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Maria Giamportone and Daniel Gonzalez shifted their restaurant plans to St. Louis from Miami. Lucky St. Louis. | MABEL SUEN
[REVIEW]
Round-Trip Ticket Asador Del Sur transports diners to South America with its authentic cuisine Written by
CHERYL BAEHR Asador Del Sur 7322 Manchester Road, Maplewood; 314-802-8587. Wed.-Fri. noon-9 p.m.; Sat. 10 a.m.-9 p.m., Sun. 10 a.m.-8 p.m., Mon. 3-8 p.m. (Closed Tuesdays.)
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bout three years ago, Maria Giamportone and Daniel Gonzalez found themselves in St. Louis and in need of a place to eat. Having come to town from Miami to visit their relatives, the husband and wife wanted to take the family to a traditional South American-style grill — the sort of place that honored their respective Ecuadorian and Uruguayan heritages. They thought it would be easy; such restaurants were common enough in south Florida that they assumed as much about their options in St. Louis. However, to their dismay, they could find nowhere that served the sort of South American feast they wanted to experience with their family. Their disappointment quickly turned into an idea: What if they moved to St. Louis to open such a
NOVEMBER 24-30, 2021
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restaurant themselves? The thought wasn’t entirely out of thin air. For a few years, Giamportone and Gonzalez had been talking about opening a restaurant together, a reentry into the industry for Giamportone, who had owned a spot in Miami twenty years prior. Though she closed up shop and worked in other industries, she often longed to get back to her true passion and found an eager partner in her husband, who loved to grill. t first, iamportone and onzalez assumed their restaurant would be in Miami and were actively scouting locations. However, that trip to St. Louis, and their casual search for storefronts here, led them to Maplewood’s bustling commercial district. They fell in love with the area and the space
— the former Reeds American Table — signed a lease in late 2019 and set out to realize their restaurant dreams. The result, Asador Del Sur, opened in the heart of Maplewood in August of last year, breathing vibrant new life into the storefront that had been dark since Reeds’ closure in mid-2019. Central to Giamportone and Gonzalez’s vision, the restaurant, whose name translates to “southern grill,” is meant to be a transportative experience, not simply a place to eat. They wanted to evoke the feeling of actually being in coastal cuador and ruguay, outfitting the restaurant in serene orange, blond wood, plush tan chairs and a stunning cream-colored marble bar illuminated from underneath. On a dreary afternoon, it felt like
