to careers in management, it has a program to fit any aspiration.

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j a n u a r y 2016

St. Louis' Premier Winter Destination

WATCH FEAST ON THESE NETWORKS

In St. Louis, tune into the Nine Network (Channel 9) to see Feast TV on Mon., Jan. 4 at 1pm; Sat., Jan. 9 at 2pm; and Sun., Jan. 24 at 1:30pm.

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In Kansas City, watch Feast TV on KCPT (Channel 19) on Sat., Jan. 16 at 2:30pm.

Join Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation at

Wine & Whiskers Specialty Wines ~ Hors d’Oeuvres ~ Silent Auction

Monday, January 18 5pm - 8pm You can watch Feast TV throughout mid-Missouri on KMOS (Channel 6) on Thu., Jan. 14 at 7:30pm and Sat., Jan. 16 at 4pm.

Redbird Club, Busch Stadium St. Louis, Missouri

$75 per person THIS EVENT WILL SELL OUT This event supports ARF’s programs, promoting positive relationships between animals and people.

Reserve online at www.arflife.org Feast TV will air in the southern Illinois region on WSIU (Channel 8) at 10am on Sat., Jan. 9.

Sponsorships • Holli Hargrove • (925) 296-3154

Inspired Local Food Culture

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Chicken Dinner Sundays Buy one chicken dinner Get one chicken dinner FREE Expires February 29, 2016. Dine-in only. Limit one coupon per party. Not to be combined with any other offers.

2015 Voted #1 BEST FRIED CHICKEN by St. Louis Post-Dispatch Readers 114 W. Mill St. • Waterloo, IL • 618.939.9933 • gallagherswaterloo.com

rockin’ happy hour

made to order brunch

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5401 Johnson Drive, Mission, KS 66205 913-403-8571, www.luckybrewgrille.com

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strength in numbers by coming together with a united voice

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where weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re dining

bite into a bulgogi cheesesteak on p. 19 photography by mabel suen

trending now: Kolache

on trend

Written by bethany Christo PhotograPhy by aaron ottis

A traditional Czech pastry, kolache starts with sweet bread – usually resembling a dinner roll – that is stuffed or topped like a donut with endless sweet, savory and fruity flavors. como

weekly

creations colUMBia, Mo. Harold’s Doughnuts co-owners

Michael and Karli Urban did their research before opening the donut shop in Columbia, Missouri, one year ago. “Kolaches are somewhat related to donuts,” Michael says. “although they’re baked rather than fried, they’re still in the pastry world. Knowing we’d be open thursdays, Fridays and saturdays all day, we wanted to have some sort of bridge to our evening donut bar – for those who might not want something sweet at 2 in the afternoon.” Just about every week, harold’s offers a new savory kolache flavor that always incorporates a housemade side, such as pot roast kolache with creamy from-scratch gravy, hot dog-mac ‘n’ cheese kolache with ketchup made in house or the best-selling buffalo chicken kolache made in collaboration with CJ’s, a local wing joint. “We used its buffalo chicken dip inside our sweet kolache dough, fortified with more chicken and served its hot sauce on the side,” Michael says. other weekly variations have included chicken pot pie, italian meatball and cheeseburger. Harold’s Doughnuts, 114 S. Ninth St., Downtown, Columbia, Missouri, 573.397.6322, haroldsdoughnuts.com

Kolache 101 “ I describe kolaches as stuffed sweet rolls, almost like a sweet dinner roll that has the rest of your dinner stuffed inside it.” –Russ Clark, St. Louis Kolache “It’s a bread vessel for savory fun stuff – be it chicken enchilada or cheeseburger or Italian meatball.” –Michael Urban, Harold’s Doughnuts

%PG

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j a n u a r y 2016

stl

endless

flavors

from grandma

Shawnee, KS. barb Vratanina, owner of Barb’s

creVe coeUr, Mo. russ Clark knew he had his hands on gold when he first tried kolache just over a year ago. Clark’s texas-dwelling friends recommended he try one, but little did they know what an impact it would have on him. “i thought if you could do that with housemade, fresh ingredients with some imagination at a locally owned place, you would have a killer business.” and he was right – after three months in business Clark finds himself struggling to keep the shelves stocked at St. Louis Kolache in Creve Coeur, Missouri. he offers nearly 40 flavors, with 10 more or so in the works. Clark offers sweet options such as gooey butter cake (made with cake from local ann & allen baking Co.), Chocolate elvis, s’mores and fruit flavors like apricot, cherry and blueberry with lemon zest. on the savory side, Clark says new york pizza (with sausage, pepperoni, bacon and mozzarella), bacon-Cheddar cheeseburger, hot pastrami with swiss and bratwurst are all popular. stay tuned for more – Clark says he plans to open five to 10 more stores in the next five years or so.

Kolache Bakery in shawnee, Kansas, has been making kolaches as long as she can remember. she grew up watching her Czech grandmother whip up plates of traditional apricot, poppy seed and prune-filled rolls – recipes that Vratanina still uses today. in addition to family favorites, flavors include best-selling cherry and strawberry-cream cheese, bavarian cream, jalapeño-sausage-cheese and the seasonal peppermint-cream cheese. “Kolaches, to me, are the feeling of grandma, of being warm from the oven heating her small kitchen, smelling the yeast and helping her get them ready,” Vratanina says. she’s operated the bakery since 2007, after moving to shawnee from texas, where kolache bakeries abound – and she’s had steady business since opening. “i’ve been fortunate that my regulars have been so loyal – i think they appreciate a local place where everyone knows their name and they know me and my employees,” she says. “there are the occasional customers who come in looking for donuts, though, when they see ‘bakery.’” Vratanina’s yeasted dough filled with fresh sweet or savory ingredients and baked to pillowy perfection might not be familiar to all, but she has a feeling customers don’t walk away disappointed.

St. Louis Kolache, 1300 N. Lindbergh Blvd., Creve Coeur, Missouri, 314.938.5656, stlkolache.com

Barb’s Kolache Bakery, 22354 W. 66th St., Shawnee, Kansas, 913.422.8300, barbskolache.com

one on one

stl

carl hazel

executive chef, the scottish arms Written by bethany Christo

ST. LOUIS. in october, Carl hazel, executive chef of The Scottish Arms in st. louis,

photography by jennifer silverberg

finally got to experience firsthand the scottish cuisine he’s been preparing at the gastropub since 2007. scottish-born owner ally nisbet surprised hazel and general manager Michael Cline with a weeklong trip across the highlands, glens and lochs as a celebration of the restaurant’s 10-year anniversary. While there, hazel researched dishes to enhance the restaurant’s menu, known for its scotch eggs, haddock ‘n’ chips and lamb burger. in early november, within a couple weeks of returning, hazel and team released a revamped menu, with six additional dishes inspired by the 740 miles they traveled across scotland. What did the trip teach you? here, farm to table is a popular trend, but there, it’s the way of life. When you go to the grocery store, nothing is labeled “local” – it’s only labeled when it isn’t. it’s understood that food comes from a local source. the arms’ farmto-table program started in 2008, so everything we can do local, we do. for example, our rabbits are mostly from my family’s farm in southeast Missouri. i could buy rabbits much closer to st. louis, but i don’t have the personal connection. What was it like visiting nisbet’s birthplace, Aberdeen? seafood is a staple in aberdeen, since it’s right next to the ocean. We saw haddock crumbles and other savory crumbles on quite a few menus, so we decided to add a creamy version to our menu called the Crovie Crumble, made with house-smoked haddock, potatoes, leeks and carrots. We named it after a little fishing village, Crovie, where we hiked to one afternoon from another sister fishing village. there is a row of 20 tiny cottages maybe 15 or 20 feet off the sea – and that is the entirety of the village. it’s historically preserved, and we named the dish after it because we were inspired by the simple way these villagers lived their lives, fishing and foraging, and the slowed-down mentality was a nice break from the hectic way we live our lives here. Tell us about your other new dishes. We added our take on surf ‘n’ turf that we’re calling loch and glen, which encapsulates our first and last days in scotland. We visited aberdeen early, where it’s all about seafood – which is why the dish includes scallops – and then we spent our last day in the highlands’ glens, known for its lamb and red meat, so we incorporated a boneless sous-vide lamb loin. this dish represents our entire journey and incorporates elements from every place we visited. What has been the response from diners? the best feedback was from ally’s father, who visited st. louis from scotland and came to dinner at the arms right after we’d debuted the menu changes. he almost teared up at the end, saying it was one of the best meals he’d ever had and that it was indicative of what he sees and eats in his daily life in scotland. he ordered our new venison dish – a smaller, richer deer [meat] that we saw on menus over there, which we served with wild-foraged mushroom ravioli, juniper sauce and pickled walnuts. How does the Arms stack up to the places you visited? i think you could pick the scottish arms up and drop it in the middle of aberdeen or edinburgh, and it would fit right in. that was the most refreshing realization of the whole trip – i’ve been cooking scottish food since 2007, but everything i know is from ally rather than firsthand experience. We came back, more than anything, proud of how we’re representing scottish cuisine in st. louis. The Scottish Arms, 6-8 S. Sarah St., Central West end, St. Louis, Missouri, 314.535.0551, thescottisharms.com

featuring daily specials Monday - Friday | Lunch & Dinner Saturday - Sunday | Dinner Only 2061 Zumbehl Rd St. Charles, MO 636•949•9005

www.fratellisristorante.com @FratellisToGo

brunch | dinner | happy hour | private events

make your reservation today 636 277 0202 | 1520 S. 5th Street, St. Charles, MO

prasinostcharles.com Inspired Local Food Culture

j a n ua ry 2 0 1 6

where we’re dining From new restaurants to renewed menus, our staff and contributors share their picks for where we’re dining this month.

civil kitchen & tap

WrITTen By eTTIe BernekInG | PHOTOGrAPHy By STArBOArD & POrT CreATIve

SPRINGFIELD, MO. When Trolley’s Park Central Pub in Downtown Springfield,

Missouri, closed its doors earlier this year, it wasn’t clear what would take its place. The location was ideal, the space was huge, but restaurants haven’t always thrived at 107 Park Central Square. But as of October, Civil Kitchen & Tap has moved in, and thanks to a large beer selection, custom cocktails and a comfort food-heavy menu, 107 Park Central seems to have found its dream tenant. Part of Civil’s draw is the ambiance: Its open-air bar was a big plus this fall, thanks to the large metal garage door that opens out onto the street, and the expansive dining area is broken up into two sections for a cozier atmosphere. As for the food, the true star is the burger. Although Civil’s take on the Hot Brown is worth a try, made with hand-cut turkey,

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j a n u a r y 2016

pepper-crusted bacon and creamy Mornay sauce on a sweet waffle foundation, it doesn’t compare to the restaurant’s griddle burgers. Civil’s hamburgers come with two thin patties smashed between buttery brioche buns, plus a selection of toppings. The Chef Burger, with its barbecue-inspired Civil Sauce, crisp peppered bacon and American cheese, nearly melts in your mouth. If you’re in the mood for something a little less napkin-intensive, try the grilled filet mignon or the pankocrusted pork cutlet, both served on a bed of Gouda mash. Civil Kitchen & Tap, 107 Park Central Square, Springfield, Missouri, 417.501.8456, civilkitchenandtap.com

copper pig Story and photography By MaBel Suen

ST. LOUIS. after closing his popular South grand

bar, urban, after nearly a decade in business, nhat nguyen consolidated all of his favorite foods under one roof at his new neighborhood restaurant, Copper Pig. located in St. louis’ Southampton neighborhood, Copper pig serves an assortment of dishes inspired by nguyen’s tasty travels throughout the country and the world. here, visitors will find plenty of ways to pig out, so to speak: Casual fare includes everything from a pork belly Cuban served with fried plantains to a bulgogi beef cheesesteak topped with Cheddar, kimchi and apples. nguyen has incorporated flavors from his native country, Vietnam, as well, such as the restaurant’s take on cháo tôm – shrimp meatballs served on sugarcane skewers with aromatic nuoc cham dipping sauce. other specialties include creamy duck-confit poutine, a head-to-tail presentation of fried snapper and avocado tacos topped with sweet-chile coleslaw and lime aïoli. pair your internationally inspired dishes with one of 12 beers on tap or a cocktail from Copper pig’s concise list, including an homage to urban’s longstanding signature: the purple rain, made with freshly muddled blackberries, absolut Kurant and a splash of sour mix. Copper Pig, 4611 Macklind Ave., Southampton, St. Louis, Missouri, 314.499.7166, copperpigstl.com

stl

the homesteader cafe KANSAS CITY. Last fall, pastry chef Megan Kendall and

her husband, chef Jeremy Lane, quietly opened their new restaurant, The Homesteader Cafe, in Downtown Kansas City, serving hearty, rustic dishes made with local, farm-fresh ingredients. the couple spent last summer renovating the former Arun thai Place grill themselves after their Kickstarter campaign wasn’t fully funded. Since then, they have managed to build a small-but-tasty menu for the

written by Jenny VergArA

Homesteader Cafe highlighting Kendall’s pastry skills and Lane’s talent for seasonally inspired entrées. behind the bar, erik Mariscal, formerly of nowshuttered Local Pig – westport, has created a cocktail menu featuring housemade fruit and vegetable juices that rotate with the seasons as well as the option to upgrade any of its cocktails with local liquors. For lunch, the menu is light, healthy and vegetarianfriendly, as Lane was a vegetarian for 20 years.

Standout dinner menu items include the scallion fries with horseradish dipping sauce appetizer, a vegetable galette and blackened catfish with red bean purée and grilled green onion coulis. For dessert, don’t miss the chocolate-rum cake – which Kendall made and served at the couple’s wedding – and the pear-almond tart. The Homesteader Cafe, 100 E. Seventh St., Downtown, Kansas City, Missouri, 816.474.8333, thehomesteadercafe.com

photography By ChriStopher SMith

Inspired Local Food Culture

j a n u a r y 2016

destination: Pokagon state Park

road trip

WRITTEN BY AMY LYNCH

In the summertime, Steuben County, Indiana, lures scores of outdoor enthusiasts to its more than 100 glacially-formed kettle lakes teeming with recreational opportunities, but wintertime offers a breed of seasonal thrills all its own. Wait in line for a rush down the refrigerated toboggan run at Pokagon State Park, where speeds on the ¼-mile track reach up to 40 miles an hour. Scenic hiking trails and skiing provide even more leisurely ways to experience the park’s nearly 1,300 acres of natural beauty.

sleep

Potawatomi Inn Resort and Conference Center This 137-room inn perched on the banks of Lake James lets visitors overnight right on the Pokagon State Park grounds. Accommodations range from courtyard- and lake-facing rooms furnished with cozy quilts and country décor to historic cabins and rustic suites; the main structure is riddled with nooks and crannies perfect for reading and relaxing. On Sundays, the Historic Dining Room draws crowds for its robust brunch buffet. 6 lane 100A lake James, Angola, 260.833.1077, in.gov/dnr/parklake/inns/potawatomi

Wild Winds Buffalo Preserve

eat

local events

Dining at Ole Lake George feels like slipping into your favorite pair of broken-in jeans. The history of this little lake shack dates back to the early 1900s; formerly the Lake George Hotel, the retreat as it exists today took shape in the 1970s when it was rebuilt after a fire. The small dining room overlooks Lake George and offers particularly pretty views as the sun goes down. The views, atmosphere and comforting fare like burgers, steaks, fish, ribs, pizza and sandwiches keep loyal customers coming back.

Down a charming country lane, this friendly operation evolved from a commercial vineyard to a full-fledged winery in 2001. Customers can congregate in the tasting room to try a couple dozen of Satek’s red, white, fruit and dessert wines on for size, many made entirely from locally grown produce.

Ole Lake George Retreat

35 lane 130A, Fremont, 260.833.2266, olelakegeorgeretreat.com

PHOTO COuRTESy wIlD wINDS buFFAlO PRESERVE

PHOTO COuRTESy CARuSO’S

The Captain’s Cabin For decades, Steuben County locals have made this intimate, dinner-only destination a tradition for celebrating special occasions with old-school surf and turf, including expertly prepared prime rib, lobster tails, salmon and a gorgeous shrimp cocktail. If you can tear yourself away from the wine list, the martinis are served ice cold in a swanky stainless steel “glass.” And don’t miss the blue cheese coleslaw.

PHOTO COuRTESy THE CAPTAIN’S CAbIN

This nicely furnished, modern hotel appeals to families with kids in tow and budget-minded fashionistas intent on exploring The Outlet Shoppes at Fremont right next door. The location offers proximity to wineries, lakes, restaurants and Pokagon State Park, and spoils guests with contemporary rooms and suites, local YMCA access, a hot breakfast buffet and nightly milk and cookies. 6245 N. Old 27, Fremont, 260.833.6464, ihg.com/holidayinnexpress

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j a n u a r y 2016

Caruso’s

2435 N. 200 w, Angola, 260.833.2617, carusos-restaurant.com

3070 w. Shady Side Road, Angola, 260.665.5663, captainscabinrestaurant.com

Holiday Inn Express

6208 N. Van Guilder Road, Fremont, 260.495.9463, satekwinery.com

This family-owned restaurant capably satisfies Italian-food cravings with thoughtfully dressed pizzas, panini, pastas and “torpedoughs” – calzonelike creations of meat, veggies, sauce and cheese wrapped in dough and baked to hot-bubbly perfection. Overwhelmed with tasty temptations? You can’t go wrong with the gut-busting sausage roll or the daily chef’s choice ravioli special.

In addition to its resident herd of 200 or so bison, this 400-acre preserve also houses guest rooms, a library, a museum and a lookout deck within the White Pine Lodge, where comfortable bed-and-breakfast accommodations in an inviting log-cabin setting take the edge off roughing it. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can spend the night in a raised safari tent or an authentic Native American teepee instead. 6975 N. Ray Road, Fremont, 260.495.0137, wildwindsbuffalo.com

Satek Winery

The Hatchery The Hatchery sits in a handsome brick building near “The Mound,” Downtown Angola’s main roundabout radiating out from a Civil War monument. On the menu you’ll find steaks, lake perch and Indiana duck. Top off your meal with a scratch-made slice of cheesecake, or take it to go. The popular steak Gorgonzola pasta drapes sliced sirloin and a creamy blue cheese sauce over fettuccine.

Chapman’s Brewing Co. Quench your craft beer thirst at this unassuming microbrewery with samples of Englishman Southern Brown Ale, Valiant American Stout and Undaunted Single-Hop IPA. If you like what you taste, you can purchase a pint to sip on the spot or fill up a growler to go. Fun fact: The name is a nod to local native son Johnny “Appleseed” Chapman. 300 Industrial Drive, Angola, 866.221.4005, chapmansbrewing.com PHOTO COuRTESy CHAPmAN’S bREwING CO.

118 S. Elizabeth St., Angola, 260.665.9957, thehatcheryrestaurant.com

6 Autumns Food & Spirits It might be attached to a Ramada hotel, but 6 Autumns is far from a cookie-cutter hotel dining room. The owners are obsessed with bourbon and have managed to amass an extensive collection, claiming to offer the largest selection in the state. The food’s good, too – think modern gastropub fare along the lines of steaks, chicken, pasta, fish, salads and sandwiches.

Briali Vineyards Overlooking the gently rolling terrain of Country Meadows Golf Resort, this sophisticated little winery relies on biodynamic growing techniques to turn out a slate of sweet and dry wines that includes a Petite Sirah, Riesling and a blueberry fruit variation. The tasting room provides an upscale backdrop with handsome décor and stained-glass windows.

3855 N. State Road 127, Angola, 260.624.3644, facebook.com/6autumns

102 w. State Road 120, Fremont, 260.316.5156, brialivineyards.com

PHOTO COuRTESy 6 AuTumNS FOOD& SPIRITS

PHOTO COuRTESy bRIAlI wINERy

one on one

kit and ryan boje owners, journeyman cafe

Written by Pete Dulin

KANSAS CITY. brothers Kit (pictured left) and ryan (pictured right)

photography by zach bauman

HA WG J

Where did the name come from? the philosophy of the café is that the food, cocktails and coffee are made by hand. it’s not the easy way, but it’s the best way. We’re building from scratch. A journeyman is someone with skill who branches out on his or her own – different roads have led ryan and me here to work together. –Kit Boje What inspired Journeyman Cafe? i started baking with my mother when i was 15. i learned old-school cooking from a chef when i was young and cooked in professional kitchens. instead of becoming a sous chef, i went into construction so i could earn a living wage. i’ve worked in construction for 12 years. that helped when we built the café. now i run the back of the house. –Ryan Boje i worked in bars during college doing everything from being the door guy to management. then i worked sales in the corporate world. When i moved back to Kansas City from los Angeles, i worked for Standard beverage Corporation, selling beer and spirits for the distributor and helping accounts stay ahead of trends. i live in the West Plaza neighborhood – when i saw a sign for this place, i made a call and here we are. –K.B. Tell us about the food menu. the menu has fresh, locally-sourced and health-driven food. When you enter the east door, it’ll be a quicker, grab-and-go café with a full espresso bar, juices and smoothies. the other side will be the main sit-down dining room with another bar serving cocktails, wine and craft beer. We offer breakfast, brunch and lunch with sandwiches, soups, wraps and small plates. Dinners are meat, fish and vegetarian dishes focused on approachability – from both financial and health standpoints. –K.B. it is like eating at your best friend’s house, where the mother cooks food for you with love. Simple food done well. –R.B. What does Andrew niemeyer bring to the bar program? Andrew’s a member of the local chapter of the u.S. bartenders’ Guild. He makes sodas like cola and ginger ale and all the cocktails from scratch. –K.B. Describe the look and feel of the café. We have lots of [natural] sunlight from the windows. We used wood in a functional way to create a workshop-in-a-barn feel of craftsmanship. the furnishings have a rustic farmhouse style. the bar was custom-made for efficiency. beside the main dining room, we’ll have a 10-person private dining space for small gatherings. –K.B. it is a great date spot with privacy and comfort balanced with room for a social space, too. –R.B.

boje have transformed a former yarn studio into Journeyman Cafe, a sun-drenched 50-seat venue that fits snugly into its residential West Plaza neighborhood. Joined by veteran bartender Andrew niemeyer (formerly with il lazzarone and extra Virgin), the café is slated to open next month and will provide an inviting, walkable destination for coffee, cocktails and healthy eats in the densely populated area.

HO ME ST EA DER

CA F E

More than 150 of the region’s top restaurants have come together for Kansas City’s premier dining event. Enjoy 10 days of multi-course menus at an extraordinary value. Visit KCRestaurantWeek.com for menus, reservations and a free mobile app.

Journeyman Cafe, 1121 W. 47th St., West Plaza, Kansas City, Missouri

Inspired Local Food Culture

j a n ua ry 2 0 1 6

OctOber tO May: leeks

IN SEASON

Written by nancy StileS

Leeks peak in January, and the onion’s cousin can be cooked in a variety of ways to add sweet, mild or intense depth of flavor. Usually pushed to the side (dish), chefs are putting leeks center stage this winter. KC

hearty main

cHeF’s tIP

kaNsas cIty. diners at Charisse are used to hearty

entrées such as venison and filet mignon, but vegan and vegetarian fans of the downtown hotspot were clamoring for substantial main dishes, too. to that end, chef-owner Jason craine developed a seared leek entrée inspired by an existing scallop dish. he selects the “really nice, just bulky-looking guys” and slices them in about 1-inch segments before marinating the leeks in olive oil, herbes de provence, salt and pepper. leeks are then seared and finished in the oven – almost braised – in white wine. “it just ends up being a really nice, smoky, softyet-still-chewy sort of texture,” craine says. “leeks are [usually] not the star. but when you leave them whole and roast them that way, they just become a little heartier, meatier, especially when you have a little bit of the burning element on there. it stands out as something more substantial.” the vegetable also makes a hearty appearance in craine’s potatoleek soup, which is dairy- and gluten-free. he makes the robust, comforting soup with a combination of leeks, potatoes, onions, carrots and a little bit of miso. “[the miso adds] a little more oomph and umami to the dish because it’s lacking the cream, butter and chicken stock to help it out,” he says. Charisse, 1006 Walnut St., Downtown, Kansas City, Missouri, 816.474.0000, charissekc.com

Vegan Potato-leek soup recipe courteSy JaSon craine, chariSSe

Serves | 10 to 12 | large leeks, roots and ¼ of green tops removed lbs russet potatoes, peeled, cut into quarters parsnips, peeled, cut into quarters carrots, peeled, cut into quarters cup garlic large yellow onion, diced pieces celery, roughly chopped cup miso tsp crushed red chile flakes Tbsp chopped parsley sea salt and freshly ground black pepper chives or fried sage (for garnish) olive oil (for garnish)

| Preparation | Split leeks in half lengthwise and rinse with water. roughly chop rinsed leeks. in a stockpot, add leeks and remaining ingredients besides garnish and fill with water to just cover. bring to a boil, then let simmer until potatoes are cooked through. transfer to a blender and process soup. pour into serving bowls and garnish with chives or fried sage and olive oil. Serve. 22

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crunchy garnish

WasHINGtON, MO. at The Blue Duck in Washington, missouri, fried leeks are one of executive chef Jordan knight’s

go-tos. “they’re really good for anything you want to add a little bit of crunch to,” he says. “they’re easy to do, minus the julienning, which takes a minute – but once you’ve got that done, it’s only two minutes to fry.” knight routinely uses leeks as a base for quiche for the restaurant’s lunch menu, as well as braised in an orange and white wine sauce as a side for scallops. “you can put leeks in any place you want that really oniony quality, or you can make them really sweet,” he says. his aunt and uncle own a nearby farm, and though they don’t always have leeks for him, he’ll often get baby leeks, which he says take on more of a spring onion flavor. “i get all the nice little baby guys, and they’re extra sweet, so they’re really nice to have around,” he says. one of his most inventive dishes was a play on bone marrow: knight cut the bottom of leeks the length of a bone, blanched them and removed all but the two white outer layers. he then made a pâté to fill in the leek base, making it look like bone marrow on the plate. The Blue Duck, 516 W. Front St. #100, Downtown, Washington, Missouri, 636.390.9131, blueduckwashmo.com

stl

versatile veg

MaPleWOOD, MO. For matthew daughaday, chef-owner of Reeds American Table, leeks take on new personality each way you cook them. For his chicken pot pie, a vegetable base of parsnips, celery, carrots and green beans is topped with a sherry-leek cream that showcases the sweet, oniony flavor of the vegetable. “We use the leek tops, which generally get discarded, in the vegetable mix, and then steep the bottoms in the cream,” daughaday says. “they still hold a decent amount of flavor and just add a little more depth to the dish.” leeks also show up in his best-selling pork belly dish, shaved down and roasted off, creating a nice balance of roasted-onion flavor and sweetness. he’s even used leek ash – leeks literally burned down into ash – for a charred-leek ricotta with an intense onion flavor without the sweetness. look for melted leeks and leek soubise – leeks melted with potatoes and butter and then puréed – to show up on the menu this winter. “each way you use a leek, you get a slightly different flavor out of it,” daughaday says. “it’s not, ‘this is what a leek tastes like.’ you can prepare it a lot of different ways and get a lot of interesting flavors out of it.”

Reeds American Table, 7322 Manchester Road, Maplewood, Missouri, 314.899.9821, reedsamericantable.com

photography by tuned_in/iStock.com

2 2 2 2 ¼ 1 3 ¼ 1 1

“I use leeks side by side almost every time I use shallots – we slice the leeks as thin as we slice our shallots and mix those together. I find that it adds a nice rounding character to the shallots.” –Jason Craine, chef-owner, Charisse

one on one como

kasey ryan-forgy chef-owner, utopia catering co. Written By Macy SalaMa

photography by aaron ottis

COLUMBIA, MO. Kasey ryan-Forgy had a passion for local, farm-fresh food long before opening Utopia Catering Co. in columbia, Missouri, in 2015. Since then, she’s catered for the likes of the Doobie Brothers and the crew for the late Joan rivers, as well as many weddings and special events around columbia. in order to shift her focus from larger catering clients to smaller, more specialized customers, ryan-Forgy recently expanded Utopia to include prepackaged, individual meals made with fresh ingredients under the label Farm to Go. in addition to developing meals built around local and seasonal ingredients, she often tweaks her menus to accommodate vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free diets.

How did Utopia Catering get started? i had a farm-to-table restaurant [cafe Utopia] in 2013, but i closed it after just a year to take care of my grandma, who had been ill. i have been catering for a long time – in the past i had a company called the chef connection and private clients. it was on and off; when i came back to columbia in July 2015, after a year helping my grandma in Hannibal, Missouri, i decided i would cater again. i work with local ingredients from columbia, because i want to keep the dollar in Missouri. Tell us about your Farm to Go meals. the Farm to Go service is more individual meals so people can pick them up after work – people who are short on time. i work with a lot of people who have specific diets or have a child who does. i’m usually making meals for the week either for their entire family or for them. Our pies are also part of the Farm to Go meals – we do awesome pies. if you need them for holidays or special occasions, we do any pies you can think of. Our most popular is a blueberry and goat cheese pie. What fresh ingredients are you looking forward to working with this winter? Brussels sprouts and turnips are great, and on the Farm to Go menu we’ll still have eggplant and squash hash. But our menu changes every week; i use what i find. My chicken and dumplings are consistently on my menu because i can always find chicken and i make the dumplings myself. Where do you source ingredients? We work with Jennifer Muno, who owns Goatsbeard Farm in Harrisburg, Missouri. they don’t just do a regular goat cheese, they do specialty cheeses like honey-lemon goat cheese – it’s so good. We also work with Happy Hollow Family Farms in St. elmo, illinois. their vegetables are outstanding. i love their arugula, and i actually have their cherry tomatoes on my table right now – i have five children, and they eat them like candy. My kids know the difference between a store-bought egg and a farmed egg, so we make sure we go straight to [columbia-based] Stanton Brothers eggs when we get to the farmers’ market before they sell out. Our ciabatta bread is from Uprise Bakery [in columbia]. these ingredients are not just what we do for our Farm to Go meals, but also for my family. Where does your passion for farm-fresh fare come from? i grew up farming, so it’s dear to my heart. Food tastes different when it’s grown on your own; when you know the soil that your vegetables are grown in, it makes a difference in the product. to know how hard somebody worked to achieve it makes a difference, too – the look in the farmer’s eyes when you are buying their product. Utopia Catering Co., 124 E. Nifong Blvd., Columbia, Missouri, 573.694.0215, utopiacateringcompany.com

The Shrine reSTauranT

German Menu STA RTERS Bratwurst Bruschetta German Potato Pancakes

ENTREES Pork Schnitzel Duet | Sauerbraten Cabbage Rolls | Chicken Schnitzel Try a Hofbräu München beerpure pleasure!

Call

for reservations

Belleville, IL

618-394-6237

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RegionaL RestauRant guide As proud supporters of Feast Magazine, we encourage you to visit any of these fine establishments. From fine dining to fast casual to local wineries, there are an array of experiences to choose from, so support and eat local!

4 Hands Brewing Co. 1220 S. Eighth St. St. Louis, MO 314.436.1559 4handsbrewery.com

Anna’s Oven

1809 W. 39th St. Kansas City, MO 816.753.6661 annasoven.com

Augusta Winery

5601 High St. Augusta, MO 888.667.9463 augustawinery.com

Aya Sofia

Café Verona

Diablito’s

Gallagher’s Restaurant

Castelli’s Restaurant at 255

EdgeWild Bistro & Tap

Genghis Khan

Chaz on the Plaza at the Raphael Hotel

EdgeWild Restaurant & Winery

Grünauer

206 W. Lexington Ave. Independence, MO 816.833.0044 cafeveronarestaurant.com

3400 Fosterburg Road Alton, IL 618.462.4620 castellis255.com

325 Ward Parkway Kansas City, MO 816.802.2152 raphaelkc.com

Citizen Kane’s Steak House

3761 Laclede Ave. St. Louis, MO 314.644.4430 diablitoscantina.com

12316 Olive Blvd. Creve Coeur, MO 314.548.2222 edgewildbistro.com

550 Chesterfield Center Chesterfield, MO 636.532.0550 edgewildwinery.com

El Pico Mexican Restaurant

133 W. Clinton Place Kirkwood, MO 314.965.9005 citizenkanes.com

106 W. Maple Ave. Independence, MO 816.252.7426 facebook.com/ elpicomexicanrestaurant

Bella Vino Wine Bar & Tapas

Cleveland-Heath

Elijah P’s

Bissell Mansion Restaurant

Corner Restaurant

Café Ventana

Courthouse Exchange

6671 Chippewa St. St. Louis, MO 314.645.9919 ayasofiacuisine.com

325 S. Main St. St. Charles, MO 636.724.3434 bellavinowinebarstl.com

4426 Randall Place St. Louis, MO 314.533.9830 bissellmansiontheatre.com

3919 W. Pine Blvd. St. Louis, MO 314.531.7500 cafeventana.com

106 N. Main St. Edwardsville, IL 618.307.4830 clevelandheath.com

4059 Broadway Blvd. Kansas City, MO 816.931.4401 thecornerkc.com

113 W. Lexington Ave. Independence, MO 816.252.0344 courthouseexchange.com

401 Piasa St. Alton, IL 618.433.8445 elijahps.com

Evangeline’s Bistro 512 N. Euclid Ave. St. Louis, MO 314.367.3644 evangelinesstl.com

Fratelli’s Ristorante 2061 Zumbehl Road St. Charles, MO 636.949.9005 fratellisristorante.com

Reach a hungRy audience of food LoveRs Promote your restaurant or winery in feast Magazine’s regional restaurant guide for $100/month.

114 W. Mill St. Waterloo, IL 618.939.9933 gallagherswaterloo.com

3906 Bell St. Kansas City, MO 816.753.3600 gkbbq.com

101 W. 22nd St. Kansas City, MO 816.283.3234 grunauerkc.com

Hendricks BBQ

1200 S. Main St. St. Charles, MO 636.724.8600 hendricksbbq.com

Hodaks Restaurant & Bar 2100 Gravois Ave. St. Louis, MO 314.776.7292 hodaks.com

J McArthur’s - An American Kitchen 3500 Watson Road St. Louis, MO 314.353.9463 jmcarthurs.com

King & I

3157 S. Grand Blvd. St. Louis, MO 314.771.1777 kingandistl.com

feature d listing

$250

Klondike Café at Montelle Vineyard

One More Cup

201 Montelle Dr. at MO Hwy 94 Augusta, MO 636.228.4464 montelle.com

7408 Wornall Rd. Kansas City, MO 816.994.3644 onemorecupkc.com

Schlafly Tap Room and Schlafly Bottleworks multiple locations schlafly.com

The Jacobson

2050 Central St. Kansas City, MO 816.423.2888 thejacobsonkc.com

Ophelia’s Restaurant & Inn

Seoul Taco

201 N. Main St. Independence, MO 816.461.4525 opheliasind.com

6665 Delmar Blvd. St. Louis, MO 1020 E. Broadway Columbia, MO seoultaco.com

Pappy’s Smokehouse

Tortillaria

multiple locations llywelynspub.com

3106 Olive St. St. Louis, MO 314.535.4340 pappyssmokehouse.com

Shrine Restaurant

LoRusso’s Cucina

Patrick’s Westport Grill

Square Pizza

Trattoria Giuseppe

Sugar Creek Winery

Truffles and Butchery

Lew’s Grill & Bar

7539 Wornall Road Kansas City, MO 816.444.8080 lewsgrillandbar.com

Llywelyn’s Pub

3121 Watson Road St. Louis, MO 314.647.6222 lorussos.com

342 Westport Plaza St. Louis, MO 314.878.6767 patrickswestport.com

Pizzabella

Lucky Brewgrille

The Well

7421 Broadway St. Kansas City, MO 816.361.1700 waldowell.com

442 S. De Mazenod Drive Belleville, IL 618.394.6237 snows.org

208 W. Maple Ave. Independence, MO 816.461.2929 squarepizzasquared.com

8 S. Euclid Blvd. St. Louis, MO 314.361.4443 tortillaria.net

5442 Old State Route 21 Imperial, MO 636.942.2405 trattoria-giuseppe.com

5401 Johnson Drive Mission, KS 913.403.8571 luckybrewgrille.com

4000 Indian Creek Pkwy 914.341.7700 1810 Baltimore Ave 816.471.3300 pizzabellakc.com

Mai Lee

Prasino

Summit Grill & Bar

4835 NE Lakewood Way Lees Summit, MO 816.795.7677 summitgrillandbar.com

Vin De Set

1520 S. 5th St. St. Charles, MO 636.277.0202 prasinostcharles.com

Milagro

Q39

Tannin Wine Bar

Vintage Restaurant at Stone Hill Winery

8396 Musick Memorial Dr. Brentwood, MO 314.645.2835 maileestl.com

20 Allen Ave. #130 Webster Groves, MO 314.962.4300 milagromodernmexican.com

Mission Taco Joint

6235 Delmar Blvd. 314.932.5430 908 Lafayette Ave. 314.858.8226 missiontacojoint.com

Olympia Kebob House and Taverna

key:

2017 Chouteau Ave. St. Louis, MO 314.241.8989 vindeset.com

1000 W. 39th St. Kansas City, MO 816.255.3753 q39kc.com

1526 Walnut St. Kansas City, KS 816.842.2660 tanninwinebar.com

Ruth’s Chris Steak House

Tea Market

Webster House

Sanctuaria

Teaspoons Café

Wild Sun Winery

315 Chestnut St. St. Louis, MO 314.259.3200 ruthschris.com

1543 McCausland Ave. St. Louis, MO 314.781.1299 olympiakebobandtaverna.com

9202 Clayton Road St. Louis, MO 314.567.9100 todayattruffles.com

125 Boone County Lane Defiance, MO 636.987.2400 sugarcreekwines.com

4198 Manchester Ave. St. Louis, MO 314.535.9700 sanctuariastl.com

Winery

Illinois Missouri

1110 Stone Hill Hwy Hermann, MO 573.486.3479 stonehillwinery.com

1644 Wyandotte St. Kansas City, MO 816.221.4713 websterhousekc.com

329 E. 55th St. Kansas City, MO 816.822.9832 teamarketonline.com

4830 Pioneer Road Hillsboro, MO 636.797.8686 wildsunwinery.com

2125 S. State Route 157 Edwardsville, IL 618.655.9595 teaspoonscafe.com

St. Louis Kansas City

St. Charles County Columbia

140,000 copies are distributed across the region! Call Angie Henshaw @ 314.475.1298 to reserve your space today.

The Executive Chef is responsible for the overall operation of the BOH to include quality and consistency of the menu, maintaining profitability of production, food safety and sanitation with a focus on complete guest satisfaction. Ideal candidate will possess a Culinary degree with 5+ years of Executive Chef and/or Culinary Operating Partner experience in a high volume restaurant. A stable, progressive career history is a must. This position requires excellent people management skills including promoting teamwork, providing on-going training, motivation, and performance management. Over 50 years of Grilling History . . . When George Stephen created his first kettle-shaped barbecue grill in 1951, he sparked a backyard revolution. It continues today at the Weber Grill Restaurant. We have locations in downtown Chicago, Lombard IL, Schaumburg IL, Indianapolis, and soon St. Louis (Richmond Heights, Galleria Mall). We are a full-service, high volume restaurant dedicated to providing our guests a best-in-class dining experience and our co-workers a fun place to work. If you are interested in working with a group of talented and driven individuals, Weber Grill Restaurant is the place for you!

Our Management Benefits Package Includes the Following Benefits: • Competitive compensation, base and bonus potential • Paid Time Off • Medical, Dental & Vision Insurance Options • 401(k) • Employer-paid Life, Long-Term and Short-Term Disability Insurance • Tuition Reimbursement • Flexible Spending • Discount on Weber Grill products • Free Meals • Opportunities for development & advancement

Qualified candidates please send resume to: WeberGrillCareers@thewebergrill.com (please reference, “STL Executive Chef,” in the subject line). For more information, please visit us at our website: WeberGrillRestaurant.com

Early Bird

3 COURSES FOR $8.95

CHOOSE ONE FROM EACH CATEGORY

Weber Grill Restaurant is seeking an Experienced Executive Chef with a passion for grilling and hospitality to become the leader of our St. Louis team!

Tuesday-Friday 4pm to 7pm

Featuring PRIME RIB OF BEEF

HOMEMADE SOUP OR SALAD • House Salad or • Caesar Side Salad • Chefs daily soup, or White bean chili cup ENTREES • Prime Rib • Meatloaf • Salmon • Tilapia • Herb Chicken • Chicken Breast • Cajun Shrimp or • Chicken Pasta DESSERT • Warm Chocolate Brownie • Strawberry Cheese Cake • Rustic Apple Tart

342 West Port Plaza www.patrickswestport.com Call 314.878.6767 Sorry, Coupons, Discounts and Frequent Diner Cards can not be used for the Early Bird Special Menu. Not valid on Feb. 14, 2016

breakfast brunch lunch cocktails 4059 BROADWAY, KANSAS CITY, MO 64111

6665 Delmar BlvD | St. louiS, mo. | 314.863.1148 hours: 11am - 10pm everyday 1020 e. Broadway | columBia mo. | 573.441.taco HourS: Sun - weD 11am - 10pm tHurS - Sat 11am - 2am

(816) 931-4401 THECORNERKC.COM

6665 Delmar BlvD | St. louiS, mo. 314.925.8452 HourS: Sun, mon. weD. & tHurS. 5pm - 11pm fri. & sat. 5pm -midnight • closed tuesday

w w .s

a Fa ut m he ily n t ex ic pe ko ri r en ea ce n B B

Se ulta c o o.co u m l Q

winner of feast 50 readers choice food truck savory fast casual Best taco runner up

www.seoulqstl.com

Join Us For Valentine' s Day Chi Mangia Bene Vive Bene! "to eat Well is to live Well" Proudly serving authentic italian Food in a Family atmosphere. Party Pans to Go! MaKe yoUr Valentine' s reserVation early! need to feed a crowd? try our party pans for a delicious meal for any size group! Featuring Daily lunch & Dinner specials

Giuseppe and the Prezzavento Family

reservations recommended, Hours of operation: Tuesday - Saturday 11am-10pm • Sunday Noon-9pm • Closed Monday

5442 Old Hwy 21• Imperial • 636.942.2405 • trattoria-giuseppe.com 26

feastmagazine.com

J A N UA RY 2 0 1 6

where we’re drinking mix and matcha on p. 33 PHOTOGRAPHy by TyTiA HAbinG

trending now: flavored Milk StoutS

on trend

Written by bethany Christo PhotograPhy by Cheryl Waller

A milk stout’s creamy sweetness comes from unfermentable sugars (usually lactose) added to the beer base. From there, brewers are free to experiment with a range of unique flavors. stl

horchata and tiki

St. louiS. 4 Hands Brewing Co. has been experimenting with flavors of

its Chocolate Milk stout in its st. louis tasting room for a couple of years. Customers asked if they could try the different batches side by side, and thus the Chocolate Milk stout gift pack was born. last fall the pack included blackberry-chocolate and peanut butter-chocolate flavors in addition to the original. the peanut butter was so popular that 4 hands bottled and released it separately as a three-month seasonal earlier this year under the name absence of light. the brewery doubled last year’s numbers to 8,000 gift packs, released in mid-november, which included original, horchata (with vanilla and cinnamon) and tiki (chocolate, coffee and coconut). the packs have sold out, but original and absence of light are still available. 4 Hands Brewing Co., 1220 S. Eighth St., LaSalle Park, St. Louis, Missouri, 314.436.1559, 4handsbrewery.com

chai and mint

nortH kanSaS CitY, Mo. Kansas City-based hugo tea Co.’s liquid chai

concentrate is made at neighboring brewery Big Rip Brewing Co., and according to Josh Collins, big rip’s beer chancellor, the obvious next step was to make a chai milk stout. released in the tasting room in mid-December, the stout, called Magic hour, is made by modifying big rip’s existing 237 Milk stout recipe with an additional 3 gallons of chai concentrate to produce 120 gallons of beer. “it ends up being pretty potent,” Collins says. “the black tea blends with the creamy milk in the stout, with notes of clove, cinnamon and ginger.” the brewery is also about to release its annual mint chocolate-milk stout for st. Patrick’s Day, which Collins says makes for a wicked irish Car bomb. Big Rip Brewing Co., 216 E. Ninth Ave., North Kansas City, Missouri, 816.866.0747, bigripbrewing.com

vanilla bean

ManHattan, kS. a series of happy accidents led to the creation of Tallgrass Brewing Co.’s bourbon barrel-aged Vanilla bean buffalo sweat. buffalo sweat, an oatmeal cream stout, was added to the brewery’s lineup in 2009, and three years later a version with vanilla beans was released. then, after a night of drinking and joking around – “brainstorming,” according to founder and chief executive officer Jeff gill – the brewers decided to pour some Vanilla bean buffalo sweat into a bourbon barrel and age it with crushed and torched cinnamon sticks. the special edition buffalo sweat was released as a one-off in tallgrass’ explorer series this fall, and gill likens it to drinking cinnamon graham crackers: “the creaminess and sweetness of milk stouts are not dry or bitter at all, and buffalo sweat combines those flavorful, creamy characters with notes of coffee and chocolate.”

BourBon Barrel-aged vanilla Bean Buffalo Sweat: Sip with crème brûlée, cheesecake or chocolate-covered cream puffs filled with pastry cream.

Tallgrass Brewing Co., 5690 Dry Hop Circle, Manhattan, Kansas, 785.537.1131, tallgrassbeer.com

aBSenCe of ligHt and CHoColate Milk Stout: Anything with chocolate or vanilla pairs well; 4 Hands brewery manager Martin Toft suggests drinking them with s’mores.

Beer food pairingS

MagiC Hour CHai Milk Stout: “The things that come to mind are desserts served around the holidays – things like sugar cookies or biscotti – that you would eat with a chai latte.” –Josh Collins, Big Rip Brewing Co.

one on one

stl

benjamin bauer beverage director, the libertine Written by nancy StileS

photography by Mabel Suen

CLAYTON, MO. The Libertine usually gets praise for its inventive food menu, but thanks to beverage director benjamin bauer, the cocktails are getting buzz, too. bauer completely revamped the cocktail list last summer to coincide with incoming executive chef Matt bessler’s new menu. the cocktail menu has two sides – Historic and imagined – reflecting bauer’s takes on classics and his own creations, respectively. He admits the list can be a bit challenging: “as far as the imagined, i’m trying to go with a little more obscure spirits and be, frankly, as weird as possible,” he says. to wit, his winter cocktail menu, released in november, features a technique called fat-washing, which is akin to infusing. Just like bessler, bauer uses local produce to create housemade ingredients behind the bar whenever he can.

What is fat-washing? it’s not dissimilar from other infusion styles, except you’re not going to have any of the end product in [the drink] when we’re done. it was something that came about maybe 10 years ago – the guys at Please Don’t tell (PDt) speakeasy in new york popularized it with bacon fat. i took pineapple, cooked it in duck fat, strained it off and then utilized the leftover fat that had the pineapple infused in the flavor to mix in whatever liquor you want to infuse. i left it for four to five hours; after that you freeze the liquor overnight so the fat will have separated and frozen, and the liquor will remain liquid. you strain the liquor from the frozen fat, which has a lot of aroma leftover from whatever you imparted – a little more sweetness and a gorgeous, silky texture, as well. Do customers usually ask for an explanation? People are curious when they see fat-washed; they don’t know what it means. they think maybe the glass is rinsed in fat, so that’s usually the question – if there’s gonna be fat in their drink. i’ll break it down and make sure they know [that’s not the case]. What else is on the winter cocktail menu? the one i would drink morning, afternoon, evening, very late night – all the time – would be you Will Know Us by the trail of Our bitters. it’s kind of a spin on an americano, which is normally campari, sweet vermouth and club soda. i replaced the vermouth with letherbee Fernet, which is more chocolaty and less herbaceous than [Fernet-branca]. i replace the club soda with cold-brew coffee and hand-whip a peated cream – i use a peated Scotch and amaro and shake the hell out of it, and it’ll get stiff peaks. i spoon it on top, so initially, it’s very americano-esque, but mixing the whipped cream almost takes on a thai iced-tea flavor – that one’s really nice. Which drink is the customer favorite so far? the one that actually surprised me and that a lot of people are ordering is caught with your beard in the letterbox, made with [Scandinavian liquor] aquavit. i don’t know that people are super comfortable with [aquavit] yet, but i use one without a ton of dill. i made a butternut squash purée, but it didn’t add a ton of complexity to the cocktail, so i made an herb broth and blended that into the purée. it’s savory but with nice sweetness, and it’s topped with a toasted pepita meringue, as well as a white truffle ginger chip. the ginger chip is intense; it has the texture of a kettle chip [and is] salty and sweet, but the ginger shines through and sticks with you with a back-end head that just keeps going the whole time you’re drinking the cocktail. i didn’t know that was gonna happen, but that’s how it goes with cocktails. The Libertine, 7927 Forsyth Blvd., Clayton, Missouri, 314.862.2999, libertinestl.com

Inspired Local Food Culture

j a n ua ry 2 0 1 6

the mix

The WhiTe Russian in 1949, as the story goes, a bartender named gustave tops first concocted a black russian – vodka and coffee liqueur – at the hotel Metropole in brussels for perle Mesta, the U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg. one would assume that if there were a black russian, a different color or version would exist, too. yet the first mention of a cocktail called the White russian appeared in an ad in The Boston Globe in March 1965. despite this late public appearance, the origins of the White russian date back to 1930, almost 20 years earlier than the black russian. to explain the disparity, we have to understand a few things about crème de cacao and coffee liqueur. tasted side by side, there is a stark difference in flavor, but both contain a hint of vanilla. When mixed with other ingredients, that bit of vanilla creates a creamy, maltlike flavor with hints of the chocolate or coffee, respectively. additionally, crème de cacao was introduced to the commercial market much earlier than coffee liqueurs, appearing in the mid-1930s – the first being Kahlúa in 1936. once they were available for bartenders to use, coffee liqueurs were occasionally substituted for crème de cacao – which brings us to the White russian. the two mother cocktails of the White russian come from 1930’s The Savoy Cocktail Book: the russian cocktail and the barbara cocktail. these two drinks offer inspiration for the

Story and recipe by Matt Seiter photography by Jonathan gayMan

name and flavor profile of the White russian we’re familiar with today. the russian cocktail was equal parts vodka, gin and crème de cacao – so why call it a russian? because it contained a product of russian origin new to the commercial market of that time period: vodka. the barbara is two parts vodka, one part crème de cacao and one part cream. as we’ve learned, if you substitute the coffee liqueur for the crème de cacao, there’s your White russian. but the landmark “origin cocktail” first appears in the 1946 The Stork Club Bar Book, as the alexander the great. it is a spinoff of the classic the alexander (featured in Feast’s december issue). the alexander the great recipe calls for three parts vodka to one part each coffee liqueur, crème de cacao and cream. this is the first time coffee liqueur, vodka and cream appear together in a recipe. the recipe also contains a warning about its consumption that still applies today: “Watch your Steppes [sic], because more than three of these gives the consumer a wolfish appetite.” From this point on, the White russian grew to be a popular drink in subpar 1960s and ‘70s cocktail culture. it died for about two decades and resurfaced with the dude in 1998’s The Big Lebowski. From that film, the cocktail became a cult-classic cocktail, a guilty pleasure among professional bartenders and the origin of many, many hangovers.

Matt Seiter is co-founder of the United States Bartenders’ Guild’s St. Louis chapter, a member of the national board for the USBG’s MA program, author of the dive bar of cocktail bars, bartender at BC’s Kitchen and a bar and restaurant consultant.

White Russian (The Boston Globe, March 21, 1965) serves | 1 |

1 1 1

oz vodka oz coffee liqueur oz cream ice

| Preparation | pour first 3 ingredients over ice in a short glass; stir and serve. Note on method: before the 1965 printed version, all variations of what became the White russian were shaken drinks served up in a cocktail glass. in the 1960s, we see the drink being built (all ingredients poured in the glass from the original bottles over ice) and briefly stirred. neither way is right nor wrong. Shaking the drink adds a bit of aeration and lightens it on the palate a bit, but it’s still a creamy drink. preparation is just, like, your opinion, man.

Alexander the Great (The Stork Club Bar Book, 1946) serves | 1 |

1½ ½ ½ ½

oz vodka oz coffee liqueur oz dark crème de cacao oz cream ice

| Preparation | combine first 4 ingredients in a cocktail shaker. add ice, shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Serve.

on the shelf : january picks

WINE

Pirtle Winery’s Weston BenD reD written by Hilary HedgeS

BISTRO & MUSIC HOUSE SIGNATURE STYLE ‘NEW’ NEW ORLEANS CUISINE

provenance: weston, Missouri pairings: Beef • Pizza • Pasta with red sauce

this dry, spicy wine from Pirtle Winery took home a Jefferson Cup at the Jefferson Cup invitational wine Competition in 2014. it’s a medium-bodied wine made mostly from locally grown St. Vincent grapes aged in new american oak for six months, giving it some light oak aromas and a smoothness on the finish. the wine is fruit-forward, with flavors of cranberry and raspberry, and has notes of black pepper midpalate that complement its soft tannin and light oakiness. the awardwinning Weston Bend Red is available in Pirtle’s tasting room, located in a former church in historic downtown weston.

512 North Euclid Central West End — 314.367.3644 — evangelinesSTL.com

Weber Grill Restaurant is seeking an

Experienced General Manager with a passion for grilling and hospitality to become the leader of our St. Louis team!

Pirtle Winery, 816.640.5728, pirtlewinery.com Hilary Hedges is a former newsie whose passion for wine led her out of the newsroom and into the cellar. She is currently the director of sales and marketing and assistant winemaker at Amigoni Urban Winery in Kansas City’s West Bottoms.

BEER

BoulevarD BreWing Co.’s the Calling iPa written by brandon niCkelSon

style: American IPA (8.5% ABV) pairings: Mexican dishes

You can’t stop the uncontrollable popularity of IPAs. In our little beer shop, more than 50 percent of our sales are hoppy brews, and almost all of them are India Pale Ales. Big hops and lots of bitterness make up the winning combination that beer geeks come back for time and time again. The new IPA from Boulevard Brewing Co., the Calling, is just that: Huge hops, a citrusy, light body and a solid malt backbone make this beer amazingly drinkable. We were disappointed to hear that Boulevard retired its Double-Wide IPA, but The Calling more than makes up for it. Boulevard Brewing Co., 816.474.7095, boulevard.com Brothers Brandon and Ryan Nickelson are available to help with beer picks and pairing recommendations at their store, Craft Beer Cellar, the only all-craft beer shop in the St. Louis area. Craft Beer Cellar is located at 8113 Maryland Ave. in Clayton, Missouri. To learn more, call 314.222.2444 or visit craftbeercellar.com/clayton.

The General Manager is responsible for the overall operation of the restaurant to include quality of operations (FOH and BOH), financial performance of the restaurant and delivering an exceptional customer experience. Ideal candidate will possess a Bachelor’s degree in Hospitality Management with 5+ years of General Management and/or Operating Partner experience in a high volume restaurant. A stable, progressive career history is a must. This position requires excellent people management skills including promoting teamwork, providing on-going training, motivation, and performance management. Over 50 years of Grilling History . . . When George Stephen created his first kettle-shaped barbecue grill in 1951, he sparked a backyard revolution. It continues today at the Weber Grill Restaurant. We have locations in downtown Chicago, Lombard IL, Schaumburg IL, Indianapolis, and soon St. Louis (Richmond Heights, Galleria Mall). We are a full-service, high volume restaurant dedicated to providing our guests a best-in-class dining experience and our co-workers a fun place to work. If you are interested in working with a group of talented and driven individuals, Weber Grill Restaurant is the place for you!

• Tuition Reimbursement • Flexible Spending • Discount on Weber Grill products • Free Meals • Opportunities for development & advancement

Qualified candidates please send resume to: WeberGrillCareers@thewebergrill.com (please reference, “STL General Manager,” in the subject line).

For more information, please visit us at our website: WeberGrillRestaurant.com

OPEN ALL YEAR

Celebrate Valentine’s Day With our unique

Wine, Cheese, & Pie Pairing

SPIRIT

DogMaster Distillery’s ageD Whiskey written by Matt Sorrell

provenance: Columbia, Missouri (45% abV) try it: in classics like a Manhattan or old Fashioned

DogMaster Distillery’s aged whiskey is made from a mash bill of 40 percent corn, 20 percent oats, 20 percent wheat and 20 percent malted barley. it’s then distilled at 150 proof, a technique that distiller Van Hawxby says leaves a lot of the harshness in the still. the whiskey is aged for six months in 30-gallon barrels made of new Missouri oak with a heavy toast and char. the result is a sweet, smoky spirit that has just enough body to hold its own, whether enjoyed solo or in a cocktail. DogMaster Distillery, 573.825.6066, dogmasterdistillery.com When he’s not writing, Matt Sorrell can be found slinging drinks at Planter’s House in St. Louis’ Lafayette Square or bartending at events around town with his wife, Beth, for their company, Cocktails Are Go.

Romantic Fireplaces Beautiful Valley View Saturday, Feb. 13, 2016 • 2:00 – 4:00 • Cellar Tour with Winemaker • Gourmet Pies from Sugar Momma’s $40.00 per couple Call for Reservations 636-987-2400

sugarcreekwines.com • For more info: bmiller@sugarcreekwines.com Inspired Local Food Culture

j a n ua ry 2 0 1 6

where we’re drinking Check out what we’re sipping at bars, restaurants, breweries, wineries and coffee shops. stl

main & mill brewing co. Story and photography by mabel Suen

FESTUS, MO. In his hometown of Festus, missouri,

brewing aficionado denny Foster partnered with his father, barry, to open up the first commercial brewery in Jefferson county in more than 120 years. Main & Mill Brewing Co., named for the renovated building’s intersection on the town’s historic main Street, features a rustic dining room and patio as well as a second-story tasting room and bar. drawing from his experience as a brewing production manager at crown Valley brewery & distilling in Ste. genevieve, missouri, denny concocts a variety of his own rotating draft selections in the main & mill brewhouse including light, dark, hoppy and high-alcohol options. look for rotating and seasonal selections such as a citrusy double Ipa and a morningsession stout made with coffee from mississippi mud coffee, locally produced maple syrup and vanilla. a belgian wheat beer features freshly zested oranges and coriander. and the green-chile ale – a concoction that denny calls a gateway beer for those who might not be familiar with craft beer yet – features a light brew highlighted by a fresh serrano-pepper aroma. Main & Mill Brewing Co., 240 E. Main St., Festus, Missouri, 636.543.3031, mainandmillbrewingco.com

kc photography by zach bauman

ollie’s local WrItten by Jenny Vergara

KANSAS CITY. at Ollie’s Local on martini corner in Kansas city’s union hill neighborhood, you’ll find a bar where everybody not only knows your name, but your drink, too. this self-proclaimed “bar-flavored bar” and restaurant is a collaboration between local restaurateur eddie crane and Vince rook, who owns the building.

feastmagazine.com

j a n u a r y 2016

the vibe is low-key but ripples with “can-do” american spirit, as friendly waiters in blue jeans and plaid shirts bustle around with armfuls of craft beers and plates stacked with the $25 burger, a double-bacon cheeseburger served between two blt sandwiches. With painted, vintage-inspired wall murals, a casual neighborhood vibe and a decent-sized bar, you can also sidle up and socialize while ordering beer and wine from one of 20 taps, or even cocktails on tap including a horsefeather or a gin and tonic. one popular drink option is the Working man’s Friend: a shot and a beer

that you pick from a list of five options for $5. people are also buzzing about ollie’s two signature self-serve punch bowls meant for sharing. the whiskey punch features bourbon, madeira, tea and citrus, while the rum punch is made with rum, grapefruit, maraschino liqueur and citrus juices. order one for your table, and it will come with glasses for all and a serving ladle so you can help yourself. Ollie’s Local, 3044 Gillham Road, Union Hill, Kansas City, Missouri, 816.541.3961, ollieslocal.com

Josh Eans Happy Gillis and The Ramen Shop

thE hEartland tablE an Evening of Epicurian delight

MichaEl Foust The Farmhouse tEd habigEr Room 39 and Brewery Imperiale howard hanna The Rieger craig howard Howard’s Grocery and Café alEx PoPE Local Pig and The Pigwich

March 15 : two tastings : 5p & 7:30p rEsErvE your tickEts : brown PaPEr tickEts cookonclay.com : 360.678.1414 hello@cookonclay.com

Seeking the Intrepid Foodie Must like long walks through an historic district on a January day. Craves sweets. Enjoys self-guided tours.

photography by tytia habing

Maplewood Sweet Tooth Tour Saturday, January 23 Noon to 5 PM Hand-crafted samplings of sweets from fourteen food purveyors. Tickets $18, sold at participating host locations. Great Gifts! Information cityofmaplewood.com/sweet-tooth

joe sippers cafe & roasting co. Written by Mallory gnaegy

VOTED #1 IN ST. CHARLES COUNTY!

EFFINGHAM, IL. before opening Joe Sippers Cafe & Roasting Co., Kevin and Christy

hiatt envisioned a coffee-shop experience similar to operations in larger cities like Kaldi’s Coffee roasting Co. (with locations across Missouri), St. louis’ blueprint Coffee or peoria, illinois’ thirty-thirty Coffee Co., but tailored to their community of 12,000 people. and indeed, Joe Sippers is a rare find in a small town. Since effingham, illinois, is at a crossroads between interstate 57 and 70 and a larger hub for surrounding rural towns, the buzzing community café has proved a success since opening in 2005. Within the past year, to mark its decade of success, the hiatts debuted an in-house roasting program. today, Joe Sippers offers a variety of origins and blends roasted within its facility on a consistently rotating menu. “Coffee is seasonal, just like any other agricultural product,” Kevin says. “So when we go to our importer, we ask, ‘What’s good right now?’ or, ‘What’s in season?’” patrons can enjoy their efforts via batch brews, V60 pour-overs and Chemex brews. the hiatts also host regular cuppings for interested customers to help evaluate samples and grow in their own coffee experience. in addition to traditional coffee and espresso drinks, Kevin says he’s made an effort to raise the bar with seasonal signature drinks that promote local products. Most recently, they’ve served honey-matcha green tea lattes made with local, nonhomogenized Jersey cow milk, lightly sweetened with local honey. this month, try the aztec mocha made with a house spice blend, the same local milk and its house espresso, CoSuCo, from Colombian, Sumatran and Costa rican beans. the drinks live up to the hype – and it’s not just due to the caffeine content. “they’re not just syrup out of a bottle,” Kevin says. Joe Sippers Cafe & Roasting Co., 114 S. Fourth St., Effingham, Illinois, 217.347.2233, joesippers.com

BEST puB & Grill BEST NeiGHBorHood Bar BEST cHicKeN WiNGS BEST 1ST daTe BEST SaNdWicH BEST BarTeNder aNd oN THurSdaY eVeNiNGS BEST muSiciaN Bill roemer We knoW that it is our patrons Who are #1!

SpecialS for all BlueS, Nfl, aNd cardiNalS GameS TOXIC TRIVIA TUESDAY (Must Be 21) “Happy Hour” 3-7 mon-fri Live entertainment Wednesday - Saturday

Scan For Website

128 triad center west | o’faLLon missouri (On MexicO ROad Just West Of HWy K)

636.294.3458 turtlecreekpub.com Inspired Local Food Culture

j a n ua ry 2 0 1 6

drink destination: overland park, ks.

aubrey vineyards tasting room written by Pete Dulin PhOtOgrAPhy by AnnA PetrOw

overland park, ks. Aubrey Vineyards’

lush rows of grapevines are located in Overland Park, Kansas, near Stilwell, but the winery’s expanded and renovated tasting room and retail store is housed nearby in Downtown Overland Park, inside of Vinyl renaissance & Audio. the tasting room is a cozy place to try more than a dozen of Aubrey Vineyards’ wines, including Crimson Cabernet and Cabernet Dore. in addition to wines like Aubrey’s traminette and Valvin Muscat, which are made from grapes grown at the vineyard, the winery also sources grapes from Slough Creek Vineyard in Oskaloosa, Kansas, as well as Adobe Creek Vineyards in lake County, California. Seasonal highlights in the fall and winter include its semidry Catawba with hints of melon and blood orange, and its decadent tawny port with luscious flavors of raisins, dates and figs. Aubrey Vineyards Tasting Room, 7932 Santa Fe Drive, Overland Park, Kansas, 913.909.2926, aubreyvineyards.com

one on one

three must-try wines by aubrey vineyards | 1 | Aubrey’s sweet best-selling blend, the 2013 trail rider red is unmistakably made from Concord grapes. it has a familiar jammy aroma and concentrated fruit flavor that isn’t cloying. its well-balanced grapey flavor inspires nostalgia for Pb&J sandwiches.

| 2 | the 2014 vidal blanc resembles a semisweet Pinot grigio. A floral aroma yields to bright citrus flavors, with just enough sweetness to balance its crisp, acidic finish.

greg bland brendan gargano

ray kerzner

founder and head of beer, stockyards brewing co.,

and

| 3 | with a mediumlight body, the 2013 chambourcin is meant for red wine fans who relish spicy, smoky aromas and black cherry notes with a bold, peppery bite. it’s versatile enough to sip while savoring a cigar or with steak au poivre.

finance guy

creative director

written by Pete Dulin

KANSAS CITY. Greg Bland, the founder and head of beer for Stockyards Brewing Co., drew inspiration for the design

and identity of his new West Bottoms brewery from its previous inhabitant, Golden Ox Restaurant & Lounge. A blue-collar work ethic and Bland’s upbringing in Red Lodge, Montana, also shaped the brewery’s style. To secure the space, Bland worked with gallery owner Bill Haw Jr., whose family owns and has developed many Stockyards District properties. Bland, Stockyards’ “finance guy” Ray Kerzner and creative director Brendan Gargano share how they transformed the iconic building into a brewery.

Stockyards Brewing Co., 1600 Genessee St. #100, West Bottoms, Kansas City, Missouri, stockyardsbrewing.com 34

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PhOtOgrAPhy by AnnA PetrOw

What drew you to the location? I grew up in Montana, where cattle drives once ran from there to Texas. The [ranch feel of the] West Bottoms and stockyards remind me of home; the Golden Ox reminds me of a Montana steakhouse. I have a warehouse shop space nearby and started talking to Bill Haw Jr. in 2013 about opening a brewery. Once he said that the Golden Ox might be closing, I stopped looking for a location. I told Bill, “Let’s find a way to make this work.” –Greg Bland How did you transform the space into a brewery? The brewery’s main bar with 12 taps is in the front. We re-upholstered the original booths. The original bar is still in place, but we topped it with zinc. A hallway leads past the brewhouse and prep kitchen to a brewer’s booth, equipment room, cooling room and event space in the back with marble floor tiles dating back to 1910, a second bar and eight additional taps. –Ray Kerzner What other original fixtures did you preserve? We repurposed wooden doors from the original meat lockers at the Golden Ox. We kept the mahogany woodwork throughout the space, original carpet along the bar and bar armrest railings. The brewhouse space has original woodwork and paintings, and we used the brass ox heads and stained-glass windows from the restaurant scattered throughout. –G.B. tell us about the brewery’s branding. We kept the spirit of the Golden Ox alive. We wanted to pay tribute and have a continuity with Stockyards Brewing through the logo, business cards and beer labels. It looks like the 1950s to 1960s: not shiny – more of a blue-collar look. –Brendan Gargano tell us about stockyards’ beers. We feature American styles of beer with influences from German, Czech and Belgian brewing and even Mexico’s dry lagers. Brewer Micah Weichert [of Gordon Biersch Brewing Co.] is our hands-on consultant who helped set up our brewhouse. We have a Black IPA, Golden Alt, Belgian IPA and South American-style summer lager. We’ll also have seasonal beers and beers from other breweries on tap, plus craft cocktails, wine and coffee on tap. –G.B.

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loaf is all you knead on p. 40 PhotograPhy by christoPher smith

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cork & rind

stl

written by nancy stiles

st. charLEs, Mo. there’s no shortage of quality smallproduction wine for sale in the st. louis area, but michael and elizabeth Kinney felt the selection was lacking in st. charles, missouri. the husband-and-wife team opened Cork & rind in historic midtown st. charles last september to offer the community a selection of such wines. “in order to make sure we stay within our vision, we have a small checklist of things every wine has to be one of to get on the shelves,” michael says. “it’s either a family owned business, estate-grown grapes, not large-production products, or organic or biodynamic. we want to bring quality products at a good price.” cork & rind offers around 300 different wines from all over the world, plus a selection of sparkling and fortified wines. you’ll also find craft beer and spirits sourced in the same manner. michael says the cheeses are about half local or regional and half imported; he’s looking to expand the food offerings with specialty olive oils, vinegars and locally produced chocolate.

PhotograPhy by cheryl waller

cork & rind offers classes throughout the week and openhouse tastings every thursday, friday and saturday, plus a monthly seminar focused on spirits or craft beer; January will focus on whiskey. the shop has partnered with Pekara bakery & bistro in champaign, illinois, to provide fresh bread each saturday; the Kinneys pick it up every week at soulard farmers market. “what we’re really trying to do is not only bring great products to the area, but also make sure we’re very much a neighborhood shop – people come in often, taste often and learn as much as they can,” michael says. cork & rind also offers a monthly wine club. in addition to new picks each month and discounts, the shop hosts a private monthly tasting party for club members with food pairings and recipes from the trained chef on staff. “we’re trying to be very food focused,” michael says. “we knew this area could use a true wine shop, so we’ve just been learning as much and as fast as we can ourselves.” Cork & rind, 555 First Capitol Drive, St. Charles, Missouri, 636.896.4404, corkandrind.com

artisan product

dragonfly gourmet foods’ organic marinara sauce written by Jenny Vergara

indEpEndEncE, Mo. Dragonfly Gourmet Foods’ organic marinara sauce is a healthy indulgence during the long winter months. a thick and hearty all-purpose sauce, it clings beautifully to pasta or zucchini noodles, pours perfectly on pizza or layers lavishly into bubbly lasagna. Made with organic and all-natural ingredients in small batches in independence, Missouri, by husband-and-wife team Krista and Quinten Koetting, this marinara has no added sugar, preservatives or additives and is gluten-free. you can find it in several Kansas City specialty shops including the Sundry, Olive tree and the Overland Park Farmers’ Market, or you can order it on Dragonfly’s website, along with its other products, including spicy dill pickle spears, peach-mango salsa and pepper relish.

Dragonfly Gourmet Foods, 913.735.3069, dragonflygourmetfoods.com 38

PhotograPhy hy courtesy dragonfly gourmet foods

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j a n u a r y 2016

WINTER SALE SAVE NOW ON EFFICIENT ZONED HEAT THAT WILL CUT YOUR UTILITY BILL!

gadget selection by laura laiben, “the Main dish,” the culinary center of Kansas city, Kcculinary.coM written by nancy stiles

this simple, two-button digital scale is a kitchen classic for a reason. escali’s easy-to-read, spill-protected screen will give you an accurate weight every time, and in a panoply of colors – we like the warm red – and it’s cute enough to keep on the counter for everyday use. For more information or to purchase the scale, visit escali.com.

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PhotograPhy courtesy escali

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norpro mini measuring spoons set gadget selection by laura laiben, “the Main dish,” the culinary center of Kansas city, Kcculinary.coM written by nancy stiles

for the home cook, eyeballing measurements can be tricky, especially if you’re still learning. but what to do with a recipe that calls for a pinch, a dash, a smidgen? enter norpro’s set of three stainless steel mini measuring spoons, labeled as such to help you add just the right amount. For more information, visit wholesale.norpro.com.

Saturday, February 27

PhotograPhy courtesy norPro

presents Wall Ball, an exciting evening of live artistry and delicious treats. Engaging an eclectic mix of artists, collectors, and admirers, this annual event features amazing art at unreal prices through a unique silent auction. Sponsored by

7-11 pm•40 artists

$35 General Admission $60 VIP includes beer/wine and early admission at 6:30 pm

Majorette *new venue*

7150 Manchester Rd. • Maplewood, MO 63143

For more info: 314-865-0060 Purchase tickets online www.artscopestl.org/wallball Inspired Local Food Culture

j a n ua ry 2 0 1 6

sHOp HERE

photography by christopher sMith

local roots market

written by Jenny Vergara

GRandVIEW, MO. next to the Downtown grandview Farmers’ Market you’ll find Local

Roots Market, an organic grocery store owned and operated by J.D. wenger. wenger founded the market to bring the best of what is locally available and in season directly from farms to its grocery-store shelves. even its packaged-goods section offers an impressive selection of products made by local artisans. wooden produce crates overflow with fruits and vegetables of varying sizes and colors in the front of the market, while bulk items are stocked in large wooden barrels. the refrigerated section offers local meats such as grass-fed bison, pastureraised whole chickens, hormone-free pork sausages, wild-caught alaskan salmon and

aRtIsan pROduCt

ROCK HILL, MO. Katie Lee Collier, chef-owner of Katie’s Pizza & Pasta Osteria in Rock Hill, Missouri, specializes in making authentic, scratch-made pasta dishes. You can get a taste of Katie’s at home, too, as the restaurant packages and sells eight of its fresh pastas, each shaped and cut using pasta die cuts imported from Italy, including pappardelle, spaghetti, fiori, capellini and a variety of flavored noodles such as basil-flavored tagliatelle, black spaghetti made with squid ink and arugula-flavored reginette.

Katie’s Pizza & Pasta Osteria, 9568 Manchester Road, Rock Hill, Missouri, 314.942.6555, katiespizzaandpasta.com

j a n u a r y 2016

Local Roots Market, 808 W. Main St., Grandview, Missouri, 816.214.5001, localrootsmarket.com

photography courtesy katie’s pizza & pasta osteria

written by Macy salaMa

feastmagazine.com

the shop is light, bright and colorful, with a simple layout and plenty of room to roam. Most days you’ll find either J.D. or his sister, summer wenger, stocking shelves and ready to answer any questions you might have. open Monday through saturday, local roots Market carries one of the largest selections of organic food in the metro area.

stl

katie’s pizza & pasta osteria’s fresh pasta

farm-fresh eggs. the store also sells freshly baked breads made from whole grains, plus coffee, jams, jellies, sauces and salsas made by local companies.

Inspired Local Food Culture

J A N UA RY 2 0 1 6

one on one

“i think the apron beCoMes soMething like a tool when you put it on every single Day”

stl

sean baltzell

founder, knife & flag survival union WRITTeN By VALeRIA TURTURRO KLAMM

How has Knife & Flag evolved since launching? At first, we strategically gifted aprons to tastemakers throughout the world with no clue what would happen. In the first month, sales were insane. Using social media has propelled us to a point where we’re consistently riding a wave. Craftspeople around the world will take a picture of themselves wearing it, and we repost it. All we’re showing is people using the apron in their workforce. In the beginning, we had 20

culinary library

trades we focused on, including tattoo artists, bartenders, baristas, bakers and chefs. The further we got and the more diverse trades that started posting pictures in our aprons – potters, jewelers, coffee roasters – we realized so many fields need and want a quality apron. That’s the void we fill. What does an apron represent to a craftsperson? The story I hear over and over is that whatever tool you’re using every day, you become attached and sentimental toward it. Rather than a jacket, T-shirt or denim, I think the apron becomes something like a tool when you put it on every single day. I wanted to create something streamlined for craftspeople. Someone at a fancy bar serving cocktails – I want someone asking him or her, “Where’d you get your apron?” What inspires your designs? I love classic American workwear jackets. I have a lot of vintage workwear jackets. I love [large] pockets. It spawned from taking those and making a hybrid. What plans do you have for the brand in 2016 and beyond? We want to continue to collaborate with local companies and brands outside of St. Louis and develop trade-specific aprons that speak to specific demographics. I think we’ll always have a consistent, core collection of aprons, but I’m planning on offering more seasonal collections, as well. We want to find ways to be more expressive without overdoing it. Any time we do limited edition aprons, we do small runs of 150 to 200 to keep it exclusive and a little more collectible.

photography courtesy knife & flag survival union

ST. LOUIS. The apron, a staple in every kitchen, got a stylish-yet-functional upgrade two years ago thanks to Sean Baltzell. He founded the apron and accessories brand Knife & Flag Survival Union in St. Louis in December 2013. As a tattoo artist, Baltzell wanted a functionalyet-fashionable apron to keep ink off of his clothes. Over the past two years, the brand has grown organically, due in large part to social media and loyal customers – from bartenders to bike mechanics – throughout the world. This past August, Baltzell teamed up with good friend Corey Smale of Strange Donuts to custom design the Baker’s Apron, a white apron with towel loops, flaps on all of the pockets and a hidden zippered pocket for a phone or MP3 player. Knife & Flag has also received an overwhelming response from barbers across the globe; so much so that in November, the brand opened its first brick-and-mortar location as Union Barbershop by Knife & Flag in the Soulard neighborhood. The barbershop features Knife & Flag’s men’s grooming products developed with Kevin Tibbs of St. Louis-based Better Life.

Knife & Flag Survival Union, knifeflag.com

Clean eating with a Dirty MinD photos courtesy vanessa barajas

written by bethany christo

in 2012, dessert-loving vanessa barajas went on the paleo diet as part of a 30-day challenge, and found the nutrient-dense meals so satisfying that she hasn’t looked back since. her blog and new cookbook of the same name, Clean Eating with a Dirty Mind, reinvents our guiltiest pleasures and removes any reservations by offering healthier, grain-free alternatives to fit those following a paleo or gluten-free diet, or someone who wants to indulge in a healthful way. a self-described “dessert-avore,” barajas includes both sweet and 42

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j a n u a r y 2016

savory recipes in her cookbook. she shares options such as a french onion-bacon tart, pesto caprese salad and pizza soup, as well as mouthwatering desserts like caramelwalnut brownie cookies, almond butter cups, skillet cookie sundaes, “reese’s” cheesecake and so much more. gorgeous

photos (shot by barajas herself), as well as guidelines and tips for following the paleo diet, are included in the fresh, fun and informative book. by Vanessa barajas cleaneatingwithadirtymind.com

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souped up comfort food on p. 50 photography by jennifer silverberg

healthy appetite

ultimate Detox ChoPPeD salaD with Parsley-Citrus Vinaigrette

story, recipe and photography by sherrie castellano

if you’re anything like me, each year you eat, drink and indulge your way through most of november and december. you’ve spent the past few months in a mild sugar-, champagne- and gravy-induced haze. and you’ve reminded yourself countless times that come January, you will clean up your act by ditching all the excess and vowing to eat more vegetables. Well, that time has come, so let’s give healthy a proper go – and i promise cleaning up your diet doesn’t have to be boring. you don’t need to punish yourself with the extremes of dieting, fasting or juice cleansing. eating healthy is not about restriction or lackluster salads and bland green drinks – although when done right, both can be superbly tasty.

the following ultimate detox chopped salad packs a powerful punch, celebrating winter’s bounty of leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables layered with zest, fresh herbs and lots of crunch. i’ve chosen to highlight cruciferous vegetables and parsley for their detoxification superpowers. cabbage and kale (or collards), are known for their vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients, which help support healthy liver function: something we all long for after an indulgent holiday season. the salad is rounded off with a parsley-citrus vinaigrette, adding the perfect amount of herby brightness. the best thing about this salad is that it’s hearty enough to be dressed in advance, making it a breeze to whip up in large batches and eat throughout the week as easy lunches, snacks and meals.

Sherrie Castellano is a certified health coach, food writer and photographer based in St. Louis. She writes and photographs the seasonally inspired vegetarian and gluten-free food blog, With Food + Love. Sherrie’s work has been featured on the pages of driftless Magazine, Vegetarian times, Food52 and Urban Outfitters among others. You can find her hanging with her aviation enthusiast husband sipping Earl Grey tea, green juice, and/or bourbon.

Ultimate Detox Chopped Salad with Parsley Citrus Vinaigrette This salad can be modified to taste: To serve it as a more robust and filling main course, simply add one diced avocado, ½ cup sunflower seeds and soft-boiled eggs. serves | 4 | parsley-citrus Vinaigrette

½ ¼

cup olive oil cup raw apple cider vinegar juice and zest from 1 lemon ½ cup Italian parsley leaves 1 to 2 cloves garlic ½ tsp pink Himalayan salt ½ tsp freshly ground black pepper chopped salad

6 4 2 1 ½

cups finely shredded red cabbage cups finely shredded lacinato kale or collard greens cups chopped Italian parsley leaves cup chopped green onions cup pomegranate seeds

| Preparation – Parsley-Citrus Vinaigrette | place all ingredients in a small food processor or blender and blend until smooth. set aside.

| Preparation – Chopped Salad | in a large bowl, add all ingredients and toss with vinaigrette. serve.

JOIN Catherine Neville and L’École Culinaire Program Director, Nicole Shuman in Feast Magazine’s Newest Production

I WIsh I KneW...

healthy food swaps

Written by Macy Salama

Learn cooking techniques from two culinary experts.

greek yogurt instead of sour cream. When looking to lower fat intake, start with condiments. Try swapping out sour cream for Greek yogurt, as both share a similar thick, creamy consistency and sour taste. However, Greek yogurt has stronger nutritional value, including protein, calcium and vitamin B-12 and contains less fat per serving.

dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate.

Airing now on feastmagazine.com

Choose dark chocolate over milk chocolate when baking or indulging as a sweet snack on its own. Dark chocolate has half the sugar as milk chocolate and is packed with antioxidants.

cauliflower rice instead of white rice. Chop or use a potato ricer to form cauliflower granulates and substitute it for white rice. Cauliflower contains a multitude of beneficial minerals, including potassium and magnesium. Swapping out white rice for cauliflower rice will reduce carb intake while still making a satisfying foundation or side for dishes. baked sweet potato fries instead of french fries.

When sliced, lightly salted and baked, sweet potatoes are a delicious alternative to french fries. The slightly sweeter flavor profile of sweet potatoes will make for a tasty savory side and contains various health benefits – sweet potatoes contain more potassium than a banana.

almond milk instead of cow’s milk. Almond milk is a convenient,

lactose-free substitute for traditional milk. Almond milk doesn’t need to be chilled, so it’s convenient to bring to work or on a camping trip without worrying about spoiling. It also has significantly less calories than whole milk, and even skim milk, while still providing calcium and vitamin D.

spaghetti squash instead of pasta. Cutting carbs is a difficult

task when eating healthy, especially when it comes to tempting winter pasta dishes. Instead of skipping out on your favorite noodle dish, replace tradition pasta for spaghetti squash. Spaghetti squash has only 7 grams of carbohydrates per serving, versus 31 grams in traditional pastas.

9811 S. 40 Drive, St. Louis, MO 63124 310 Ward Parkway, Kansas City, MO 64112 St. Louis: 314-587-2433 KC: 816-627-0100 Check out our upcoming public cooking classes at lecole.edu

Inspired Local Food Culture

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mystery shopper

Meet: UMeboshi

story and recipe by shannon Weber photography by jennifer silverberg

What Is It?

What Do I Do WIth It?

Umeboshi are pickled, salted ume fruits – they are also called “salt plums” but bear closer resemblance to tiny apricots in color and texture. open a container of umeboshi and a pleasant, fruity aroma emerges; hang on to it because what comes next is something else entirely. biting into umeboshi is like biting into pure salt housed in soft, fragrant flesh – a sensory confusion that can be quite shocking at first. don’t let it put you off; they’re surprisingly addictive after you’ve eaten a few.

sweet and salty all in one little wrinkled orb – what could be better – umeboshi work as secret weapons when puréed into sauces or dressings for meat and vegetables alike. Use a few at a time to add an unidentifiable – but potent – level of umami flavor to dishes. traditionally, the pickled fruits are served over rice, with green tea or just eaten as a snack. however you choose to experiment with umeboshi, work slowly to get a feel for how it changes flavors.

Roasted Beet and Red Quinoa Salad serves | 8 | Roasted Beets

3½ to 4

lbs red beets, scrubbed and trimmed olive oil, for brushing few pinches kosher salt

sesame-GinGeR dRessinG

Shannon Weber is the creator, author and photographer behind the award-winning blog aperiodictableblog.com, and her work has appeared on websites such as bon appétit, serious eats and america’s test Kitchen. She is a self-taught baker and cook who believes the words “I can’t” should never apply to food preparation and that curiosity can lead to wonderful things, in both the kitchen and in life.

½ ½ 1 ¼ 1½ 1 1 2½ 1½ 1 ¼

cup pomegranate seeds cup well-stirred sesame tahini clove garlic cup orange juice tbsp rice wine vinegar tbsp toasted sesame oil tbsp soy sauce tsp umeboshi, pits removed tsp freshly grated ginger tsp honey cup water

Red Quinoa

1 cup uncooked red quinoa 1¾ cups water pinch kosher salt to seRve

4 to 5 scallions, green and white parts cut into thin rings small bunch cilantro leaves, roughly chopped 1½ tbsp pan-toasted sesame seeds 8 whole umeboshi

| Preparation – Roasted Beets | preheat oven to 375°f. place each beet, flat-side down, on a piece of foil. brush with oil, sprinkle with salt and wrap each beet tightly; repeat with remaining beets. place beets on lipped sheet pan, leaving space between each, and roast in oven for 50 to 60 minutes. remove from oven and allow to sit for 10 minutes, still wrapped. remove foil and slice into 1-inch pieces.

| Preparation – Sesame-Ginger Dressing | in the bowl of a food processor, add all ingredients except water; pulse to blend. With motor running, stream in water. transfer to a jar, cover and set aside for 30 minutes; if you feel the mixture is too thick, add 1 to 2 tablespoons water.

| Preparation – Red Quinoa | rinse quinoa several times with water in a fine-mesh strainer. place in large saucepan, add water and salt, and cook over medium-high heat until boiling. cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer for 13 to 14 minutes until cooked. remove from heat and keep covered, 5 minutes. fluff with fork.

| To Serve | in a large bowl, toss roasted beets with red quinoa and divide onto plates. spoon dressing over each plate and top evenly with remaining ingredients. serve warm.

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menu options

Minestrone Chock-full of vegetables with deep, complex flavors, minestrone fits the bill when looking for comfort food. Minestrone is an important part of Italian food culture, so much so that it dates back to pre-Roman times and inspired the Italian word for soup, la minestra.

sToRy and RECIpE by GabRIEllE dEMIChElE phoToGRaphy by JEnnIfER sIlvERbERG

There are many interpretations of minestrone, and you can add whatever ingredients you like, but the following traditional recipe was influenced by the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, filled with carrots, potatoes, green beans, zucchini and savoy cabbage.

chef’s tips SHAKE IT UP. adding a pinch of salt with the addition of each

vegetable, and then letting it cook for several minutes, will allow the flavor of the vegetables to shine and develop more complex nuances in the soup. CHEESE, PLEASE. buying parmigiano-Reggiano in large pieces

and grating it as you need it will not only increase the shelf life of your cheese, but also the rinds can be used to flavor

and thicken soups. not making soup for a while? Cut off the rind, seal it tightly in plastic wrap and freeze for future use. TAKIng STOCK. adding beef and veal stock to your minestrone will build the soup’s flavor. If the liquid in the pot starts to cook away, add more unsalted stock (if you’re using stock with salt, add water instead). Minestrone should never be watery.

the menu • Mixed Greens and Roasted Red Pepper Salad • Minestrone • Black Forest Ham and Italian Fontina Flatbread • Housemade Vanilla Ice Cream Topped with Espresso

LEArn MOrE. In this class you’ll learn how to thicken soups with cheese rinds and properly chop vegetables so they cook evenly. you’ll also learn how to make fresh affogato, a coffee-based Italian dessert, at home.

get hands-on: Join Feast Magazine and schnucks Cooks Cooking school on Wed., Jan. 20, at 6pm at the des Peres, Missouri, location, to make the dishes in this month’s menu. tickets are just $40 for a night of cooking, dining and wine. RsVP at schnuckscooks.com or call 314.909.1704.

minestone serves | 6 to 8 | 2 2 2 4 3 1 3

tbsp grapeseed oil tbsp butter medium onions, diced medium carrots, diced celery ribs, diced tsp sea salt, divided medium potatoes, unpeeled and diced ¾ lb green beans, trimmed and sliced into 2-inch cuts 2 medium zucchini, washed, quartered and sliced into ½-inch dice 3 cups cored and thinly sliced savoy cabbage 6 cups unsalted beef stock 1 28-oz can san marzano whole peeled tomatoes and juice ½ tsp freshly ground black pepper 2 pieces parmigiano-Reggiano cheese rind 1 15½-oz can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed 2 tsp finely chopped fresh parsley 1½ cups grated parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, divided

| preparation | In a large heavybottomed pot over medium heat, add oil and butter. When heated to temperature, add onion, carrots, celery ribs and a pinch of salt. Cook for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, then add potatoes and another pinch of salt. Cook another 2 to 3 minutes before adding green beans, zucchini and another pinch of salt; cook 2 to 3 minutes. add cabbage and more salt; cook 2 to 3 minutes, stirring carefully to not break vegetables. add stock, tomatoes and juice, breaking up tomatoes with a wooden spoon. Cover pot and cook for 10 minutes until pot comes to a boil. Remove lid, add pepper and cheese rinds. Reduce heat to simmer, cover and cook for 2½ hours, stirring occasionally. Remove lid, add rinsed beans and cook for 15 minutes. add parsley and 1 cup grated cheese. heat for 10 minutes. Remove rinds from soup and adjust seasoning to taste.

| to serve | ladle minestrone into serving bowls, garnish with remaining grated cheese and serve hot with crusty bread.

WATCH IT ON THESE NETWORKS

In St. Louis, tune into the Nine Network (Channel 9) to see Feast TV on Mon., Jan. 4 at 1pm; Sat., Jan. 9 at 2pm and Sun., Jan. 24 at 1:30pm.

In Kansas City, watch Feast TV on KCPT (Channel 19) on Sat., Jan. 16 at 2:30pm.

You can watch Feast TV throughout mid-Missouri on KMOS (Channel 6) on Thu., Jan. 14 at 7:30pm and Sat., Jan. 16 at 4pm.

Schnucks Digital Gift Cards are perfect for anyone

Feast TV will air in the southern Illinois region on WSIU (Channel 8) at 10am on Sat., Jan. 9.

Trends – including fast casual dining, Southern cuisine, value-added artisan products and the proliferation of food-to-your-door services – are defining the way we eat and drink today. Tune into the January episode of Feast TV and meet some of our region’s top tastemakers who are leading the growth in these areas of the culinary landscape.

Save veggies, eat cake!

Now available at schnucks.com Feast TV is presented by Missouri Wines with additional support from Whole Foods Market.

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j a n ua ry 2 0 1 6

sweet ideas

riCoTTa DuTCh BaBy panCake wiTh Maple-prune CoMpoTe

STOry AnD recIPe By cHrISTy AuGuSTIn PHOTOGrAPHy By cHeryl WAller

This recipe just might be brunch’s best friend. Similar to a sweet popover, or a cross between a soufflé and a pancake, Dutch babies rise high in the oven only to sink slightly, creating crispy edges and a soft, custardy center. Originating in America with the Pennsylvania Dutch – a group of German immigrants – a Seattle café-owner trademarked the name “Dutch baby” in the first part of the 20th century, according to popular opinion. His recipe was inspired by a

German breakfast treat called pfannkuchen or Bismarck. Whatever name you call it, Dutch baby pancakes are simple and delicious.

Ricotta Dutch Baby Pancake with Maple-Prune Compote

Here, I pair it with prunes simmered in maple syrup, but it also works well with berries, apple butter or bacon. For a savory variation, substitute diced ham and Swiss cheese. Invite a friend over for brunch, put the tea kettle on and savor winter’s bright, sunny mornings.

Serves | 4 to 6 |

Christy Augustin has had a lifelong love affair with all things sweet. After working as a pastry chef in New Orleans and St. Louis, she opened Pint Size Bakery & Coffee in St. Louis’ Lindenwood Park in 2012. She calls herself the baker of all things good and evil. Learn more at pintsizebakery.com.

Dutch BaBy Pancake

4 1¼ 3 1 ½ ½ ½ 1 1

eggs cups whole milk Tbsp granulated sugar cup unbleached all-purpose flour tsp baking powder tsp kosher salt tsp vanilla extract (optional) Tbsp lemon zest cup whole-milk ricotta cheese

maPle-Prune comPote

1½ cups apple juice or cider ½ cup pure maple syrup, plus more for garnish ¼ cup brown sugar 1 stick cinnamon 1 cup pitted prunes 4 Tbsp unsalted butter (for assembly) powdered sugar (for garnish)

| Preparation – Dutch Baby Pancake | In a blender, add all ingredients and mix on high until smooth and frothy, about 2 minutes. rest batter in refrigerator for 1 hour, or up to 1 day.

| Preparation – Maple-Prune Compote | In a small pan over medium heat, simmer all ingredients except prunes, butter and powdered sugar until bubbly and thickened slightly, about 10 minutes. Add prunes off heat and cover for 1 hour at room temperature. | Assembly | Preheat oven to 425°F. Place a 10-inch iron skillet in preheated oven with butter until heated through, melted and beginning to brown. Swirl the pan to coat with melted butter; stir chilled pancake batter and then pour into hot pan. Place immediately back into oven and bake 20 to 25 minutes until puffed and golden brown. The center should be firm but not stiff. unmold while still hot by running a metal spatula or knife around the edge and slide pancake onto a plate. Dust with powdered sugar. Serve warm, topped with prune compote and drizzled with syrup from compote.

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J A N UA RY 2 0 1 6

whiskey being bottled at Pinckney bend distillery.

%PG

feastmagazine.com

j a n u a r y 2016

Written by nancy stiles photography by hannah foldy

nov. 21, 2011, is a date that ralph haynes will never forget. it’s the day he and his partners, tom anderson and Jerry Meyer, sold their first bottle of ’s hand-crafted american gin out of the back of haynes’ 2003 toyota sienna. they had kicked around the idea of starting a distillery after a decade of homebrewing in anderson’s basement. and then anderson made a decent whiskey. “none of us were getting any younger, so we spent all of 2010 learning what we needed to do to do it,” says haynes, who serves as the distillery’s director of sales and marketing. “What we found is that we launched at this perfect time in terms of the convergence of interest in craft spirits, growth in whiskey markets and [being able to] learn from the mistakes that other operations had made – and bingo, bango, bongo, we’ll break a million in sales this year.” if you stand on the levee in new haven, Missouri, and look up the Missouri river, you’ll see where the distillery’s namesake, pinckney bend itself, was located before the flood of 1824. the small nearby town of pinckney already had a history of producing some of the first whiskey in the area. legend has it that lewis and clark bought a bottle of whiskey in new haven in 1806, and though they complained bitterly about the price, none in the expedition complained about the flavor. the pinckney bend distillery team felt there was a resonance in the area telling them they needed to revive it. “the inspiration is that these people moved [to the U.s.] – how bad did things have to be in europe to pack up your family and go on a ship to a place you’ve never seen before?” says anderson, pinckney bend’s master distiller. “What fortitude do you need to do that? that’s what we want to do with spirits. We want that much passion, and by doing classic products, that’s what we think we’re bringing to things.”

“We’re 100 percent self-funded, so every time i lay a barrel down and let it sit there for two years, that’s a lot of money that isn’t going back out and trying to make us more money,” he says. “so pretty much any money we make, we put it back into aging our whiskey.” his first straight rye whiskey was released last month, and he’s barrel-aging bourbon, as well. Most people know s.d. strong for its original spirit, Kansas city Vodka, and the fact that strong distills 65 feet underground. he admits it gives the distillery a bootlegger feel, but the cave was actually built in the late ‘70s to mine limestone. it also already had a sprinkler system – another huge but necessary expense. like pinckney bend, strong was validated early on by some serious competition wins, most notably when the distillery’s pillar 136 gin won a Washington cup at the Washington cup american spirits competition last year. according to strong, the process varies depending on spirit and distillery but, generally, distilling begins with grain. the grain is mixed with hot water and yeast, creating a mash bill, and is heated for two to two-and-a-half hours to convert the starch in the grains to fermentable sugars. after it’s cooled back down, it goes into the fermentation tank for about a week, sometimes more, while the yeast is pitched and eats up all the fermentable sugars, resulting in a byproduct of about 10 to 13 percent alcohol by volume. that is then pumped into the still, where it’s boiled until it turns into a vapor; once it hits a condenser, it chills back into a liquid. this process happens once for whiskey and twice for vodka. the vodka is then filtered with activated carbon before it’s bottled, while whiskey goes into barrels to age. strong does 16 different filtrations of the vodka before hand-bottling; he says that’s where he’s really able to control the spirit’s smoothness.

pinckney bend began with a gin because it doesn’t need to be aged, and the founders didn’t want to go the moonshine route; aged whiskey is too much of a future investment for a startup. anderson soon developed a flavor profile for the gin, and they “went for it.” not long after launching the american gin, it won a gold medal at the 2012 san francisco World spirits competition, a big deal on its own, which also enabled pinckney bend to get a distributor. the distillery now makes cask-finished gin, corn whiskey, rested whiskey and vodka, but its next big thing is heirloom corn whiskey. it’s become somewhat of an obsession for haynes, who has collected and propagated varieties of corn that distillers in Missouri used at the turn of the 20th century, namely tennessee red cob, hickory cane and pencil cob, with the projected release near the end of 2016. “they all look different, and they are different,” haynes explains. “they have different protein contents that’ll make whiskeys that taste different. how different? We don’t know yet, but we’re gonna find out.” When pinckney bend got its distilling license in 2011, it was distillery no. 230 in the country. today, there are 750 craft distillers operating in the U.s., estimates bill owens, founder and president of the american distilling institute, a trade organization and guild, with another 300 under construction. distilleries have always been prevalent in places like Kentucky, but in the past five years, Missouri has seen a substantial increase in craft spirits production. “Missouri is a great state to be in [for distillers] – one of the best,” owens says. “We’re seeing annual growth of about 30 percent [nationally].” last spring, a meeting of regional distillers was held at the fountain on locust in st. louis – the first time a majority of local distillers were in one place. the event drew established favorites like st. louis’ still 630, spirits of st. louis, big o and coulter & payne farm distillery out of Union, Missouri, as well as newer producers including Kansas city-area’s s.d. strong distilling; Wood hat spirits from new florence, Missouri; and rocheport distilling co. from rocheport, Missouri. steve strong, founder of in parkville, Missouri, lays down whiskey barrels between distilling vodka and gin; for him, too, aging whiskey is very expensive. Inspired Local Food Culture

j a n u a r y 2016

Strong thinks the craft-distilling movement is following the same trend that craft brewing did 20 years ago; unfortunately, the numbers aren’t quite as high, thanks to pretty steep barriers to entry. Under federal law, distillers have to build their equipment and have everything ready to go before they can even apply for a license to distill – a substantial financial risk if your application ends up denied. Plus, unlike wineries and breweries, small distilleries pay the same amount of tax per proof gallon as the big guys like Jack Daniel’s and Jim Beam. “There’s legislation happening in Washington, D.C., trying to get some tax breaks, but right now it’s a big challenge,” Strong says. “That’s a lot of tax for a small startup distillery. I think it’ll catch up to the microbrewery craze – I hope it does. It’ll really help us out in a financial way so we can actually grow and hire more people.” S.D. Strong is currently distributed in Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska, and is heading to Texas and Illinois this year. People seem to be more interested in craft distilling, Strong says, because they want something specialty made on a small scale. Jerry Meyer, chief executive officer of Pinckney Bend, agrees. “People are definitely more educated than ever,” he says. “They know what they want.” Haynes agrees with Meyer: “People are willing to spend money for quality.” Envelope-pushing cocktail programs like those at Manifesto, Ça Va and Cleaver & Cork in Kansas City and Planter’s House and Taste in St. Louis use regionally distilled spirits alongside national heavy hitters more and more. And just as chefs and artisan producers have reached out to craft brewers for collaborations, so are tastemakers joining forces with regional distillers. Pinckney Bend finishes some of its special-edition port-cask whiskey with port barrels from Stone Hill Winery in Hermann, Missouri. In a double collaboration, 2nd Shift Brewing in New Haven finishes its stout in the barrels used to age Pinckney Bend’s whiskey, which are then returned to finish the distillery’s stout-cask whiskey. Mother’s Brewing Co. in Springfield, Missouri, swaps whiskey barrels with in Walnut Shade, Missouri, to make Sandy, its hopped-up wheat beer. “I think people are looking for something genuine and authentic,” says Jim Blansit, owner and distiller at Copper Run, in the Ozarks. “People are tired of the same choices, the same Jack and Jim. They’re looking for good wine and good food and beer and good spirits, too. They’re attracted to the hands on and the homemade and the attention to quality, rather than the mass-produced quantity.” Blansit began Copper Run in 2009 with a white rum because it was relatively easy to process sugar cane into rum, and processing grain to make whiskey requires more equipment. As Blansit sold more and more of it and his Overproof White Rum, he grew the business by reinvesting instead of taking out a loan; he now produces moonshine, whiskey, spiced rum and a few other special releases. He is the first legal distiller in the Ozarks since Prohibition. “When I opened, I had a handful of old-timers come to see what I was doing – they couldn’t believe it,” Blansit laughs. “They wanted to bring samples of the illegal whiskey they’d been making. I remember, they came out of the woods. They just couldn’t believe it.” Blansit has run into tax issues, as well, and laments the amount of state, federal and local paperwork required to run a distillery. It won’t stop Copper Run from growing – though he won’t give hard numbers, Copper Run is on track to double its output in 2016 – but he says there is a cap for how big he’d allow the distillery to become. “I’ll never grow to the point where we have to compromise the quality,” he says. “One thing’s for sure about human nature: If you can’t have something you want, you want it even more. Copper Run’s business model is to stay small, focus on quality and create a demand for a limited supply. You’ll never find us in Wal-Mart.” Across the state in New Haven, Pinckney Bend isn’t operating under quite the same philosophy. It’s planning to open a new, larger tasting room and distillery across the street from its current operations by July 1. A 320-gallon still has been installed, with room for a second and a third (its current still holds 60 gallons). “We have plans to expand, but we are in Downtown New Haven; it’s not gonna get any bigger,” Tom Anderson says. “There’s a finite size [for Pinckney Bend], but we can continue to grow.” “We started this up because [Tom] made a good whiskey one time and I liked to drink gin, and goodness gracious, what we’ve learned and where we’ve gone and where we’re going,” Meyer says, noting that you can now get Pinckney Bend in Italy and Singapore thanks to private buyers. “We’re helping the world,” Anderson says, “one gin and tonic at a time.” 58

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Written by HeatHer riske

Many years ago, Qui tran tried ramen for the first time at santouka, a small stand nestled inside the Mitsuwa Marketplace outside of Chicago. He had one thought. “i was like, ‘Holy sh** – how come we aren’t doing this?’” tran remembers. “‘this is so good – we have to have this.’” tran’s reaction echoed the feelings of several Missouri chefs. if cities like new york, Chicago and Los angeles could serve authentic Japanese ramen, why not here? Despite not having a name, a location or a set menu, tran’s upcoming ramen shop has quickly become one of the most anticipated restaurants in the st. Louis dining scene. He and his executive chef, Marie-anne Velasco, a former L’École Culinaire instructor, have spent the past couple of years learning how to expertly prepare the dish during research and development sessions with some of the world’s top ramen chefs. the pair visited sun noodle’s factory in La, where they developed their own ramen noodle recipe. they flew chef shigetoshi “Jack” nakamura, who operates 10 ramen restaurants in tokyo, to st. Louis for an intense training session where they learned everything from the importance of noodle thickness to how to make the very best broth. Jason Jan, who plans to open in the st. Louis area this month, also learned to prepare ramen from a Japanese chef. although he frequently makes it at home for his family, he decided to travel to yokohama, located just south of tokyo, to shadow a ramen expert. He learned the from-scratch process, including the preparation of rich and flavorful broths made with pork and chicken bones and the precise timing involved between preparing and serving ramen – namely, that the dish should be served, and eaten, as quickly as possible. He also discovered that ramen in Japan is similar to barbecue in the U.s., where different regions follow different preparations. “if you go to different regions in Japan, they have different methods of cooking the broth, different noodles, different types of toppings,” Jan says. “rather than that ramen you can pop into the microwave and eat two minutes later, ramen is a complete meal. a lot goes into that bowl – there’s no shortcut in preparing ramen. it’s a really complex dish.” at nami, Jan will serve several variations of ramen that draw from various regional styles. these include a signature tonkotsu made with pork belly, a soft-boiled egg and nori; butter miso with pork shoulder, corn and a cube of butter; and even a breakfast option with thick-cut bacon and poached eggs. through his shop, Jan hopes to introduce a wider ramen culture to the city – and to erase any lingering conceptions about the tightly packed blocks of wavy noodles and tiny seasoning packets so often associated with the dish. authentic ramen features handmade noodles, which get their signature yellow color and chewy bite from being cooked in kansui (alkaline minerals). the broth is of equal importance – pork or chicken bones are cooked at a rolling boil for up to 24 hours to produce a rich, intense flavor and extract the cartilage and gelatin, making the resulting broth thicker and stickier than typical soup stock. 60

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The dish isn’t new to the region – both Kansas City and St. Louis have been home to restaurants serving ramen for years. But each city is following in the footsteps of the national trend toward Japanese-style ramen shops focusing exclusively on the dish. The St. Louis area’s first dedicated ramen shop, Ramen Tei, quietly opened in mid-August by Ann Bognar and her son, Nick, next to their sushi and Asian-fusion restaurant, Nippon Tei. Ramen Tei’s menu is simple, with two traditional takes: shoyu,, made with a chicken-based broth that’s deepened with tare (a sweetened reduced soy sauce), and tonkotsu. Also in the works in St. Louis are Gaijin House Ramen Shop (whose not-so-subtle name, which translates to “foreigner” in Japanese, implies a less traditional approach) and Vista Ramen from chef Chris Bork and Jeremy and Casey Miller, who own The Mud House, which will take a more experimental direction. Komatsu, specializing in chicken broth-based ramen from Il Lazzarone’s Erik Borger and Kusshi’s Joe West, is slated to open in Kansas City in early 2016.

PICTuREd BELOW: KIMCHI RAMEN FROM COLuMBuS PARK RAMEN SHOP PHOTOGRAPHEd BY LANdON VONdERSCHMIdT PICTuREd LEFT: tonkotsu RAMEN FROM RAMEN TEI PHOTOGRAPHEd BY JENNIFER SILVERBERG

Tran, who grew up working in his family’s St. Louis-area Vietnamese restaurant, Mai Lee, says the variety and versatility of ramen provides chefs with an outlet for creativity – aside from the broth and noodles, there’s a lot of room for experimentation. “Kind of like what’s happening here, ramen is actually different from corner to corner,” Tran says. “When you cook pho [the classic Vietnamese soup], there’s a basic way to make it, and there are different tweaks depending on the region. As far as ramen, there are so many different variations, and it varies even from town to town.” That’s a philosophy that the owners of , which opened in Kansas City’s Columbus Park neighborhood in early October, take to heart. Josh and Abbey-Jo Eans opened the city’s first dedicated ramen shop in the 450-square-foot garage next to their popular breakfast and lunch spot, Happy Gillis Cafe & Hangout. The city’s excitement was palpable – a Kickstarter to help get the ramen shop open surpassed its $37,000 goal in just about a month. Although many of its elements are authentic – like the 24-hour preparation of broths (a stark contrast to the classical French approach to making stocks from Josh’s days in fine dining) – Josh will be the first person to tell you that the food at Columbus Park doesn’t resemble the ramen you’ll slurp in Japan. “We wanted to do something that was reflective of our region in the Midwest and in Kansas City,” Josh says. “We’re doing something that’s sort of unique to our area. For me to try to make ramen like they do in Japan – to me, that wouldn’t be authentic. That’s not who we are. That’s not my culture.” Instead, the ramen at Columbus Park is inspired by what’s available locally – just as ramen in Japan’s Hokkaido region, known for its massive dairy industry, typically includes creamy butter. Rather than the traditional pork belly, the shop’s tonkotsu ramen is garnished with cured and smoked jowl bacon from Burgers’ Smokehouse in California, Missouri. “It gives it a nice smoky flavor, and obviously smoke is a really important Kansas City flavor,” Josh says. The shop garnishes its kimchi ramen with “Missouri-kake,” a playful take on furikake, a Japanese dry rice seasoning that typically consists of ingredients like kelp, nori and sesame seeds. Missouri-kake gets a local spin with ingredients like corn nuts and crushed Amish chicken skins. When Tran and Velasco’s ramen shop opens in the St. Louis area this year, they say diners can expect a similar fusion of styles and influences. “If someone says, ‘Oh, that’s not ramen, or that’s not real ramen,’ it all depends on those local parts of Japan that specialize in ramen,” Velasco says, “just like spaghetti on The Hill in St. Louis is not the same as, say, spaghetti in San Francisco or in New York. It’s a different take on the classic dish; it’s really local.” Inspired Local Food Culture

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photography of the order counter at toppâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d pizza by Landon Vonderschmidt

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Written by nancy StileS

ten years ago, “fast casual” wasn’t a restaurant term most would recognize. there was fine dining, of course, and fast food, plus casual dining chains dotting the (mostly suburban) landscape. at the time, co-founder chris larocca was working for one such casual dining chain; his task was to develop a new concept for franchisees because, “conceptually, they were stuck in the ’80s,” he says. larocca spent 18 months studying all existing fast-casual concepts, including chipotle and St. louis-based Panera bread, chains that were increasing in popularity and profits, plus independent fast-casual restaurants that were popping up on the coasts. “i came away with ‘fast casual according to larocca,’” he says. “this style of dining was the way the nation was moving because we’ve got less and less time, we’ve got meetings – the days of gathering with the family for a 5 o’clock dinner were fading into the sunset. So if you take the speed of fast food and couple it with the culinary depth you get in casual dining, you’ve got something that works. and oh, by the way, you don’t have to tip!” Since 1999, the U.S. market for fast-casual restaurants has grown a whopping 550 percent, according to market research firm euromonitor. in 2014, americans spent upwards of $21 billion at fast-casual concepts. While chipotle has seen its earnings quadruple in the past 15 years, fast-food chains are reporting record-low growth. Many fast-casual restaurants are built around models similar to chipotle: counter service, dishes assembled in an open kitchen and a price point above the average McDonald’s extra-value meal but below a full-service casual dining restaurant like applebee’s. Fast-casual restaurants also tend to focus on fresh foods, always made-to-order, albeit quickly; even Panera has promised its food will be free of all artificial preservatives, colorings, sweeteners and flavors by the end of 2016. in the early aughts, larocca opened a fast-casual concept for the company after completing his research, but he kept his vision for crushed red in the back of his mind for eight years, from “cherrypicked” ideas and strategies he picked up along the way. along with co-founders Powell Kalish and his father, ralph Kalish, who has since passed away, larocca opened the first crushed red in the St. louis area in clayton, Missouri, in 2012. the customizable menu centers on fresh-baked flatbread pizzas and made-to-order chopped salads; there are now two more locations in nearby Kirkwood and creve coeur, Missouri. larocca and his team, which also includes partner Mike Marino, were blown away with the positive response. “the magic of crushed red is one, it doesn’t feel like a fast-casual restaurant. it’s got real, comfortable elements,” he says. “two, there’s alcohol – i don’t mean a bottle of beer in a refrigerator behind the cash register, but nice craft beer, wine and a level of sophistication. three, the chef-driven recipes.” you can customize your own pizza or salad at crushed red, but larocca’s combinations are worthy of traditional pizzerias: the Mushroom Medley is topped with Parmesan cream, shiitake, portabella and white mushrooms, crushed red’s mozzarella blend, goat cheese and fresh rosemary. the big island elevates a standard Hawaiian pizza with organic tomato sauce, pineapple, prosciutto, caramelized onions, the mozzarella blend and fresh cilantro. larocca and his partners knew early on that the concept had legs and got the legal paperwork ready to have potential franchisees in place in 2013; six months later a group of restaurateurs out of colorado signed a deal to bring crushed red to the Denver area. its second location in Denver (of a projected six) opens this month. the St. louis team is planning to own all of the St. louis restaurants, with two more coming within the year, plus franchised locations are planned in Kansas city; columbia, Missouri; and O’Fallon, Missouri, in the next couple years. “i really believe fast casual is going to become more and more chef-driven,” larocca says. “you’re going to continue to see ethnic influences, different cooking styles – it’s going to be a long, long time before fast casual hits the ceiling.” even fine-dining chefs are getting into the game. James beard award-winner Gerard craft, known for his innovative culinary work at niche in clayton, sent a shockwave through the St. louis dining scene last year when he announced that his next restaurant would be a fast-casual italian spot Downtown called Porano Pasta. Much like the chipotle model, diners at Porano will start with a base (pasta, lettuce or grains) and top it with several choices of proteins and sauces. James beard rising Star chef of the year 2014 semifinalist rick lewis caused a stir, too, when he announced he was leaving the critically acclaimed Quincy Street bistro in St. louis to open a fast-casual fried chicken joint, Southern, in June 2015 in partnership with Mike emerson of Pappy’s Smokehouse. Inspired Local Food Culture

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Leigh Lockhart was a restaurant industry veteran, too, but prior to launching her own business, she wasn’t even sure she wanted to own a restaurant. In 1997, she was just happy with her 60-square-foot pop-up business selling all-natural juices inside Lakota Coffee Co. in Columbia, Missouri. “But then ambition kicked in,” she says. “I got to thinking about how there wasn’t a what I call ‘cruelty-free kitchen’ in mid-Missouri; there wasn’t any exclusively vegetarian food. I just started to see the possibilities.” opened two doors down from Lakota within a year. It was and continues to be the only vegetarian restaurant within 100 miles of Columbia. Lockhart made a conscious decision to offer counter service only: As a former bartender, she liked the face-to-face connection with customers and also knew the downside of table service after 15 years as a waitress. “I really want to make sure my employees make a decent wage, and with waitressing it can be really dependant on the weather or an event,” she says. “This way, my employees have some job security in knowing that they’re going to make that hourly rate whether we’re busy or not.” Business started slowly but surely, as customers weren’t as educated about quinoa or tempeh and fresh-pressed juices as they are today. “I never marketed it as vegetarian in the beginning – I always called it a natural-foods café because of the preconceived ideas people have about vegetarian food,” she says. It attracted “a certain kind of [person]” at first, but eventually as business grew and people learned about the foods they were eating, Main Squeeze became popular with a wide range of customers. The menu features salads, soups, sandwiches, wraps and rice-based hot dishes like the RBS and Q, a quesadilla filled with rice, beans, salsa, scallions and cheese. Most of the menu is vegan-friendly and gluten-free, and 80 percent of the ingredients are certified organic. Her signature fresh-pressed juices like carrotapple-ginger are available in 1-ounce shots, smoothies and more. “During the [2008 economic] downturn, I thought about going back to waitressesing because I could’ve saved 40 percent of my payroll – but I don’t like it; I like counter service,” Lockhart says. “It’s fun. It’s fast. It’s like bartending, only with good food.” LaRocca and Lockhart aren’t the only restaurateurs who understand that customers are busy but still want delicious food made with quality ingredients. When Chad Talbott opened in Kansas City, Kansas, in January 2015, he’d already worked in fast-food pizza restaurants for 15 years. What he saw was a demand for better ingredients and housemade items, but without the high prices and 20 percent tips required at sit-down pizzerias. “Some people want to eat out four or five times a week, but they would prefer to eat someplace they know the ingredients are fresh and how the food is prepared,” Talbott says. “People who are health-conscious want a local and healthier option, and the kids are in a hurry, and they don’t have time to sit down for two hours and order a pitcher of beer.” Talbott sources as many local ingredients as he can, like sausage from Scimeca’s Famous Sausage Co. and produce like tomatoes and onions from farmers’ markets when available. Topp’d’s chicken is cage-free, and its pepperoni is nitratefree. There aren’t any freezers or microwaves at Topp’d, so customers can see everything is being made fresh, every day. “You can’t be 100 percent local all the time with the volume we produce in a fast-casual environment,” he says, “but we do source whenever possible from the Midwest, especially with all of our meat, since nothing we serve has ever been frozen. Freshness is always the key ingredient.” The pizzas themselves take about 4½ minutes to cook and are brought to your table. Pizzas range from the classic – Margherita and Buffalo chicken – to the inventive. The Kansas City BBQ pie is topped with pulled pork, barbecue sauce, Cheddar and caramelized onions; the Thai Peanut pizza features Thai peanut sauce, mozzarella, Thai marinated chicken, red onions, shredded carrots, jalapeños, fresh basil and roasted peanuts – all prepared daily. You can also build your own pizza from scratch with dozens of meat, cheese and veggie toppings and sauces. Salads are more familiar, like Caesar, Cobb and Greek, but you can also opt to build your own. Wine and local beer are available, too, as “it’s not a fast-food joint,” according to Talbott. Talbott himself plans to open a few more Topp’d locations in the next five years, but all in the Kansas City area, where he can oversee the craft beer list and control the locality of the ingredients. “They [will] still have a local feel to the restaurant, local ingredients, local ownership, but still be able to provide very fast service,” he says. “In the next five to 10 years, fast casual is definitely going to [continue to] be a trend. The ones that survive are the ones that are trying to get better ingredients, more wholesome food and telling people what’s in their food – it’s a trust factor.”

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Learn more about how Crushed Red’s fast-casual concept is expanding in the January episode of Feast TV.

Alton Restaurant Week Jan. 15 - 24, 2016

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AltonRestaurantWeek.com

Diners will be able to enjoy delicious entrees ($10 lunch/$25 dinner) all week long by visiting one of the participating restaurants. Receive a free souvenir Alton Restaurant Week glass (while quantities last) by stopping by the Alton Visitor Center with a receipt from one of the participating restaurants.

Participating Restaurants: 4204 Main Street Brewing Bluff City Grill Bossanova Carver’s Southern-Style BBQ Castelli’s Restaurant at 255 Elijah P’s Burgers and Brews Fin Inn Franco’s Gentelin’s on Broadway Grafton Winery & Brewhaus

Castelli’s@255 Restaurant Week Specials (no substitutions, dine in only):

Jimmy the Greek’s Johnson’s Corner Journey My Just Desserts Old Bakery Beer Company Reeta Marie’s Country Store Rib City State Street Market Tony’s Restaurant

Elijah P.’s BurgErs & BrEws

$25 Dinner for 2 – Pasta and Salad for for 2; choice of Spaghetti, Mostaccioli, Tortellini or Fettuccine, with coffee or tea and carrot cake.

ElijahP.’s Burgers&BrewsinAltonisgettingready foragreatyear,servingupsomeofthebestburgers, sandwichesandentréesinthearea.Withcustomer favoritesliketheBaconJamBrieBurgerandthe ChorizoShrimpBurger,tonewentréesonourmenu likeChickenPotPieandourRestaurantWeek selectionofMeatloafwithBeerGravy,ourofferings continuetogrow.Don’tforget,wehaveSIXTYbeers ontap,themostinSouthernIllinois!Andagreatparty roomjustopenedforyourprivateevent.

3400 Fosterburg Rd. | Alton, IL 62002 618.462.4620 | castellis255.com

401 Piasa Street | Alton, IL 62002 618.433.8445 | elijahps.com

$10 lunch – 3 Pc. Chicken (breast, leg & thigh); choice of potato or veg, dinner salad, coffee or tea and carrot cake. $25 Dinner for 1 – Moonlight Delight with 4 Breaded Shrimp, choice of potato or veg, dinner salad, coffee or tea and carrot cake.

State Street Market

MAIN STREET BREWING CO

State Street Market is a Bistro-Style Café by day that transitions to a relaxed music venue two nights a week. Enjoy a lunch of Salads made with Organic Greens with farm fresh ingredients, Sandwiches, Paninis & house made soups from 11-2 Tuesday-Friday; or a satisfying brunch on Saturdays from 9am-2pm with a full breakfast and lunch menu. You won’t want to miss Monday and Thursday evenings with live music and Tapas Style Dining from 5pm-8m. The Courtyard is always open with heaters and a fire pit! Call 618-462-8800 to get special restaurant week pricing for all menus! 208 State Street | Alton, IL 62002 618.462.8800

Main Street Brewing Company started as a place to share amazing food with hand-crafted beer. Our neighborhood restaurants are a place to meet and enjoy the best things in life. We have a unique atmosphere at Main Street and a menu that complements our beers. From light and sweet to heavy and bitter; you can always find a beer that suits your taste. Our award winning beers have won in competitions all across the country, against competitors from all around the world. To celebrate Alton Restaurant week, we are running our most popular promotion: one hand-cut sirloin steak, one hand-crafted locally-brewed beer, and a side for only $10. Great food, wonderful beer---only at Main Street Brewing Co. 180 E Center Drive | Alton, IL 62002 618.465.7260 | mainstreetbrewingco.com

My Just Desserts My Just Desserts –famous for our homemade pies, ½ pound chicken salad sandwiches and our tollhouse brownies...just to name a few! We also serve a variety of soups, salads and sandwiches. Our menu changes daily based upon what the kitchen is craving so you’ll never have the same thing two days in a row. Stop by any day of the week between 11am and 4pm. We’re located downtown in historic Alton. 31 E. Broadway | Alton, IL 62002 618.462.5881 | myjustdesserts.org

5th AnnuAl Alton RestAuRAnt Week Local, family-owned restaurants in Alton, Godfrey, Grafton and more will be participating in the fifth annual Alton Restaurant Week Jan. 15 - 24. Diners will be able to enjoy menu items ($10 lunch/$25 dinner) all week long by visiting one of the participating restaurants. altonrestaurantweek.com

Inspired Local Food Culture

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At in Olathe, Kansas, you can do all of your grocery shopping without ever getting out of your car.

As zoomin Market approaches its second anniversary, yerkes says the company is poised for expansion in the Kansas City area as well as across the country, although he’s not yet sure how it will come together.

the online-only grocery store is the brainchild of John yerkes, who, after working in the grocery industry for years, noticed an opportunity to offer a new type of shopping experience – one that was popular in europe and Asia but had yet to catch fire in the U.S. yerkes, in partnership with Matt rider, opened the first location of zoomin Market in 2014, in the Kansas City area, selling roughly 10,000 items.

“Our goal is definitely to grow this… we’re looking at possibly expanding in the Kansas City market in the next year, and [our other] partner is talking about taking it out of state after that,” yerkes says. “We’ve got several people interested in licensing the franchise, which we’re not quite ready to roll out yet. Hard to say. the freight train starts slow, but it could go very fast.”

zoomin Market follows the typical e-commerce model: Online shoppers visit its website, zoominmarket.com, where they can browse by aisles or products, as well as specials. there is no minimum dollar amount for orders, and shoppers can pay online when they submit their order or in person when they pick it up from zoomin Market’s store in Olathe. Shelf-stable products, produce and meat are sourced from many of the same wholesale grocers used by traditional grocery stores, with locally produced products also available.

the growing interest in models like zoomin Market is just one example of how convenience-driven food services have surged in popularity – and profitability – across the country in the past few years. Like yerkes, many sources attribute millennial consumers with creating an increasing demand for fast-casual concepts, which focus on serving affordable, convenient and quality fare, and the same tenets form the basis for many convenience-driven food-and-drink services.

“When your order has been placed, you’ll get a text or email, and then it usually takes us somewhere between 15 to 30 minutes to get an order together,” yerkes says. “you’ll get a second text when your order is ready with a five-digit confirmation code. When you arrive on our lot at the kiosks outside, you type in the code, and it assigns you one of our covered parking stalls and lets someone inside know you’re here, and we bring it out. there’s no tip [and] no upcharge, and most people are only here two to three minutes on average.”

Some are geared toward home cooks, like the ready-to-cook meal kits sold through blue Apron and Plated, both based in new york City, which deliver recipes and preportioned ingredients right to your doorstep. Others aim to enhance the dining-out experience, like the cloud-based seating management app, noWait, used in St. Louis-area restaurants such as Milagro Modern Mexican, Pastaria and Peacemaker Lobster & Crab Co., which allows users to add themselves to a waitlist at restaurants that don’t otherwise take reservations. in December 2014, boston-based Drizly launched in St. Louis in partnership with local liquor store chain randall’s, allowing users to buy wine, beer and spirits through its app and then have orders delivered with no markup. And in 2015, an even more specialized food app launched in Kansas City – new york City-based Pearl, which helps users discover daily oyster offerings at restaurants such as Ça Va, Jax Fish House and Jarocho Pescados y Mariscos.

Written by Liz MiLLer

in europe, it’s estimated that online grocery shopping will grow to more than €80 billion by 2018, with the U.K., netherlands, France and Germany leading the charge, according to Syndy, an international product content-distribution platform. “We love that it can create efficiencies inside the store and that’s passed along to our consumers, as we’re doing the shopping for them and they save a lot of time and don’t have to be in the grocery store,” yerkes says. “Just from a pure operations standpoint we love that we can narrow it down to the most efficient way to order, pick and price products with a really thin staff. Compared to a traditional store we’re [much more cost efficient].” yerkes describes the process of developing zoomin Market as “really thinking about a whole new way of shopping for the American consumer.” Proprietary software was created for the online store, and consumer education about how the process works has been a critical part of promoting the business. “We went into it somewhat blind,” yerkes says. “People are used to shopping online, but… consumer education and changing habits have been some of the biggest challenges. We never set out to take over the main grocery experience – we don’t need to – but it’s an option.” When the store first launched, yerkes says the target market was primarily busy working families and professionals, but over the past two years, he’s seen unanticipated demographics flocking to the concept. “We’ve been more surprised with the millennial customers… it’s how they shop and how they do things,” yerkes says. “the technical side is easy for them because they’ve grown up with it. Another surprise was elderly people, which makes sense. they don’t want to drag heavy items through the parking lot. Another segment has been people with disabilities, including veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder who don’t like shopping in a store.”

Many of these services have been made possible by new technology, but even established convenience services are undergoing changes to become more specialized. ten years ago, if you wanted to order food and have it delivered to your doorstep in St. Louis, pickings were pretty slim – pizza, Chinese food, maybe thai in the right zip code. A wave of local food delivery services have changed all that, though; now options range from quail with boudin, local mushrooms, rice grits and persimmon saba from Juniper in the Central West end neighborhood and crispy pork belly carbonara from the Libertine in Clayton, Missouri. it’s not the restaurant owners who are investing in delivery services of their own, though. Case in point: On a busy Saturday night, an order for italian-style ramen is up at Pastaria, St. Louis restaurateur Gerard Craft’s italian eatery in Clayton. A chef carefully transfers a delicate soft-cooked egg atop perfectly cooked spaghettini noodles with pieces of chicken and basil and a sprinkling of Grana Padano cheese – and then snaps the to-go container lid in place. in a second container, double-stocked chicken broth is packaged separately to ensure the noodles remain the perfect texture. the two containers are then bagged and transferred to the food pickup window, where a delivery person is waiting to transport them via bicycle to one lucky customer in the neighborhood.

yerkes has also seen growing interest in the zoomin Market model from one of the biggest retailers in the country.

“When we deliver that to our fan, and the egg is just right and the noodles are the perfect texture and they have this amazing stock made with love… we’re just as particular about this food as the chef who made it and the crew who took the time to package it up just right,” says tim Kiefer, owner of St. Louis-based Food Pedaler.

“Wal-Mart doesn’t want to do it right now, but they see the writing on the wall; they’re testing it in bentonville, Arkansas, right across from their corporate headquarters – and it looks remarkably like our store,” yerkes says with a laugh. “they visited us and wanted a tour, and we said no… they admitted that they’ve seen the [international models] and they recognize the value of it.”

Since launching the bicycle delivery company in 2013, Kiefer has grown its coverage area in St. Louis from the Central West end to University City to Clayton, and built up a network of 50 restaurant partners, including popular spots such as Pi Pizzeria, Five Star burgers, the Libertine and Juniper. Kiefer plans to expand Food Pedaler Downtown in the next few months, and hopes to serve all of St. Louis city by summer.

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“We’re growing, but really, we’ve grown from 1½-mile-wide area to like a 5-mile area in three years, so that’s remarkably slow expansion,” Kiefer says. “That was intentional: It’s been slow so we could get all the right pieces in place. We’ve got our systems together, and we’ve really taken the time to own what we’re doing.”

gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian, low-sodium, light or lower calorie – as well as expanding its offerings to include a range of prepared and convenience-driven meal options.

For customers, the service is easy and familiar – simply visit foodpedaler.com, search for your address to confirm that you’re within its coverage area, select and place your order, and wait for delivery, which, according to Kiefer, takes around 30 minutes.

“I think there will only be more of a demand for this in the future – now you see more convenience stuff and prepared foods in the grocery stores,” Lemcke says. “I’ve noticed more restaurants are offering carryout, as well. The great thing about us is that we have been working with this for so long that we know what does reheat well, what saves for the next day, versus their food, which is good in the moment.”

Food Pedaler isn’t the only online bike delivery service roaming the streets of St. Louis: Bike Waiter, formerly known as Griffin Delivery, got its start in St. Louis before being acquired by a company out of San Antonio (the service now operates in Kansas City, too), and Postmates, headquartered in San Francisco, launched in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas earlier this year. Kiefer isn’t terribly concerned about the twowheeled competition, though – he believes Food Pedaler offers a specialized and unique service to its customers through the close relationships it has with its partner restaurants.

Newer meal offerings in the past few years include grab-and-go expense-account lunches, which are designed for larger groups and business meetings and include salads and sandwiches, and care packages, or individual meals like chicken with lemon, artichokes and rice and cannelloni intended for gifting to friends or family. In the past decade, The Art of Entertaining has also vastly grown its refrigerated and grab-andgo items, including an increased focus on party appetizers and dips such as Brie with caramel and Buffalo chicken wing dip with housemade chips or crackers. All items are made from scratch at the company’s kitchen and retail store in Webster Groves, Missouri.

“We have direct and positive relationships with the restaurants we work with, we know their menus and we all love the food we deliver,” Kiefer says. “When a special is offered, we make sure we have it [on our site]. We have restaurant owners who are very particular about how they want their menus listed on our site, or how they want to be represented to other people.”

While specialty meals and dishes are big sellers, The Art of Entertaining also offers weekly dinners for customers who either just don’t have the time to cook or who don’t want to cook. Every Monday, family-night meals are offered for pickup at the retail store, which include your choice of two casserole entrées – think vegetarian lasagna, steak fajitas with black beans and rice or sautéed shrimp with lemon and basil – plus a salad, bread and butter, and dessert, which is intended to feed four for $27.50.

Kiefer and Yerkes both launched their businesses to offer people different kinds of experiences. The same is true of Ann Marie Lemcke, who opened her company, , in the St. Louis area 21 years ago to expand catering options beyond largescale events. She was raised in the catering industry – her family owns Butler’s Pantry, a full-service catering company in St. Louis – and it was the only work she’d ever known. “People would call all the time and say, ‘I just want chicken tetrazzini,’ or ‘We just want to get a platter to send over to somebody who’s had a death in the family;’ all those little things people need, and we didn’t do that [at Butler’s Pantry],” Lemcke says. “So we would have to say, ‘Sorry, we can’t just do one platter for you.’ I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if there were a place that could?’” Lemcke founded The Art of Entertaining as a way to offer smaller-scale catering services for lunch and dinner, as well as corporate, party and event catering. Since launching two decades ago, the company has undergone a lot of change to accommodate food trends and changes in how people eat – the business now offers meals that are

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, nightly dinner specials are offered for $11.95 for a single serving (although Lemcke says some customers stretch it for two), which includes a salad, entrée, side dish and roll and butter. Meals change each night and every week, but past menus have included a harvest salad, grilled flank steak with a Gorgonzola sauce and a twice-baked potato, as well as creamy apple slaw, barbecued ribs and Asiago mac ‘n’ cheese. “I have people who tell me they eat our food every night because they can’t go to the grocery store and make the same food for the amount of money we charge,” Lemcke says. “That’s really true; I go to the store, and I can’t believe how much ground beef costs – chicken, things you grew up on that were staples, are so expensive now. I feel like we are way more reasonable in that we can fit into a budget.” Reflecting back on her career and how much she’s seen in the food-service industry evolve, Lemcke isn’t at all surprised to see a spike in convenience services: “They’re made for people on the go, which is our society these days.”

Hop on board and find out how Food Pedaler is gaining speed in St. Louis in the January episode of Feast TV.

PhOTOGRAPhY OF FOOD PEDALER BY jONAThAN GAYMAN

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F R I . J A N . 2 2 , 7 - 11 P M

BUD LIGHT PARTY CENTRE AT SOULARD MARKET PARK

I BUY T

Sip around the world without leaving STL 50+ beverages to sample Open bar featuring Jack Daniels & more BBQ from award-winning local pitmasters An evening of musical entertainment

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ALL ! N OERW MAT F

S A T . J A N . 2 3 , NOON- 4 P M

BUD LIGHT PARTY CENTRE AT SOULARD MARKET PARK Hottest cook-off this side of NOLA Professional & amateur chef competitions Open bar with all your favorites Cajun Sampler lunch by Tony Chachere NEW THIS YEAR: US FOODS DEMO KITCHEN & MORE

ADVANCE PRICING

BUY BOTH & SAVE $10

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Written by bethany christo

in recent years, the farm-totable movement has become more the rule than the exception in restaurants. Just as restaurateurs and bar-owners have increased their focus on locally sourced ingredients, they’re also seeking out local makers to craft bar tops, tables, chairs and even the boards beneath your feet. one of the first of these craftsmen in st. Louis was Jermain todd, who founded a decade ago – though his business looked a lot different then. ten years ago, Mwanzi co. was focused on distributing bamboo plywood to wholesalers and fabricators in the area. Mwanzi means bamboo in swahili, and at the time, the renewable material was the poster child for sustainable design and fabrication. today, todd mostly uses sustainably harvested wood to build pieces for restaurants and bars and other food-and-drink businesses, and consults on design and layout, as well as making one-off pieces for residential clients. Mwanzi’s evolution came after todd decided to try his hand at making furniture with bamboo. he had no formal training in how to do so – he says his first residential clients were mostly family members and close friends. he now works with other materials – walnut, cherry, pine, Western cedar, white oak and other types of wood – with much of it repurposed from local pallets, barns and discarded furniture. he also sources logs from within 500 miles of his st. Louis shop and has them custom-milled by a local company. sweetart bakery in st. Louis and Foundation Grounds in Maplewood, Missouri, were two of his first commercial clients, and business quickly picked up through word of mouth. today, his work appears in many top 70

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restaurants and bars across the st. Louis area, including the banquettes and tables at sump coffee, dining room and patio tables for byrd & barrel and the bar top at the Libertine. he also made pieces for both Wheelhouse locations, including café tables and barstools, and for its new Downtown location, he milled Missouri-grown walnut trees himself to form a mammoth 90-foot U-shaped live-edge bar – one of his favorite projects to date. “i’ve been very fortunate to do work for some high-profile clients around town,” todd says. “sometimes, early on, i felt like i was so hard-headed about my dedication to these eco-friendly products – no one would have been able to tell the difference. but i had clients who just got it and appreciated the extra work.” When todd first meets with clients, many are unprepared for the sheer amount of decisions they’ll have to make – it’s not as simple as flipping through a catalog. todd starts by having them choose between a rustic or fine aesthetic; choosing a color, stain or specific wood, as well as sheen; then honing in on sizing and design – which is where the customization really gets intense, as todd doesn’t limit himself to a particular style. “i purposefully try to not have my other work pigeonhole me – every project is a complete reflection of what my clients want, what their visions are,” todd says. “the tricky part is working with those who don’t have a vision, and it’s my job and responsibility to pull that out of them.” todd didn’t set out to build Mwanzi around restaurant and bar projects, but he found that his business model resonated with restaurateurs, chefs and bar-owners, whose passion for the locavore movement matched his own.

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“restaurateurs and chefs get that eating at a restaurant or café is an experience, and the better that experience can be, consciously or unconsciously, is always registering in people’s minds,” he says. “i tell my clients all the time that the first thing is having your food and drink on point. that’s a must. but to take it to the next level, to not only survive, but also thrive, you have to be firing on all pistons – offering something different and having your style manifest in the whole experience. in most markets, everyone is getting better and more competitive. as a new food-and-drink place, you aren’t going to get by with a good product anymore – you have to invite customers in to your world and share an entire environment, experience.” John anderson of Kansas city’s agrees with todd – the chefs and restaurant owners he works with at his design and build studio want to push the envelope and create stunning and special experiences for their customers. Utilitarian Workshop has worked with many different types of clients since launching in 2011, but anderson says those in the food-and-drink industry have comprised a big part of his business. “We’ve done enough work in the area now that we attract a certain client – people who have an understanding of what a really personal, intimate space is like and how that reflects their brand – driven creatives themselves who have a solid vision of where they’re going,” he says. “We prefer to work with those devoted to what they do – be it a chef, coffee roaster, cocktail-maker – because that drives us, as well.” anderson, whose background is in fine arts, and his wife, nicole Williams, whose forte is graphic design, are the people responsible for the design of many of Kansas city’s best and

brightest spaces, including thou Mayest coffee roasters, Little Freshie, columbus Park ramen shop, heirloom bakery & hearth, Port Fonda and upcoming cocktail bar the campground. When designing Port Fonda, Utilitarian Workshop’s first big restaurant project, James beard-nominated chef-owner Patrick ryan gave anderson and Williams creative freedom to conceptualize the whole space: the design, branding, furniture, décor, logo and more for the Midwest-meetsMexico restaurant. ryan didn’t give the pair any rules or restrictions when they created the restaurant’s custom tables, bench seating, 25-foot bar, reclaimed barn paneling, semitranslucent window graphics and other eclectic décor, print collateral and web design. Williams’ role was as designer and art director, taking on all of Port Fonda’s branding and graphics, with collaboration and input from her husband. the couple wanted to create a space that catered to all senses and was as vibrant and loud as ryan’s food and personality. Utilitarian Workshop does the occasional one-off piece for commercial and residential clients, but anderson says he and nicole prefer to dedicate their energy to one or two major projects a year so they can be fully invested in each. “opening a restaurant is a very emotional thing: it gets happy; it gets sad; it gets frustrating; it gets crazy, and we go through that with the client,” anderson says. “We try to challenge ourselves, every project, to be a little bit different than the one before. i’ve never made a Port Fonda table for someone else – and i’ve had a ton of requests. Port Fonda isn’t successful because of the tables we put in there; it’s the whole entity that

makes people want to be there.” clients who approach Utilitarian Workshop understand the value of building personal, intimate spaces, and anderson sees the collaboration process as merely guiding the ship. “every project is different, and a big part of what we do is respond to the energy of where that project and brand is headed,” he says. “thou Mayest is masculine and outdoorsy – and that’s [owner] bo [nelson]. heirloom is much softer and prettier – it depends on the person and his or her tone, and it’s a matter of helping achieve what’s in their heads.” chris Gorney agrees that curating the customer experience is just as important as making a really nice table. as a principal and creative director at in Kansas city, he spends a lot of time thinking about spaces and their meaning. “We really want to get to the point of what the restaurateur or bar owner or coffee shop owner is going for, their vision,” Gorney says. “Why are you opening a restaurant; why should we care? We try and take the vision and mission of each place and personify that in furniture and design.” the 3-year-old studio’s 11 employees are all designers, architects, artists or craftsmen who specialize in designing and building high-end hospitality spaces in the Kansas city area and across the U.s. the company’s work can be seen at area restaurants, bars and local hangouts such as Up-Down, república, Pt’s coffee roasting co. and Underdog Wine co.

photography of tooLS froM the MWaNZI WorKShop by joNathaN gayMaN

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Gorney says Second Life focuses on sourcing local new and reclaimed “legacy materials” to make pieces that last long enough to be passed on to children. Clients seek out Second Life’s services because they care about the details. “We’re an experiential generation,” Gorney says. “People don’t just want things; they want an experience. People don’t just want to perceive quality; they want it to actually be quality; they want the story behind the space, the character, the personal connection.” St. Louis’ , founded in 2010, built its entire business around this idea. They aren’t builders – instead, owners Christopher and Amy Plaisted call themselves “the finishers” – coming in either at the beginning, middle or end stages of a restaurant’s design and adding rustic touches that enhance the overall experience for diners. The pair travels to Bali and India to source one-of-a-kind, vintage, durable, multifunctional pieces for residential and commercial spaces. “Restaurant owners have a budget and are usually looking for more affordable furniture options when getting off the ground,” Amy says. “We come in and add a few key, rustic pieces to complete the look and round out the space.” “A lot of bars and restaurants with reclaimed wood have a monochromatic scheme, so I think it’s great we can add really original pieces that have a pop of color and a lot of character,” Christopher adds. The type of pieces Hammer & Hand supply to restaurants are often the most striking objects in the space, like colorful cabinets, large mirrors, lighting and butcher blocks. All are hand-picked by Christopher and Amy and are incredibly durable: They make sure to check every item they purchase for flaws, test all the drawers and hinges. In the first couple years, 90 percent of Hammer & Hand’s business was online through its Etsy shop. But when Amy started reaching out to restaurants directly and demonstrating the impact that just a few of its pieces could have, business took off. Today, the company’s work can be found across the St. Louis-area restaurant scene in the storage pieces at Edibles & Essentials, the décor at Southern and the rolling cart and large window mirrors at Basso. Plus, the Plaisteds now have a factory in India where tables and chairs they’ve designed can be built, to offer even more options for restaurateurs. At the soon-to-open upstairs dining room, bar and prep kitchen at Russell’s on Macklind,

chef-owner Russell Ping was enamored with the vintage 44-inch Indian family-style serving platters suggested to him by the Plaisteds. The platters are traditionally placed on the floor and filled with mounds of naan, rice and curry. Ping is working with St. Louisbased , well known for its custom restaurant design with a focus on green materials and practices, and Hammer & Hand, to transform the platters into light fixtures to hang over the room’s main dining table. SPACE, along with its construction company, SPACE Constructors, removed the existing walls and ceiling structures in the upper level, which was formerly used as an apartment, and added a kitchen, bar, exterior door and exterior stairway. SPACE co-owners Shelley Satke Niemeier and Tom Niemeier say it’ll be a “small feat of engineering” to get Hammer & Hand’s round platters hung for overhead lighting. “They’re going to be a lovely focal point for the dining room,” Satke Niemeier says. “Collectively, we wanted the space to be distinct from the first floor while still maintaining the first floor’s ‘modern farmhouse’ aesthetic.” Many restaurants in the St. Louis area, including lauded fine-dining spots such as Niche and Tony’s, have seen SPACE’s comprehensive touch: In addition to strategic planning, interior design and architecture, the firm fields everything from historic tax credit consulting, construction management, branding, graphic design and social media strategy. In its 10-plus years, SPACE has been a huge proponent of investing in local producers. “Buying local is one of the best ways to make your space stand out, and frankly, it’s a great way to start buzz about your project: If you’re buying furniture or design services from people who work a mile or two away, they’re going to spread the word about your project through their network of clients, friends and vendors,” Satke Niemeier says. “It’s a source of pride on both ends. The restaurateur gets a beautiful restaurant that looks like nothing else in St. Louis, and the gal who sold you your lights or the guy who built your tables can say they contributed to that beautiful space. You’ll have clients for life and a space like no other.” An organic relationship has developed between SPACE and Hammer & Hand, where SPACE will turn to the Plaisteds to add rustic touches to its more neo-modern designs. Together, they transform restaurant interiors into welcoming, fresh environments that draw guests in. “Restaurateurs put their lives into their restaurants,” Amy says. “We could never own one; it’s too emotional, but we want to inspire them to break the mold; be wild; take a chance.”

photo of utilitarian workshop by archer messenger

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J A N UA RY 2 0 1 6

Written by heather riske

During ’s first week in business this June, chef rick Lewis ended up giving away a lot of free food. the new restaurant, which specializes in nashville-style hot chicken, wasn’t having any problems getting people in the door – the lines snaking outside mirrored those of the venerable Pappy’s smokehouse, southern’s sister restaurant, located just next door. rather, chile-heads eager to test their taste buds were ordering pieces of Cluckin’ hot chicken – the very hottest of the hot chicken offered at southern – only to surrender to its piquant heat. “they’d be looking miserable, so you have to give them a few pieces that are a little more their speed,” Lewis says. “since day one it has totally been an education in food for people. People think they know spicy food, but they have no idea until they’ve eaten hot chicken.” Lewis, who opened southern with Pappy’s owners Mike emerson and skip steele, spent months traveling across the south to research hot chicken. he made stops at Prince’s, hattie b’s and biscuit Love in nashville, as well as several chicken and fish joints across arkansas. “it’s not rocket science – it’s just frying chicken – but these people have been doing it for a long time, and so i wanted to see what they do and how they run their restaurants,” Lewis says. “i did learn some things, got some ideas, so that when i came back, i wanted to tweak a few things. the best way to learn is to immerse yourself in it and learn from the best.” Considered one of st. Louis’ biggest restaurant openings of the year, southern embodies one of the latest trends to make its way to the heartland. a quintessentially american food, fried chicken is hardly anything new – kansas City institution stroud’s, which opened in 1933, is considered by some to be the oldest fried chicken joint in Missouri. but lately, restaurants dedicated to exploring the many different styles of fried chicken – and, more generally, southern-inspired food – have taken the country by storm. before opening Juniper in the fall of 2013, chef-owner John Perkins was well known in st. Louis for his creative underground dinner series, entre, his pop-up series and his fried chicken. at Juniper, Perkins puts creative spins on traditional southern cocktails and food, drawing inspiration from regional specialties from south Carolina to the appalachians to the Mississippi Delta, in dishes like an elevated version of the humble pork and beans with crispy red Wattle pork belly, red peas drizzled in maple syrup, braised collards and a fried egg. Perkins’ much-loved

fried chicken is served two ways: classic, with mashed potatoes and gravy; and atop a waffle with fish sauce, caramel, peanut butter and pickles. Fried chicken is also the anchor of , the Leawood, kansas, restaurant from James beard award-winning chef Colby Garrelts and his wife, Megan, a James beard award nominee. as one of the first chef-driven fried chicken joints to open in the state, rye’s flakycrusted fried chicken has garnered local and national attention – including a cover spot on Saveur’s “best Comfort Food” issue in 2013 – but the restaurant also shows off its southern side in dishes like blue crab hush puppies, shrimp and grits and banana cream pie. in 2014, st. Louis restaurateur ben Poremba added to his fleet of restaurants with the opening of Old standard Fried Chicken. Located in a former service station, the southern-influenced eatery serves crispy fried chicken alongside pimento cheese, flaky biscuits and dressed eggs – plus a sizable whiskey selection. byrd & barrel, which took over a former Popeyes Louisiana kitchen in st. Louis this past summer, offers its buttermilk-brined fried chicken by the bucket as well as in more inventive menu items – a fried chickenliver banh mi or the Mother Clucker sandwich with fried chicken, caramelized onions, Provel cheese, hot-pepper jelly and red hot riplets. as popular as fried-chicken concepts have become in the past few years, kansas City is still best-known for one of the south’s other favorites: barbecue. but in a city boasting the highest concentration of barbecue joints in the U.s., it can be hard for a new restaurant to set itself apart – not to mention competing with some of the country’s most storied barbecue spots. enter , which opened in the fall of 2014, bringing a hint of southern flair to the city’s flagship food.

photo of southern eats at char bar by alistair tutton

“We love barbecue itself, and we thought we could do more than that,” co-owner James Westphal says. “We’ve always been passionate about comfort foods, and Southern cuisine is comfort food. It was naturally easy for us to look at the connections between barbecue and Southern cuisine.” Executed under the eye of award-winning pitmaster Mitch Benjamin, Char Bar’s barbecue is prepared Kansas City-style, featuring classics like burnt ends, pulled pork and Black Angus brisket. But unlike most barbecue joints, the restaurant caters to vegetarians, offering items like a grilled pimento cheese sandwich and smoked jackfruit. Char Bar’s Southern side is also accented through dishes like a Kentucky Hot Brown sandwich, lobster deviled eggs, cheesy hush puppies with stone-ground grits and smoked duck gumbo with pickled okra. , which chef Shanita McAfee-Bryant reopened in a larger space in Kansas City in November, offers a similar contemporary take on classic Southern cuisine. The restaurant serves tried-and-true classics such as buttermilk fried chicken, whipped sweet potatoes and gumbo, but also puts its own spin on traditional fare. One of Magnolia’s most famous dishes, the red velvet waffle, was developed when McAfee-Bryant’s oldest son threw cupcake batter onto the waffle iron. Shrimp and grits feature cheesy stone-ground grits and prawns doused in a white wine cream – a tribute to McAfee-Bryant’s love for fettuccine alfredo. “I think Southern is the most complex of regional American cuisine,” McAfeeBryant says. “You have this region of the country that is so rich and diverse – one state over can completely make a difference in how you eat. I think Southern cuisine has a lot to offer – it’s Spanish; it’s French. And you can’t think of Southern food without thinking of Southern hospitality. A meal is such a part of that culture.” That’s certainly something Bryan Maness knows to be true. The chef-owner of the food truck in Columbia, Missouri, spent most of his time growing up in the Ozarks of southern Missouri. When his family, who hail from northern Arkansas, all get together, it’s usually around a dining room table filled with Southern comfort food – or a campfire with a bottle of bourbon. It was during one of these get-togethers, in fact, that Maness, his brother and his uncle conceptualized the idea for Ozark Mountain Biscuit Co., which serves about a dozen biscuit sandwiches as well as sides like fried pimento cheese, simmered greens and hush puppies. The menu and recipes are based on the food Maness’ grandmother Ramona Sue would serve when the family gathered for dinner – collard greens, fried green tomatoes, cornbread baked in an iron skillet and fried okra with pork and a few dashes of hot pepper vinegar. The recipe for the namesake biscuits, loaded with everything from crispy fried catfish, remoulade sauce, pickled red onions and kale slaw to buttermilk fried chicken, sawmill gravy (white gravy with sausage) and an over-easy egg, comes from his great-grandmother Jettie Louise. “I wanted to stay true to my roots and offer food that I know,” Maness says. “For me, that’s Southern food. Consumers are seeking out establishments that feature local and seasonal ingredients, and traditional Southern food is based around these culinary principles. Real Southern food is fresh, seasonal and grown close to home.”

Get a taste of the Southern accents at Magnolia’s in Kansas City in the January episode of Feast TV. 76

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