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[FIRST LOOK]
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Acclaimed chef Ben Grupe’s restaurant, Tempus, opens for dine-in service in the Grove
Written by CHERYL BAEHR
In 2018, chef Ben Grupe took his first steps down a long-dreamedof path toward opening his own restaurant. e left his gig as e ecutive chef at laia, turned his attention away from the prestigious culinary competition world and got to work doing a series of pop-up events, all with an eye to his highly anticipated debut restaurant, Tempus (4730 Manchester Road, 314-349-2878). empus should have welcomed its first guests in arch . owever, the pandemic forced rupe and his team to put the restaurant on hold, then eventually transition to a takeout-only model a yearlong, -degree change from the hospitality and e perience-focused vision of what rupe wanted empus to be. ow, having welcomed guests into dining room for the first time on ovember , rupe is e cited to finally show the t. Louis dining scene what the restaurant is truly capable of being. e’ve waited so long for this and just had to rip the Band-Aid off, says rupe. utting food in a to-go bag and handing it out of a window is a lot different than having a dining room open. escribed by rupe as a chefdriven American restaurant with guest-centric, thoughtful hospitality, empus features a menu of uality, inventive food and cocktails that draw upon rupe’s and his team’s vast culinary and beverage e perience. till, he emphasi es that the empus e perience is meant to be familiar, approachable and comforting with classic avors and recogni able dishes presented in a uni ue way. ogether with his sous chef, ustin Bell, rupe has created a menu of dishes ranging from sea trout with sauerkraut, turnip and buttermilk vin blanc to beef rib with au gratin potatoes, pot roast carrots and cippolini onions. tarters include cro uettes with country ham, olives and sherry vinaigrette and beets with uark, vadouvan granola and salted strawberries, while desserts evoke such comfort food classics as s’mores with gianduja, burnt marshmallow and spruce, as well as apples with whipped cream, brown-butter cake and hyssop. eteran bartender rew Lucido leads the beverage team, and he, too, is eager to move from the togo model to the more personal style of service that he is used to providing for his guests. esigned to seamlessly connect with the food, his drink menu consists of cocktails that might be familiar in concept but different in form, such as a cocktail made with oliveoil-washed vodka with dry vermouth, fino sherry, orange bitters and white verjus that is supposed to evoke a dirty martini a drink that he notes pairs awlessly with the sea trout.
Lucido is also e cited to offer a different take on a wine list, with no regular by-the-glass selections. As he e plains, glass pours will be available, but they will change depending on what he and his team feel like opening and what pairs particularly well with the food on any given day.
Above all, he’s just happy to be able to take care of guests the way that he wants to. hrough all of this, we haven’t changed our core values of what we want the restaurant to be, Lucido says. e are focused on hospitality for our guests and our staff, and that has never changed. hat’s one of the things that has helped pull us through all of this, that we had a united vision between myself, chef and others of what we wanted this to be. hat has allowed us to create what we created. hough rupe and his team hope to eventually open empus for a la carte service, the restaurant is currently offering a three-course dinner that must be reserved in advance. he e perience is per person, plus ta and gratuity for an additional , guests may add on a wine or cocktail pairing a nonalcoholic pairing is available for . rinks will also be available a la carte. verything about empus is designed to bring a sense of what is familiar, crave-able and comforting, said rupe in a statement announcing the opening. igh- uality, inventive food and cocktails, coupled with our commitment to genuine hospitality, thoughtful service, and giving back to the community, is what makes empus uni ue. e want locals to become regulars and special occasion diners to feel right at home, and we are thrilled to finally open our doors and join the growing community of diverse hospitality establishments in t. Louis. n
e dining room at Tempus is open, giving guests a long-awaited taste of what the restaurant was meant to be. | GREG RANNELS
[HOMETOWN]
Sweet Truth
St. Louis is, in fact, the best doughnut city in the country
Written by CHERYL BAEHR
If you’ve ever rounded the bend of hippewa treet near Landsdowne only to jump for joy at the sight of onut rive-In’s neon sign, wandered into lorissant’s ld own onuts at just the moment the apple fritters are being pulled from the oven, or been hurried along by former orld’s air onuts matriarch eggy, in all of her blue eye-shadowed glory, you know one thing t. Louis is the doughnut capital of the nited tates. ossibly the world. Like our dive bars, no one does classic, indie doughnut shops like the ateway to the est. It’s our thing. hat’s why it came as such a shock nay, insult when the online platform ent.com released its list of the Best ities for onut Lovers on ovember and t. Louis failed to crack the top ten. It didn’t even make the top , ceding doughnut superiority to such obvious fried-dough inferiors as c inney, e as the number one spot , rovidence, hode Island, and rlando, lorida. Orlando, Florida? ow, we’re not ones to give much credence to these clickbaity articles designed to drive tra c to websites outside of the everpresent need to create content for our own publication doctor heal thyself , but something about this slight felt viscerally offensive. ur doughnut culture runs deep, weaving through the bi-state region like a sweet, yeasty-scented thread that connects such disparate locales as Affton and t. eters, north county and outh Broadway. In a metro area more often associated with what divides us than what connects us, doughnuts may be the closest thing we have to a unifying force. o be told that empe, Ari ona, has a superior doughnut culture to our storied tradition is simply too much to take. ent.com might argue that it’s rankings are scientific and that the data doesn’t lie. hey took the most populated cities in the . ., tallied up the number of doughnut shops in each of these cities, then calculated the proportion of doughnut shops per density and per capita. , so we are talking purely about volume here, which is likely why the ortheast, where you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a unkin, is so overrepresented in the top ten.
It takes the sting out to know that ent.com is simply looking at uantity and not uality. till, when you are talking about something as sacred as icing-covered fritters, to rely on a strictly data-driven analysis without regard for the intangibles that make doughnuts one of life’s purest joys is pure bunk. e know the truth, and we will celebrate it over a best-in-class old-fashioned buttermilk cake any day of the week. n
ese didn’t even crack the top 50? Seriously? | ANDY PAULISSEN
[GOOD DEEDS]
On a Mission
Mission Taco Joint teams up with nonprofit to raise money for foster children
Written by JENNA JONES
Mission Taco Joint co-owner Adam Tilford completed his family with the adoption of his son, Mateo, and he’s looking to give back once again to an organization close to his family’s heart: the Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition.
The Family First program at Mission Taco Joint (multiple locations including 398 North Euclid Avenue, 314-9302955) donates $1 for each kid’s meal sold. A press release details the coali-
Sales of kids meals at Mission Taco are helping foster kids this month. | COURTESY MISSION TACO
tion works “to create permanency in children’s lives in foster care and works with the most vulnerable kids to get them placed in a forever home.” The program lasts throughout the month of November, coinciding with National Adoption Month. “This is our third year working with Mission Taco Joint for National Adoption Month,” Natasha Leonard, director of external relations at the Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition, says in a statement. “Our partnership keeps developing. This year, Mission Taco Joint is also hosting a party for a group of foster kids and parents at the Kirkwood location’s arcade. Every bit counts in ensuring that these kids and families feel a sense of normalcy and celebration in their lives.”
On November 3, Mission Taco Joint also participated in the nonprofit’s virtual Foster Hope Day, with a fundraiser streamed on Facebook that included raffle prizes. The restaurant offered a catered, ten-person dinner for the raffle and had other prizes each hour that included a home-office makeover, designer handbags and a private jet trip.
You can participate in the program by buying a kid’s meal at any Mission Taco Joint. Kid’s meals cost $5 and can be burritos, chicken fingers, a cheese quesadilla or fish and fries. Donations can be made to the Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition on charidy.com. n
Passing the Torch
Bar Les Freres, Billie Jean and I Frattelini sold; Billie Jean to close
Written by CHERYL BAEHR
In the most stunning, post-pandemic shakeup in the St. Louis restaurant scene to date, restaurateur Zoë Robinson has announced the sale of her acclaimed restaurant portfolio to her friend and local art dealer Susan Barrett. Under Barrett’s new ownership, Robinson’s restaurants Bar Les Freres and I Fratellini will reopen beginning in early 2022 while Billie Jean will close and be rebranded as a new concept. Barrett will also be naming an “accomplished restaurateur partner” to assist her with the restaurants in the coming weeks.
In a release announcing the sale made public on November 10, Robinson discusses her decision to leave her decades-long career in the business and beloved restaurants as one that involved deep re ection.
“Like many in the restaurant industry, I took time to re ect during the pandemic — to evaluate my own personal happiness and growth,” Robinson says. “I’ve been in the restaurant industry for over 30 years, and we were all forced to reinvent ourselves over the last two years. I knew if I ever stepped back from the restaurants, it would require a new owner who would promise to continue the same care and hospitality to our guests. I’ve found that in Susan.”
Robinson began her career in the hospitality industry in the early 1980s, working at and later purchasing the Lafayette Square restaurant Empire. With her keen eye for design and knack for creating stunning spaces ands eclectic menus, she leveraged that success to open the ahead-of-its-time Cafe Zoë, Bobo Noodle House, I Fratellini, Bar Les Freres and Billie Jean, making a name for herself as a trailblazing restaurateur and icon of the city’s food and beverage scene.
Robinson insists that her unique brand is in good hands under Barrett’s leadership, and she is excited to see what the next chapter holds for these special properties. “Susan is an aesthetic expert,” Robinson says. “What she has already done to the design of I Fratellini is beautiful. I would have wanted to refresh the restaurants before we reopened myself, but I would not have been able to do it to Susan’s level. With her acute eye and art collection, each restaurant will be so special and unique. I would be proud to open any restaurant with her vision.”
As for Barrett, she explains that she is honored to carry on Robinson’s legacy and sees her role as balancing a preservation of what the restaurateur has created while pushing the restaurants forward.
“We don’t want to change a lot,” Barrett insists. “We are going to preserve what makes the restaurants so special, what guests have come to love, but interject new excitement into the restaurant spaces. The DNA of the environment that Zoë has created at I Fratellini and Bar Les Freres will continue on,” says Barrett. “We’re just putting on a different lipstick.”
As for the thrilling Billie Jean, which will cease operating in its current form under the new arrangement, no details were given on the concept that will replace it. Information on that, in addition to reopening details for Bar Les Freres and I Fratellini, will be released at a future date. n
Zoë Robinson (pictured) has sold her beloved group of restaurants to art dealer Susan Barrett. | JENNIFER SILVERBERG
[FUNDRAISING]
A Dream Realized
Bakesale to help St. Louis girl receive treatment for rare condition goes online
Written by JENNA JONES
St. Louisans showed up in a big way for ten-year-old Lyla McCarty. When a call to action was put out on social media to help raise money for the girl, who suffers from a rare condition called CRPS, the bakery hosting the fundraiser on November 7 — MADE by Lia (610 Rue St Francois, Florissant; 314551-2383) — had a half-mile-long line all three hours it went on.
And now, there’s another opportunity to help support Lyla.
One of the organizers, influencer Charlie Rocket, announced on his social media that his organization, the Dream Machine, would be helping Lyla launch a website where you can buy her pig cookies if you missed out on the inperson bakery sale. Money raised from online sales will go toward funding her treatment.
“Thank y’all for stepping up with us to help Lyla afford her treatment,” Rocket wrote in an Instagram post. “Her dreams are coming true of having a bakery business. Her website launches Tuesday [November 9]. Step up with us .... Let’s make this dream come true in the biggest way possible!”
CRPS causes Lyla to feel more pain than childbirth or amputation. The treatment is incredibly expensive, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has reported that insurance has declined to cover the expenses three times.
About 5,000 people showed up to the local bakery to support the cause on earlier this month. MADE by Lia had to close through the following Tuesday, in order to restock after the fundraiser.
As of this writing, the GoFundMe for Lyla is still open and is sitting at almost $148,000 of its $150,000 goal. Online orders for her now-famous pig cookies can be placed at lylasdreambakery.com. n
