the
issue 01 / spring 2016
R E I S S IC TY DO
POP UP DINNERS pg. 02
THE SECRET GARDEN pg. 04
made in st. louis
SOUR BEERS pg. 06
FOUNDER + EDITOR
dossier noun | dos·si·er | dôsēˌā a collection of papers about a particular person, event, or subject
JESSICA LEITCH @jessleitch jessicaleitch.com
FOUNDING DESIGNER ABIGAIL ST. CLAIRE @astclaire
COPY EDITOR SARAH OBERMARK
CONTRIBUTORS KRYSTIN ARNESON writer @krystinarneson krystin-arneson.com
BRIDGETTE BASSA writer thereturnofher.wordpress.com
The City Dossier was created out of a desire to share what we see, hear, and know; to be storytellers in a space we feel doesn’t yet exist. This quarterly paper is packed with stories of our neighbors and built to further encourage the community of makers, small business owners, and innovative thinkers living in and around St. Louis. In an attempt to connect with the incredible people in your community outside of the digital realm, we encourage you to sit - to give yourself a timeout - and enjoy this paper filled with lifestyle stories. Within these twelve pages you’ll find city farmers cultivating a budding flower farm in Dutchtown, a husband and wife mixologist duo sharing their passion for fine libations, and a selection of sour beers perfected by local brewers. It’s been a long winter. Let’s celebrate as spring breathes life into the city again!
HANNAH FOLDY photographer @hannahleighimagery hannahleighimagery.com
cheers,
JORDYN GEHRET photographer @jordyngehret
@jessleitch
ZACK GHEVIAK writer @raadstufff
JENNIFER INGLIS writer @heyennui heyennui.com
MATT KILE
@astclaire cover photo by Hannah Foldy
A dossier is a collection of papers about a particular subject. In the case of The City Dossier, we’re collecting the stories of St. Louisans and the clever, inspired, brilliant things they do.
photographer @mattkilephoto mattkile-photographer.com
we support local. all issues are printed at:
CAITLIN METZ
5301 hampton avenue thedonedept.com
illustrator @caitie_metz
THE DONE DEPT. PRINT + DESIGN SHOP
thecitydossier.com // @thecitydossier // #thecitydossier
@STLOUISGRAM
BY JESSICA LEITCH For years Matt and Beth Sorrell have mixed delectable drinks and served them at small in-home cocktail tastings, parties, and events through the bartending service, Cocktails Are Go. Matt’s interest in mixology piqued while writing about the St. Louis food and drink scene for a multitude of local publications. He became a certified member of the US Bartenders Guild, and his wife Beth, a laboratory scientist captivated by the chemistry of mixing drinks, soon followed suit. Together, the husband and wife mixologist duo share their passion for fine libations. Pushing the craft cocktail scene forward with ‘libation education’, the Sorrells can be found at places like The Novel Neighbor, a book store in Webster Groves, and Larder and Cupboard in Maplewood teaching classes from History of Punch to The World of Liqueurs.
@KAM.DEAR
@WHISKEYANDSOBA
As springtime blooms, gin is on our minds due to its distinct botanical flavor. Matt shares a recipe from the Cocktails Are Go repertoire, which pairs perfectly with an evening on the porch watching spring thunderstorms. You can find information about the classes, events, and tastings at cocktails-are-go.com.
cocktail recipe A MOMENT OF ZEN
@JONATHON_MILLS
1.5 oz London dry gin .75 oz Zen lemongrass/spearmint tea syrup* .5 oz Fresh lemon juice 4 drops Bitterman’s Boston Bittahs Sparking Wine Shake all the ingredients except the sparkling wine with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Top with sparkling wine. Garnish with a lemon twist. *Zen lemongrass/spearmint tea syrup 8 0z White sugar 8 oz Water 1 Tazo Zen tea bag
@MOLLYPG
Combine sugar and water in a medium sauce pan on low heat. Once sugar is dissolved, drop in the tea bag and let steep for 15 minutes. Remove from heat, let cool, bottle and refrigerate. Will keep for approximately one month.
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@OLIVIANTHOM
THIS IS NOT A STORY ABOUT THIS IS NOT A RESTAURANT
BY KRYSTIN ARNESON
“This is not a restaurant,” BHive community manager Zach Gzehoviak said about This Is Not A Restaurant. So if it is not a restaurant...what is it?
through constant customer feedback and the scale challenges of cooking for dining rooms instead of just a few loved ones. For local chefs, the opportunity to disregard the rules of their day-to-day expression meant that they could turn inward, reigniting their passion for small-batch recipes that push the norm.
This Is Not a Restaurant is a unique dinner pop-up series at the BHive co-working space, which is also not a restaurant. For many months, dinners at the BHive were relegated to the back burner. After opening last summer, the coworking space gained momentum, and the organizers decided to focus on daytime operations, not dinner parties.
And the local chefs responded with a resounding OHYEAH. Katie Collier cooked eight courses of truly handmade pastas—a week-long prep feat that would be impossible in her restaurant. She compared the experience to having an art show. Chefs Michael and Tara Gallina of Rooster and the Hen showcased the transition from winter to spring in their menu. They used everything a farmer has available: from bone broth to weeds and even smoking pine branches atop a smoked goose breast.
That’s not to say that one-off occasions for fine food did not happen, and that’s also not to say that the owners of BHive were not constantly toying with the idea and kneading it over like pizza dough. They started small and tested the idea with some private dinners. Guest chef Frank McGinty, whose been from Italy to New York to Arthur Clay’s and is now marketing director at Kaldi’s, lead the charge. And that’s when things took off.
Guests only know the menu once they’re seated, and a digital magazine of the dinner goes online a few days after the event. Like a photo album, the magazine contains information about the courses and professional photography of both guests and plates. It’s a nice feature that sneakily works to discourage the use of rampant Instagramming during the intimate, $150 dinner.
The dinner was not anything fancy until it was: it featured elevated St. Louis classics—eight courses of them. Gzehoviak mentioned T-ravs and pizza and said it was absolutely an insane evening. Provel. Everywhere.
In a gastronomic landscape with the art of surprise nonexistent — where everything has been rated on Yelp and exposed to the world on Instagram—This Is Not A Restaurant serves up a gratifying exercise of trust and good food. Chefs are known for what they do, yes, but here they become known again for themselves: for the soul (not the name) behind the food.
From there, one meal begat another and soon, around the end of last fall, there was light chatter about working together to host chefs. The concept needed a name, and Rene Magritte called it what it was: not a restaurant. Next came the chefs. McGinty chatted up well-known names around town, teasing them out of their comfort zones to an alternative chef-ing experience. In the restaurant world, inspiration can wane
You can find This Is Not A Restaurant at definitelynotarestaurant.com and two to three times a month at the BHive at Brennan’s.
2716 CHEROKEE STREET 314.875.0368 SPOKEDBIKES.COM @SPOKEDBIKES
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photograph by Hannah Foldy
the grove
In the central corridor of St. Louis sits the Grove neighborhood with everything from coffee to craft beers. Lining Manchester Avenue from Kingshighway to Vandeventer, the Grove has an array of spots for dancing, grabbing a drink, enjoying dinner, catching a show and more! Among the bustling mix of restaurants, bars, and shops, these twelve stand out as a few of our favorites.
TAHA’A TWISTED TIKI
JUST JOHN
READY ROOM
illustrated by Abigail St. Claire
SWEETIE PIE’S
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the secret garden
BY BRIDGETTE BASSA
In his book The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett writes that, “Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden - in all the places.” At Urban Buds it is that same kind of magic that seems to be pushing flowers from their soil and into the hands of St. Louisans. While this historic plot of land located in Dutchtown is quite magical, the two owners will tell you that magic takes quite a bit of patience and a lot of hard work. Before the hands of Urban Bud’s owners ever touched the property’s soil it was home to a German family in 1870. Bought by Herman Held in 1904, flowers were farmed for various restaurants in the St. Louis area until 1925 when Held opened his own florist shop. It functioned well for three generations but was found vacant and vandalized when the new owners, Mimo and Miranda, discovered it. After purchasing the property and rehabilitating it in 2012, they reopened the flower farm and added chickens and bumblebees. The chickens help fertilize the farm and also control pests. The bees pollinate and create delectable honey. This practice is both organic and sustainable. With almost an acre of land to tend, seventy varietals are grown by hand on site and adopted by local florists throughout the week or collected by the farmer’s market attendees on weekends. Eighty percent of flowers consumed in the U.S. are grown and shipped from overseas, so this makes Urban Buds a rare find. The farm also offers an on-site workshop to educate the community and provides budget-conscious ways for brides to get their bouquet game on. “We want everyone to be able to enjoy
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beautiful flowers no matter their income bracket,” said Miranda, which is how they came up with the idea of the Wedding Bucket. It’s a build-your-own bouquet service where the bride can invite her friends to help create the floral arrangements for the big day. This experience is perfect for the DIYer looking for a creative opportunity to bond with her bridal party. Within the walls of the property there is a greenhouse, raised tunnel, and a field used for growing flowers but Mimo and Miranda haven’t stopped there. Recently, their neighbor offered up her yard as well. Where there was once tall grass and weeds, there are now poppies and tulips. But perhaps our favorite space that Urban Buds recently claimed is outside of its walls. During our visit, Miranda took us to the back alley where the trash and recycling bins were and we witnessed even more flower-growing magic. Along the alley there are flowers tucked into open beds and hops waiting to greet their trellises. What once was an outdoor hallway of old mattresses, broken furniture and debris from garbage is now an invitation to see the world the way it was meant to be seen: life and beauty blooming all around. “This way the community and neighborhood get to really have some kind of contact with agriculture. If we kept everything on the other side of the fence they would have no idea. But this way they get to see the flowers grow,” Miranda noted. The duo’s enthusiasm to share agriculture with their community is contagious as is their shared passion for redemption and restoration. There is great power in taking the unseen and overlooked spaces we pass everyday and helping others to see the beauty that exists there; to be reminded of the magic that surrounds us daily. Urban Buds is doing a remarkable job of photograph by Hannah Foldy helping us all see exactly that. illustrated by Abigail St. Claire
INSTAGRAM AS SHOPKEEP
BY JENNIFER INGLIS
The opportunity to turn a hobby into a viable career is a reality most people dream of, where our creative endeavors are relegated to weekend projects and only shared with those closest to us. However, in an increasingly connected world, social media has made it easier to publicly share our talents. Hidden hobbies can now inspire others and even lead to a business – especially when they involve making something that embodies both function and beauty. Hannah Lehmann understands this better than most people. She purchased a woodworking kit and taught herself how to use it with the help of YouTube. Six months later she started selling handcrafted wooden spoons and cheeseboards; the orders haven’t stopped since. She operates without a website or any marketing, merely posting photos of her work to her Instagram account (@hananahjeanne). That alone has been enough to generate interest, sales, and a shelf at the Westminster Press shop on Cherokee Street. The desire to create using traditional methods of craftsmanship is a growing movement that resonates with our longing for authenticity. Lehmann’s raw and imperfect creations are far removed from mass production. Each item is one-of-a-kind. The uniqueness inherent to each piece of lumber is what draws her to the craft. From naturally occurring wormholes to irregularities in color, every piece of wood has its own set of variations making it entirely distinct. While turning her hobby into a full time career is still a distant thought, she has big ideas for where to go from here. In the future she wants to take on larger projects, experimenting with geometrically configured wall art and furniture. Lehmann’s creations serve a simple purpose, helping to scoop out the grounds for a morning cup of coffee or acting as a place to rest a collection of cheese, but they also represent something more significant: new technology empowering craftsman rather than replacing them.
photograph by Hannah Foldy
color me!
ARTWORK BY @CAITIE_METZ FOR #COLORINGCLUBSTL. A MONTHLY EVENT AT URBAN CHESTNUT BREWING CO. JESSICALEITCH.COM/COLORING-CLUB-STL 05
spring sours BY ZACH GZEHOVIAK It sounds like an obvious thing, but when you order a sour beer, you should expect it to taste, well...sour. On more than a few occasions, I’ve had friends looking to try something different on tap. They proudly pick out a “barrel-aged” something or other with a fun name and begin imagining all the classic tastes of a great beer. Then a tart, citrusy, mouth-puckering, fermented thing they didn’t think they ordered winds up on the bar. What is this, barkeep?? they think. You and your establishment have fooled me! And that’s the sad story of the sour that gets sent back, abandoned and underappreciated. But it doesn’t have to be so: Set out to appreciate a sour! Browse the menu at the brewpub for a little while. Check out the options. Some sours are more acidic and tangy than others; some are more balanced and malty. Whatever you decide, try another after the first one, because no two will be the same. Might I suggest one of these?
UCBC MERCATOR (6.3% ABV): This beer is named after Gerardus Mercator, a Flemish cartographer and mathematician best known for his world map of 1569. According to UCBC, ole Gerardus got around, much like this Flanders Red Ale during its production. The brainchild of UCBC Co-Founder Florian Kuplent, Mercator is a blend of oak aged beer with young, fresh beer. It pours an amber red with a beige head and is an excellent sour for a shellfish meal on a warm spring night. Or better yet, visit the brewery’s Midtown Brewery & Biergarten to pair it with the Smoked Salmon Tartare. PERENNIAL ARTISAN ALES SAVANT BLANC (8.0% ABV): Savant Beersel, an ale aged in red wine barrels, kicked off Perennial’s sour beer program four years ago. One year later the brewery introduced its Savant Blanc, a white wine barrel’s answer to the Beersel. Aged in Chardonnay barrels for five months, this Belgian blonde ale is pretty darn tasty. With a retail price of $40.00 per 750ml bottle, though, it’s also pretty darn pricey. If you’re in the mood for a solid bottle of white wine one night, try picking up this beer from Perennial instead. You might be surprised by how well it goes with grilled cod and a beurre. BOULEVARD BREWING CO. TELL-TALE TART (6.2% ABV): Here’s a delicious beer for those who are new to sours. Tell-Tale Tart is a “slightly sour ale” which means your lips won’t pucker much on the first sip. It’s also a crisp, clean and refreshing beer as a result of Boulevard’s brewhouse souring, a process of lowering the pH during the brewing process. The brewery may be in Kansas City, but you can pick up a six pack at Saint Louis Hop Shop on Cherokee Street. Pair this one with a cheese and charcuterie board–definitely include bleu cheese in the mix.
SCHLAFLY BEER BLACKBERRY SOUR (4.0% ABV): The fruitiest brew of the bunch, Schlafly’s Blackberry Sour is a wheat ale that gets its sour flavor from a culture they’ve developed called “Cosmic Debris”, a blend of lactobacillus and brettanomyces yeasts. The brewery adds blackberry puree before the second fermentation, when it’s aging in Missouri red wine barrels. Find this brew on tap at the Schlafly TapRoom where you can pick up a growler to-go, or enjoy a pint at the bar. For a stellar snack combo, try the Blackberry Sour with some Saint-André triple crème cheese and crackers.
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photograph by Jordyn Gehret
BY ABIGAIL ST. CLAIRE Marginalized artists are in the spotlight at Westminster Press, a storefront and gallery, new to Cherokee Street. Divided into a gallery space and retail shop curated by owners Nicholas Curry and Tucker Pierce, work is sourced from local St. Louis artists. Pieces are selected specifically because they showcase women, people of color, LGBT folks and address issues like disease and disability. Curry and Pierce are graduates of Washington University where they met as roommates. Curry studied Women, Gender, and Sexuality while at university and brings years of retail experience. Pierce studied Printmaking at the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts and takes on the role of artistic director for the space.
BY ABIGAIL ST. CLAIRE Lindenwood Park is home to a handful of friendly local businesses, but none quite so charming as May’s Place, an antique and vintage store located on Ivanhoe Ave.
Provoked by an interest in art that intersects with gender and sexuality, Curry and Pierce started out making prints under the collective name Westminster Press. After introducing prints into the St. Louis community, they received a positive response. “People kept asking us, ‘This is so awesome where can we find this? Why is there no space for this? Where is your location?’” Curry said. A majority of the work may be considered risqué by some for the themes they explore, but the duo quickly realized the need for a space in St. Louis that was inclusive of queer art and set out to create one.
The quaint storefront welcomes those visiting with hand-drawn chalkboard signs and gold foil letters branding the windows. The store itself is filled with copious amounts of vintage treasures--bins of records, antique photos, magazines, kitchen wares, books, clothing, furniture, artwork, and accessories. May’s Place is also home to local makers; offering goods from Flowers and Weeds, Retrailer Tea Company, Hanley Fold Farm, Lonesome Traveler, and lovely handcrafted jewelry from Rebel + Ruse.
Curry and Pierce knew that Cherokee Street was a burgeoning arts district in St. Louis, with galleries like The Beverly, Fort Gondo and The Luminary establishing an arts presence. “It gave us a niche within a community that was already interested in the things that we were interested in. It was really just an ideal space,” said Curry of their decision to open the storefront/gallery on Cherokee Street.
Putting her degree in Fashion Merchandising from Fontbonne University and varied retail experience to use, Conran launched the Blacksheep brand, an online vintage clothing store founded on promoting sustainability through buying second-hand products. Her love of antiques and vintage items extends back as far as she can remember, further encouraged by her fiance, Andy May, and his enthusiasm for collectable heirlooms. In a home filled with various antiques, the thought of a brick and mortar was always in the back of her mind, but the online shop was the focus. “We weren’t actually planning on opening a store,” Conran said, “a space in our neighborhood became available, so we decided to check it out and see. After seeing it, we decided to open it then.”
In February, they opened a show, “Art. Work.” that was centered around craft mediums as a fine art. This show featured the work of four different St. Louis artists: a weaver, ceramicist, printmaker, and fiber artist. The show focused on the movement from traditional mediums to more consumer friendly mediums, and showcased artists who prioritized this in their work. In April, they hosted Metro Trans Umbrella Group’s third annual “Transcending the Spectrum” show. This annual art show is the largest LGBTQ-centered show in the St. Louis area. “It’s a huge honor and really, really humbling to see [the artists] willing to invest in such a new, unestablished business in the community,” Curry said. The exhibition displayed visual art, as well as music performances and spoken word, and featured more than twenty trans and queer artists and performers.
It’s no surprise that Conran and May enjoy the hunt for unique vintage and antique wares. Anytime the duo are on the road they keep and eye out for flea markets and estate sales, sometimes travelling to auctions in search for new treasures to stock the store with. “It is definitely something we have always done, just buying stuff for our house or on Saturday mornings we would hit the streets for yard sales. It is just fun to treasure hunt,” says Conran. You can find May’s Place at 3249 Ivanhoe Avenue, and is open Wednesday through Saturday from 12:00-7:00, and on Sunday from 11:00-4:00.
Westminster Press is located at 3156 Cherokee Street, and is open on Saturday and Sunday from 12:00-4:00, or by appointment. 07
illustrated by Abigail St. Claire
WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY MATT KILE
You know the pop-up restaurant: white tablecloth, wine pairings, dedicated local chef, and manicured atmosphere. Now, forget about the first two and ditch the last as well, add in a pool table, jukebox, and south city dive bar charm, and you can start to understand what is taking place at Ryder’s Tavern at southern tip of Tower Grove South. Cooks from various restaurants in Saint Louis have come to make the small kitchen of this neighborhood bar theirs for a night each week with a burger Friday, taco Tuesday, and sandwich Sunday. These pop-ups all started when Tony Collida, who can also be found cooking at Civil Life, wanted to create a simple burger menu and provide good food for the community at one of his favorite bars on Friday nights. “Burger night is the culmination of my life as a cook,” Collida says after working at nearly twenty restaurants in his career, including The Block and Edgewild. Following quickly behind and in-step with the success of the Burger Friday, two other local chefs, Matthew Allsup and Brandon Busby have taken on Sunday and Tuesday, respectively, with the additions of sandwiches on Sunday and tacos on Tuesday. Allsup’s sandwich menu is build out of the many menus he creates in his free time “as a way of winding down” says the current sous chef of 1111 Mississippi, and previously of Vin de Set.
Making everything from scratch is essential for Allsup. By baking bread, making sauces, and smoking pastrami, he aims to keep his principles of cooking the same while also creating a menu that is interesting and inexpensive. Taco Tuesday at Ryder’s is the creation of Brandon Busby, also the sous chef of The Copper Pig and previously of Shaved Duck, The Dam, and Evangeline’s, to name a few. Busby had been looking to do a white tablecloth sort of pop-up when he was approached about filling the kitchen at Ryder’s. While quickly becoming comfortable with the idea and happy to have the opportunity to create something of his own, Busby launched the taco tuesday menu. His taco menu, echoing the menu of Allsup as well, is made almost entirely from scratch right down to the kimchi for an upcoming addition to the list. Ryder Murphy, the owner of Ryder’s tavern, can be found behind the bar most nights surrounded by the beer signs and neons he has been collecting since high school. Admittedly “not much of a kitchen guy,” Murphy wanted to make use of the kitchen space in the bar and had only one rule for the cooks that come to occupy it; “Keep it simple anddon’t repeat each other.” Of the chefs who are putting food out through the kitchen pass-through window in the corner of the bar Murphy says, “Bring competent people together and get out of their way.”
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RYDER’S TAVERN
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A vibrant entertainment district located in the heart of the central corridor of St. Louis City, the Grove offers everything from tapas to tiki drinks. It is home to international cuisine, LGBT clubs, eclectic shopping, live music, craft beer, coffee, art and nightlife. You’ll find a diverse demographic of St. Louis natives and tourists alike yearning to be where culture and creativity converge. Don’t miss out...get in the Grove!
THEGROVESTL.COM @THEGROVESTL
Our House We’re open the measured moment you need, each day each table arranged in anticipation we wait we rise every morning we assemble ourselves done or undone, we know nothing greater than to bring you inside.
@RISECOFFEESTL 6:30AM - 8PM, MON-SAT 8:00AM - 7PM SUN Rise Coffee welcomes you daily at 4180 Manchester Avenue illustrated by Abigail St. Claire