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From Obama’s Portrait to Ours p.25 / Vincent Price as Foodie p.128 / The Making of the NRA’s Dana Loesch p.96
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66
VOLUME 24 / ISSUE 10
Best Restaurants Top St. Louis spots, from stalwarts to newcomers, fast casual to fine dining
By Jenny Agnew, Bill Burge, Jeannette Cooperman, Pat Eby, Sarah Kloepple, Ann Lemons Pollack, Dave Lowry, George Mahe, Jarrett Medlin, and Emily Wasserman
➝ Eleven Eleven Mississippi’s Créme Custard Napoleon
OCT 2018
/ Women’s Health: Power Workouts, Europarenting & Resilience
From Obama’s Portrait to Ours p.25 / Vincent Price as Foodie p.128 / The Making of the NRA’s Dana Loesch p.96
BEST RESTAURANTS 1 5 0 P L AC E S T H AT M A K E T H E C U T + T H E 2 0 1 8 R E S TA U R AT E U R S O F T H E Y E A R
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This month’s cover image, taken by staff photographer Kevin A. Roberts, showcases the enormous 32-ounce Iowa Premium Black Angus porterhouse at Hamilton’s Urban Steakhouse & Bourbon Bar.
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
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How an early marriage, Bill Clinton’s antics, and 9/11 transformed a sweet young woman into a sleek, insulthurling media star who calls the rest of the media “rat bastards.” By Jeannette Cooperman
October 2018 stlmag.com
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oct18
D E PA R TM E N T S
VOLUME 24 / ISSUE 10
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From the Editor
G
TASTE
51 A New Twist The Jumbo Pretzel Board at Topgolf
G AT E WAY
52 All Hail Ben Poremba’s return to the kitchen generates a resounding chorus of huzzahs.
33 E
33 Right as Rain Brighten a dreary day with your wardrobe.
17 The Supper Club
ELEMENTS
Welcome Neighbor STL helps refugees feel at home in St. Louis.
18 True Blue Bernie Federko reflects on a legendary life. 20 Maize Runner Making the Great Godfrey Maze 22 Flights of Fancy Matt Conrad flies historic planes as a member of the Missouri Wing of the Commemorative Air Force.
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36 Elisha Wrighton The Sh-i creator makes minimalist jewelry in her University City studio. 38 Party Pics Fundación 4’s Flavors of Puerto Rico, UNCF Leaders’ Breakfast
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ANGLES
54
Cinder House Rules Award-winning chef Gerard Craft joins forces with the Four Seasons Hotel.
56 The Cutting Edge David Dresner’s potsticker concept comes to Tower Grove South. 58 Hot Spots Cinder House, Yellowbelly, Bakers & Hale, The Frisco Barroom, and more
RHYTHM
59 Ins, Outs & Almosts Balkan Treat Box, BEAST Butcher & Block, and Grand Tavern are on the near horizon. 60 Firestarter Celeb chef Richard Blais helps create a hot, hip menu at Yellowbelly.
25
First, artist Kehinde Wiley painted Obama—and then he painted St. Louisans.
28 Top 10 Stephen Sondheim, the Best of Missouri Market, Jon Batiste, and more 30 The Radiant Soprano Reviewers gush over Julia Bullock’s voice. She ignores them and gives herself to whatever she’s singing.
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stlmag.com October 2018
128
43
A Proper Portrait
St. Louis Sage
Cleaning House Cheryl Lovell restored order to the St. Louis Housing Authority.
46 Think Again Publisher Ray Hartmann reflects on timely topics across the region, from sports to civic life. 48 Notes from Underground In October 1940, city fathers took a memorable tour: through a tunnel for the River des Peres.
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts, illustration by Britt Spencer
9/10/18 10:32 AM
BJC_US
At BJC, we’re proud of the Best Hospitals rankings we get from U.S. News & World Report:
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#
AMERICA’S BEST HOSPITALS
Barnes-Jewish Hospital
1
#
3 Missouri Baptist Medical Center # 6 Boone Hospital Center
#
IN MISSOURI
1 Barnes-Jewish Hospital # Missouri Baptist Medical Center 2 # Memorial Hospital Belleville 5 #
Barnes-Jewish Hospital
IN ST. LOUIS AREA
AMERICA’S BEST CHILDREN’S HOSPITALS St. Louis Children’s Hospital
1
#
IN MISSOURI
RANKED in all 10 PEDIATRIC SPECIALTIES
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IN ST. LOUIS
But this makes us most proud: Nearly 800,000 patients chose us to make their lives better last year. Learn more about how our hospitals are improving care and delivering superior outcomes at bjc.org/usnews.
Alton Memorial Hospital
Memorial Hospital East
The Rehabilitation Institute
Barnes-Jewish Hospital
Missouri Baptist Medical Center
of St. Louis
Barnes-Jewish St. Peters Hospital
Missouri Baptist Sullivan Hospital
BJC Behavioral Health
Barnes-Jewish West County Hospital
Parkland Health Center
BJC Corporate Health Services
Boone Hospital Center
Parkland Health Center Bonne Terre
BJC Home Care Services
Christian Hospital
Progress West Hospital
BJC Medical Group
Memorial Hospital Belleville
St. Louis Children’s Hospital
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oct18
BROUGHT TO YOU BY
VOLUME 24 / ISSUE 10
EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief Jarrett Medlin Staff Writer Jeannette Cooperman Dining Editor George Mahe Associate Editor Samantha Stevenson Digital Media Manager Steph Zimmerman Contributing Writers Jenny Agnew, Bill Burge, Pat Eby, Byron Kerman, Dave Lowry, Megan Mertz, Ann Lemons Pollack, Jen Roberts, Sarah C. Truckey, and Emily Wasserman ART & PRODUCTION Design Director Tom White Art Director Emily Cramsey Designer Elizabeth Gladney Sales & Marketing Designer Monica Lazalier Production Manager Dave Brickey Staff Photographer Kevin A. Roberts Contributing Photographers & Illustrators Diane Anderson, Matt Marcinkowski, Britt Spencer Stylists Ana Dattilo ADVERTISING Account Executives Chad Beck, Jill Gubin, Brian Haupt, Carrie Mayer, Kim Moore, Liz Schaefer, and Dani Toney Sales & Marketing Coordinator Elaine Hoffmann Digital Advertising Coordinator Blake Hunt MARKETING Director of Special Events Jawana Reid CIRCULATION Circulation Manager Dede Dierkes Circulation Coordinator Teresa Foss BUSINESS Publisher Ray Hartmann Business Manager Carol Struebig
SUBSCRIPTIONS Subscription rate is $19.95 for 12 issues of St. Louis Magazine, six issues of Design STL, and two issues of St. Louis Family. Call 314-918-3000 to place an order or to inform us of a change of address. For corporate and group subscription rates, contact Teresa Foss at 314-918-3030.
What’s your favorite date-night restaurant? “Olive + Oak. Superfriendly staff, outstanding service, and a delicious, inventive menu.” —Tom White, design director “Bar les Fréres, because the French understand seduction. The place feels as storied and artful as a Belle Epoque courtesan.” —Jeannette Cooperman, staff writer “Nine times out of 10, we find ourselves somewhere on The Hill. Lately we have been frequenting Mama’s on The Hill, because the food reminds us of our recent honeymoon to Italy.” —Elizabeth Gladney, designer “Union Loafers. Their mushroom pizza is great, and I can pick up some fresh bread to take home.” —Steph Zimmerman, digital media manager
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ONLINE CALENDAR Call 314-918-3000, or email jmedlin@stlmag.com. (Please include “Online Calendar” in the subject line.) Or submit events at stlmag.com/events/ submit.html. MINGLE To inquire about event photos, email Emily Cramsey at ecramsey@stlmag.com. (Please include “Mingle” in the subject line.) LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Send letters to jmedlin@stlmag.com. MARKETING AND EVENTS For information about special events, contact Jawana Reid at 314-918-3026 or jreid@stlmag.com. ADVERTISING To place an ad, contact Elaine Hoffmann at 314-918-3002 or ehoffmann@stlmag.com. DISTRIBUTION Call Dede Dierkes at 314-918-3006. Subscription Rates: $19.95 for one year. Call for foreign subscription rates. Frequency: Monthly. Single Copies in Office: $5.46. Back Issues: $7.50 by mail (prepaid). Copyright 2018 by St. Louis Magazine LLC. All rights are reserved. Reproduction in part or whole is strictly prohibited without the express written permission of the publisher. Unsolicited manuscripts may be submitted but must be accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. ©2018 by St. Louis Magazine. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 1600 S. Brentwood, Suite 550 St. Louis, MO 63144 314-918-3000 | Fax 314-918-3099 stlmag.com
stlmag.com October 2018
9/10/18 10:32 AM
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oct18
FROM THE EDITOR JARRETT MEDLIN
VOLUME 24 / ISSUE 10
Amuse-Bouche In addition to frequently contributing to SLM, including this month’s cover story, dining writer Emily Wasserman oversees Allez le Food, a lively blog sharing food-related memories. THE FIRST TIME we visited The Frisco Barroom, my wife’s eyes lit up at a familiar menu item: pierogis. Like Frisco coowner Kelley Hall-Barr, whose own family made the filled dumplings in her native northern Michigan, my wife has fond memories of her grandmother and aunt making the Polish delicacy when she was growing up in Chicago. It made us think: Someone should start a restaurant devoted to the humble pierogi. The idea’s not that far-fetched. As dining critic Byron Kerman recently noted, writing about steamed buns at The BAO in Clayton, “Carb-packed pockets are on a roll, with themed eateries devoted to kolaches, potstickers, soup dumplings, and calzones.” All sorts of restaurants dedicated to a single item have sprung up recently. After a decades-long drought, there are now three spots in a 4-mile stretch serving poke, that healthy Hawaiian import. Of course, that’s not to mention more familiar fare, including sausages (Frankly on Cherokee), pizza (Blues Fired Pizza), and fries (Essentially Fries)—all borne on four wheels. In fact, if I were to start a pierogi restaurant, a food truck might be an affordable springboard to a brick-and-mortar space. That was the case for Balkan Treat Box, which is adding its own land-based spot across from Frisco. And Guerrilla Street Food opened its third and fourth locations earlier this year. But there are other affordable ways to roll out a concept. Before opening Vicia, Michael and Tara Gallina hosted a series of pop-up dinners to see how St. Louis might embrace a vegetable-forward eatery. In much the same way, the Gallinas’ former Blue Hill colleague Logan Ely hosted a series of über–progressive underground dinners before opening Savage in Fox Park. And acclaimed chef Rob Connoley has thrown imaginative pop-up dinners
14 FOB_1018.indd 14
The Dish Between the cover story and monthly Taste section, staff photographer Kevin A. Roberts shot no shortage of dishes this month. Among the most memorable? The Jumbo Pretzel Board at Topgolf in Chesterfield (p. 51).
It’s the Great Pumpkin!
in anticipation of his forthcoming forage-focused restaurant, Bulrush. Granted, there are more traditional restaurant themes, including two St. Louis staples: steak and beer. Both can be found at Paul and Wendy Hamilton’s latest Lafayette Square addition (p. 92), which shares space in a onetime machine shop with Charleville Brewing. Hamilton’s is just one fresh approach to an old-school steakhouse: Capital Grille offers elevated dining in Clayton and Carnivore provides a new option on The Hill. As for beer: Just when you thought the region’s brewery scene couldn’t expand any more, it’s grown almost exponentially, with at least a half-dozen brewpubs opening in the past year (not counting the area’s first cidery). If I were to launch a new restaurant, I might seek the advice of an experienced chef—better yet, a high-profile chef who could lend credence to the concept. At the new Angad Arts Hotel, for instance, chef David Burke is opening Grand Tavern. And Top Chef: All-Stars’ Richard Blais recently lent his considerable expertise to Yellowbelly, the cocktail-centric addition to the heart of the CWE. Coincidentally, it was Blais who presented Sidney Street Café’s Kevin Nashan his “Best Chef: Midwest” award at the James Beard Awards last year. Guess what Mr. Nashan served at the gala. Pierogis.
On October 21, chefs and surgeons will go head to head during Pumpkin Wars: Chefs v. Surgeons, a benefit for St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Visit stlmag. com for details.
stlmag.com October 2018
9/10/18 10:33 AM
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TRUE BLUE p.18 MAIZE RUNNER p.20 F L I G H T S O F FA N C Y p.22
GATEWAY
THE SUPPER CLUB TOPIC
A
Welcome Neighbor STL helps refugees feel at home in St. Louis. BY JEN ROBERTS
TEA LIGHTS CAST a soft glow at Meshug-
gah Café, creating a far different atmosphere than during the day, when bright rays stream through the windows of the popular Delmar Loop café. Tables have been pushed together to form one long communal tabletop, with flowers in small vases lending an elegant touch. When the final place setting is laid, Meshuggah owner Jen Kaslow and Welcome Neighbor STL founder Jessica Bueler step back to ensure that everything is ready.
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
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October 2018 stlmag.com
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TOPIC A
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stlmag.com October 2018
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SPORTS
TRUE BLUE
Bernie Federko reflects on a legendary life. Like his induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame, a memoir from Blues great Bernie Federko was long overdue. Bernie Federko: My Blues Note is the story of the legendary center’s life: growing up in his twin brothers’ shadows; seeing The Longest Yard on his first date with his sweetheart, Bernadette; his first game as a pro; his maiden telecast. So how well do you know the Blues legend? 1. The Canadian grew up skating on his hometown’s frozen namesake, Foam Lake. [ True [ False 2. Federko got his start on the ice figure skating. [ True [ False 3. Federko holds the Blues franchise record for the most: A Games played B Assists C Points D All of the above 4. When was Federko’s No. 24 jersey hoisted into the rafters? A February 4, 1989 B January 13, 1990 C March 16, 1991 D December 13, 1995 5. When did he receive the call from the Hall? A 1993 B 1997 C 1999 D 2002
1. False / 2. True / 3. D / 4. C / 5. D
“We started with 50 volunteers. Then we had 100,” Bueler says. “Now we have more than 1,200 people involved.” The group go es b eyond offering services; it builds relationships. There have been picnics with water balloon fights, Thanksgiving potluck dinners, and a Christmas party with an Arabic-speaking Santa. One volunteer has become so close with Altayan’s family that she attends school events in the role of a grandparent. The organization’s Supper Club has also provided a way for refugee women “to earn an income in an environment where they typically couldn’t,” Bueler says. One or more refugee women prepare the dinners, which patrons pay to attend, with all proceeds going to the The first couple arrives. Bueler women and their families. So far, quickly greets them, and Kaslow there have been 27 dinners, raisoffers glasses of wine. More ing more than $41,000 for refuLike a Good guests trickle in, shaking hands gee families. Neighbor and making polite conversaAnd the Supper Club continVisit welcomeneighbor tion. Finally, the kitchen doors ues to grow. Soon, the organizstl.com to find out about open, and the scents of sumac ers plan to cater a wedding. “We upcoming events and and cardamom waft through the are always looking for additional ways to get involved. air. Mawda Altayan and her husevents,” Bueler says. band, Mohi Aldeen Alhomowi, The organization is also plantheir three children in tow, carry in stacked foil ning to recruit more cooks from the refugee containers. Guests take their seats in a shared community. “We are going to start recruiting sense of anticipation. refugee cooks from additional countries other The dinner is just one way in which Welthan only Syria and Iraq,” Bueler says. “I have come Neighbor STL is helping local refugees. been wanting to expand our focus, but the The organization came together organically, organization exploded so fast that we had to in 2016, when Bueler organized a toiletry and work on the logistics and the organizational coat drive. The response was overwhelming, structure.” with volunteers hoping to do more than just As the dinner wraps up and plates of bakdonate goods, so Bueler invited them to join lava are passed down the table, Bueler shares her in distributing the items. a few words about the organization. Altayan The group created a Facebook page and con- then thanks everyone for welcoming her family tinued looking for ways to assist refugees, or to St. Louis. Moving here was very difficult, she “new Americans,” as the group refers to them. says, until she met Bueler. Everyone applauds, Volunteers have helped refugees move into appreciative of their meals and impressed new homes and provided translators for such with Altayan’s English. She stands with her tasks as buying a new cell phone. The ways in family and smiles. which Welcome Neighbor STL helps continue to unfold organically.
A NSWER K EY
G AT E WAY
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
8/29/18 2:47 PM
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G AT E WAY
WARNING: GRAPHIC
Maize Runner Making the Great Godfrey Maze
FOR NEARLY TWO DECADES, the Great Godfrey Maze
has drawn thousands of visitors to Madison County each fall, late August–late October. The family-friendly attraction offers hayrides, a corncrib, and a zipline—but the real draw is the winding course carved in towering cornstalks. —SARAH C. TRUCKEY
The theme for each year’s design is created in house with the Godfrey Parks and Recreation Department. The concept is then sent to a Utah company that puts it on paper.
The corn is planted in late April and eventually grows to 8 feet tall. The maze is then cut in a pattern spanning 7 acres.
Maze employees help keep track of visitors from both the ground and a lookout tower. Maze-goers are also given flags that they can raise if they find themselves in distress. And, of course, the staff does a final walkthrough at the end of each evening to find any stragglers or stranded adventurers.
At the end of the season, the corn is cut and harvested by a local farmer, and all profits are returned to the Godfrey Department of Parks and Recreation.
FYI:
20
The parks department mows the dead stalks to finalize the pattern and trims any growth over the next few months.
With the design touches finalized and the corn a foot tall, the company comes in June to mark the pattern through the stalks, which are then sprayed with herbicide to prepare them for clearing. The work is all done by hand, with a map—there’s no GPS involved.
Visitors are given maps, but “the whole idea is to get lost,” says Strubhart. “All roads lead back home, but unless you have a good sense of direction, you’re going to get lost.”
This year’s theme is “Welcome to the Jungle,” inspired by the Jumanji reboot. The design features vines, animals (parrot, snake, monkey, rhino, and elephant), and the word “Godfrey.” Visitors are challenged to find their ways through the pattern’s twists and turns.
The switchbacks around the elephant’s tusk alone can take upward of 20 minutes to navigate, says parks and rec director Todd Strubhart.
There are two versions of the maze: a shorter family-friendly version that can take a determined person as little as 10 minutes to conquer and a longer version that requires at least a half hour.
The Great Godfrey Maze is open through October 28: 6–10 p.m. Fridays, 11 a.m.–10 p.m. Saturdays, and 1 p.m.–dusk on Sundays. Admission is $6 for adults, $4 for kids, and free for ages 5 and under.
stlmag.com October 2018
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October 2018 stlmag.com
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G AT E WAY
INSIDE INFO
Flights of Fancy
■ Since age 3, when my uncle took me up in his airplane, I knew I wanted to fly. He flew B-17 bombers in World War II. In the ’70s, he moved to a community in central Missouri where you can build a house and hangar on an airstrip. My family often visited.
Hazelwood native Matt Conrad flies historic planes with the Commemorative Air Force.
■ When I fly in the air show, it’s exhilarating. I get to fly low and fast and show off the airplane’s capabilities. Flying fast down the runway and pulling up fast after simulating a bomb run is a blast.
■ I would go out in the hangar and sit in the airplane for what seemed like hours, waiting for him to come out the door and say, “Let’s go!”
■ We have an incredible group of mechanics who are passionate about keeping these historical aircraft flying. These airplanes have systems, such as the engines, that are very different than [those of] today’s aircraft.
■ I started flying in college, in 1985. I had always wanted to get my pilot’s license and found an opportunity while attending Southeast Missouri State University. ■ The most challenging part of flying is keeping the knowledge and practice current in a dynamic, regulatory-intensive industry. You must be prepared to get the latest information and put it to use. ■ For the Spirit of St. Louis Air Show, I’ll be doing low passes and simulated bomb runs on a target with a World War II mediumrange bomber, the North American B-25, which we call ShowMe. It was built in 1944 in Kansas City.
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“The most rewarding part of flying is being able to give someone an experience they’ve never had before.”
stlmag.com October 2018
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■ It was the type of aircraft made famous by the Doolittle Raiders. They took 16 of these aircraft off an aircraft carrier on a one-way mission to mainland Japan.
■ Taking World War II veterans for rides in this airplane—that they haven’t seen since the end of the war—is a thrill I will never forget. ■ It is a privilege and an honor to take care of these airplanes, flown by heroes in this country. —AS TOLD
TO SARAH C. TRUCKEY
LOOK OUT! See Conrad maneuver a 1944 B-25 bomber at the Spirit of St. Louis Air Show & STEM Expo, October 13 & 14.
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
8/29/18 2:47 PM
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23 8/31/18 12:09 PM
STL Mag 1-2pg Oct 2018.pdf 1 8/9/2018 3:53:08 PM
CATERING
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8/31/18 8:50 AM
TOP 10 EVENTS p.28 SOPRANO JULIA BULLOCK p.30 R O C K I N ' T H AT V O T E p.31
RHYTHM
PRELUDE
A PROPER PORTRAIT First, artist Kehinde Wiley painted Obama—and then he painted St. Louisans. BY JEANNETTE COOPERMAN
Kehinde Wiley, American, born 1977, After Sir Joshua Reynolds’ “Portrait of Doctor Samuel Johnson," 2009, archival inkjet print on Hahnemühle fine art paper; 30 × 24.5 inches; courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, California. © Kehinde Wiley
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RHYTHM PRELUDE
BEHIND THE CANVAS This artist surprises you.
N A NEW exhibit at the Saint Louis Art Museum, a guy from St. Louis will be presented to the world as the god Mercury and a woman as the Archbishop of York. Artist Kehinde Wiley likes to borrow the iconography of power and hand it to people he meets on the streets. Most recently famous for his portrait of President Barack Obama backed by gentle foliage, Wiley usually works in the reverse, taking people who have zero power and placing them in the poses of wealth and grandeur favored by artists of previous centuries. He started in Harlem, and he’s since pulled off the same trick in other countries, posing residents of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and the streets of Mumbai and Senegal as powerful figures in their countries’ traditions. When he came to St. Louis last June, he first wandered through SLAM and selected portraits. Sir Joshua Reynolds’ 1764 portrait of the Archbishop of York; Jusepe de Ribera’s “Saint Jerome Hearing the Trumpet of the Last Judgment”; Francesco Salviati’s “Portrait of a Florentine Nobleman” ... Wiley especially liked the American gallery, where he chose Robert Ingersoll Aitken’s bronze “Tired Mercury.” Then he walked the streets of Ferguson and North St. Louis, looking around with the same careful, decisive eye. When he saw a face whose beauty moved him, he stopped to talk to its owner.
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FYI The free exhibit runs through February 10 in galleries 249 and 250.
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SLAM curators Simon Kelly and Hannah Klemm watched quietly, impressed by his easy warmth, his ability to engage anyone. Soon he’d be juxtaposing their lives with those of kings and queens, statesmen and saints. The next day, the models he’d gathered showed up at SLAM’s improvised photo studio to pose with various paintings. Wiley intuitively paired, placed, and rearranged until he had the references he’d need to go back to New York and paint. (He was so impressed with a 17th-century Dutch portrait of Charles I, he used it twice, assigning the king’s assertive majesty to a man and a woman.) Opening October 19, the exhibit spotlights 11 of Wiley’s St. Louis portraits, thinly painted but lush, the canvases huge and their colors vivid, the background patterns decorative but important. “For me, part of the attraction of his work is the complexity of ideas that underlie it,” says Simon Kelly, curator of modern and contemporary art. “He sees his art as encouraging inclusion and as using art history for a wider social goal.” Wiley presses the Old Masters into service to talk about slavery; he asks people whose countries were colonized to pose as the makers of empire. By challenging old power structures with a symbolic visual language, he’s challenging us to see what’s been missing from art history—and from history itself.
In 2015, Wiley received a Medal of Arts from the U.S. Department of State: “I brought my mother as my date,” he says with a grin. His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Denver Art Museum, Walker Art Center, and many other haute institutions. It also appears in the Fox drama Empire. His portrait of President Barack Obama hangs in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. Like Obama, Wiley had an African father who was here only as a student; he then absented himself from his son’s life and formed a second family back in Nigeria. Wiley’s St. Louis project is a departure in several ways: After his early portraits of young black men, he did An Economy of Grace, all black women. Here, he mixed the sexes, choosing 10 women and five men. He also chose a German Expressionist painting far more recent and abstract than his usual references. And though he’s famous for quoting from art history, the St. Louis collection includes a double portrait inspired by its real-life subjects.
Photography by Tony Powell, courtesy of Art in Embassies, U.S. Department of State. Courtesy of the Artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles.
8/31/18 11:55 AM
get away from the noise
Compose Your Own Series Familiar Classics. Blockbuster Films. Iconic Artists. A CELEBRATION OF
FAMILY CONCERT
OCT 5-6 OCT 14
Its Opening Act in Song and Symphony
OCT 7
OCT 27-28
OCT 19-21 OCT 26
BELL
PHOTO: NATHAN JOHNSON
PERFORMS BRUCH NOV 23-25
AN EVENING WITH
NOV 2-4
LESLIE ODOM, JR. DEC 2
BUY & SELL RARE, USED & OUT-OF-PRINT BOOKS
Choose 3 or more and SAVE up to 20%* 314-534-1700 slso.org/cyo
*Excludes Boxes, Orchestra Right Front and prior sales. Discount available for performances purchased in the same transaction. NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS Presentation licensed by Disney Concerts © All Rights Reserved
October 2018 stlmag.com
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RHYTHM AGENDA
Oct 10 THINGS TO DO
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
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Musical theater icon Stephen Sondheim, who created the music for such classics as Into the Woods and West Side Story, accepts the 2018 St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates. October 4. The Sheldon Concert Hall, alumni.slu.edu.
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GroveFest celebrates the ever-evolving Manchester strip with street performers, live music, food and drink from area restaurants and a community paint-bynumber mural. October 6. The Grove, thegrovestl.com.
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Elton John's farewell tour rolls into St. Louis, where the Rocket Man will perform some of the greatest hits from his storied career. October 30. Enterprise Center, ticketmaster.com.
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Craft lovers, kids, and pups come together at the historic Shaw Art Fair, which brings locally and nationally known artists and vendors to the neighborhood. October 6 & 7. Flora Place, shawstlouis.org.
When Fleetwood Mac comes to town, longtime members Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Stevie Nicks, and Christine McVie will be joined by the band’s newest members, guitarist Mike Campbell (formerly of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers) and Neil Finn (Split Enz, Crowded House). October 20. Enterprise Center, ticketmaster.com.
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The Hill’s STL Square Off Pizza Festival, in which local pizzerias compete to be named purveyor of the best St. Louis– style pizza, returns for its second year. Vote for your favorites and enjoy live music and family activities. October 14. Berra Park, hillstl.org.
You might know Jon Batiste as the bandleader on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, but the New Orleans–bred musician’s soulful vocals and piano playing are worth seeing live. October 20. The Sheldon Concert Hall, thesheldon.org.
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On weekend evenings during Fright Fest, Six Flags turns eerie, complete with haunted attractions, coaster-riding in the dark, and “scare zones.” And who doesn’t get a kick out of Bugs Bunny in a vampire costume? September 28–October 28. Six Flags St. Louis, sixflags.com.
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What sounded like a musical fever dream from unlikely duo Sting and Shaggy spawned a reggaefocused collaborative album, 44/876, and a joint 18-city tour. Must-stream songs include “Don’t Make Me Wait” and “Morning Is Coming.” October 1. The Pageant, thepageant. com.
A tradition for nearly three decades, the Best of Missouri Market showcases some of the finest handmade products our state has to offer, from baked goods to custom jewelry. Enjoy live music and a kids’ craft corner, too. October 5–7. Missouri Botanical Garden, missouri botanicalgarden.org.
stlmag.com October 2018
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pillar.pdf
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THE PLACE YOU CALL HOME HAS A HISTORY.
Open House
225 S. Skinker Blvd. • 314.746.4500 • mohistory.org
Sunday, November 11, 2018
THE SHELDON 2018-2019 SEASON
Tickets on Sale NOW! JON BATISTE DEL MCCOURY BAND DIANNE REEVES HOT RIZE CARRIE NEWCOMER
JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA WITH WYNTON MARSALIS DAVID HALEN ILLPHONICS
LILA DOWNS JULIA BULLOCK SIERRA HULL AND MUCH MORE!
CALL METROTIX AT 314.534.1111 OR VISIT THESHELDON.ORG
October 2018 stlmag.com
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RHYTHM Q&A
HOW DID YOUR YEARS IN ST. LOUIS AFFECT YOU? Opera Theatre’s training program
set a foundation. The Muny Kids taught me to perform. But growing up in such a segregated town had an effect that I wasn’t willing to acknowledge until I left. Being of mixed heritage, I felt a pressure from both the black community and the white community to—I don’t want to say pick alliances, but St. Louis is very much interested in categories. Even choosing to go into classical music instead of jazz or blues, I worried that I was minimizing or marginalizing part of my identity. When I left and started piecing myself together, it was through classical music that I could own my full self—and share it. WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO SING SO BEAUTIFULLY? For me, the goal is never beauty.
My joy in singing is creating a very clean sound, a sound that is flexible, and a freedom in my body, so whatever inspiration comes into my mind can be expressed without hesitation or manipulation. HOW DID YOU LOSE YOUR EARLY INHIBITIONS?
THE RADIANT SOPRANO
Reviewers gush over her voice. She ignores them and gives herself to the music.
J
ULIA BULLOCK’S OFF the grid
with her fiancé (they met at Juilliard), hunting for a wedding site on a remote trail from White Rock to the Rio Grande. She returns our call soon, though; she had to come back to sing in Dr. Atomic at the Santa Fe Opera, because composer John Adams has made her his muse. Luckily, these altitudes haven’t gone to
her head: On October 24, she’ll be home to perform at The Sheldon Concert Hall. The New Yorker called her style “exacting but not fussy, with hardly an unturned phrase,” and Opera News wrote that Bullock sings “right from her soul.” That soul took shape here, in a little house in Webster Groves right along the railroad tracks that divided white from black. She was both. —JEANNETTE COOPERMAN
By grounding myself in my body, so the technique of singing, its controlled inhibitions, liberate my mind. The text is often very complicated, with several layers being communicated at once, and I have to pick the one I think will provide an immediacy so the listener can receive the material quickly and project their own interpretation onto it. I don’t try to micromanage that. IS OPERA UNDERGOING A RESURGENCE, BECOMING HIP? [She sighs.] Yeah, this
issue of, like, relevance. Opera has forever been relevant, because when it is done well and with great intention, it’s one of the most intense experiences of watching other human beings. And we love watching each other—partly, I think, because our behavior is so confusing and hypocritical, and we’re trying to figure that out.
FYI For tickets to Bullock's October 24 gig, visit thesheldon.org.
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Photography by Christian Steiner
8/29/18 2:53 PM
List Maker THE ART OF DEMOCRACY
EARLY IN 2016, Joan Lipkin, founder of That Uppity Theatre Company, read a scary stat: Not even one-third of eligible citizens had voted in that year’s primaries and caucuses, and 93 million hadn’t voted in the 2012 presidential election. “The lethargy around this precious right is maddening,” she fumed. So she started Dance the Vote, determined to bypass the usual bumper sticker rhetoric and let art inspire participation. This year, the choreography will tell the history of voting rights for different populations. “Dance has a way of getting people to think without them even realizing it,” says Ashleyliane Dance Company founder Ashley Tate. Spoken word pieces will address the challenge of holding a unified vision for the country—and recapturing common ideals. “Animating our democracy” is how creative strategist Roseann Weiss puts it, because voting brings a dry civics lesson to life. Sabrina Tyuse, founder of the St. Louis Voter Registration Group, will be on hand to register voters on the spot. (Missouri’s deadline is October 10.) “People have died for the right to vote,” she says. “Women have gone to prison and been beaten.” All that anybody has to do in St. Louis in October is watch some amazing dance, hear a little poetry, and fill out a form. Dance the Vote will be held at the Missouri History Museum on October 6, beginning at 1 p.m. Photography by Anne Taussig
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ELISHA WRIGHTON p.36 MINGLE p.38
ELEMENTS
RAINBOOTS
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TRENDING
Right as Rain
Brighten a dreary day with your wardrobe. BY ANA DATTILO
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
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ELEMENTS TRENDING
Yellow Stutterheim Mosebacke raincoat, $295. Civil Alchemy. Oversized gray turtleneck sweater, $62. Koho. Paige denim, $179. Nordstrom. Gray Ilse Jacobsen rubber boot, $169. Civil Alchemy. Sanctuary jacket, $158. Paisley Boutique. The Billie Jean button-up, $95. Fauxgerty. Corduroy skirt, $32. Paisley Boutique. Yellow Ilse Jacobsen rubber boot, $199. Civil Alchemy. Yellow cotton umbrella, $174. Civil Alchemy. —A.D.
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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
9/10/18 10:40 AM
I T ’ S T I M E TO S H OW O F F Come discover two of the most decorated jewelry designers, just in time for the holidays. ADA M F O S T E R Tr u n k S h o w Friday, Oct. 19th 9:30pm – 5pm Saturday, Oct. 20th 9:30pm – 4pm
AT E L I E R ZO B E L Tr u n k S h o w Thursday, Nov. 8th 9:30pm – 5pm Friday, Nov. 9th 9:30pm – 5pm Saturday, Nov. 10th 9:30pm – 4pm
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October 2018 stlmag.com
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ELEMENTS VOYEUR
Check out Sh-i Jewelry at sh-i.co.
1. Workbench Wrighton bought this workbench shortly after starting her business about five years ago. “When I first started to make jewelry, I ruined the dining table,” she says. “I needed a designated bench.” Although usually covered in divots and burn marks, the workbench “looks great now” after a fresh coat of paint.
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2. Tools Files, pliers, a jeweler’s saw, and other tools line the top of the workbench. “I cut out all of my own shapes,” she says. “I could massorder a bunch of sterlingsilver specific-gauge circles, but I like that every circle is a little different.”
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Simply Stunning
Elisha Wrighton creates the minimalist jewelry line Sh-i out of her U. City studio. 36
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3. Coffee “I am definitely a day drinker,” Wrighton says with a laugh. The busy mom of two loves slow coffee, especially that from nearby Blueprint Coffee. 4. Plants She also loves potted plants, scattered around her sunny studio. “I grew up in Guam, so it was very tropical,” she says. “I like to bring a little bit of life inside. Plants also remind me of my dad, because he gardens year-round.” 5. Style “Most of the things I’m drawn to are black and white and gray—very neutral,” she says of both her clothing and her décor, “but I’m trying to bring in more color. I even got purple pumps the other day!” —MEGAN MERTZ Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
9/10/18 10:40 AM
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Saturday, November 17, 2018
Assistance League of St. Louis celebrates
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Please plan to join us for Dinner, Auction and Fun! Rene Knott Emcee and Auctioneer for more information visit our Website at www.alstl.org
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October 2018 stlmag.com
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ELEMENTS MINGLE
Adam and Jenny Wainwright Pat and Rosanne Mathis, Luis Nola-Villa
Mike Shildt, John Mozeliak
Luke and Lindsey Gregerson, Emily Robinson, Chuck Kuehner
Bud Norris, Hayley Sullivan Kleininger Teran, Nathasha Rangel Michael Wacha, Sarah Hoffman
Jennifer Lyons, Olivia Weaver, Alissa and Kolten Wong
Amy and Rick Powell
SPOTLIGHT
Fundación 4’s Flavors of Puerto Rico
Genesis and Marcell Ozuna
ON JUNE 14, Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina’s Fundación 4 hosted
Flavors of Puerto Rico, a benefit for those affected by Hurricane Maria. Those in attendance at Windows on Washington were treated to dishes by chef Mario Pagán and bid on baseball memorabilia.
UNCF Leaders’ Breakfast
Monica A. Stewart, Octavia Caldwell, Art McCoy, Keegan Jennings
Yadier Molina All-Star catcher, St. Louis Cardinals “I want to thank everyone for their support. I will do everything I can to help the people back home [in Puerto Rico].”
Cedric the Entertainer, Sharita Kyles Wilson
CEDRIC THE ENTERTAINER hosted
UNCF’s 2018 Leaders’ Breakfast on August 6 at Norwood Hills Country Club. KSDK’s Anthony Slaughter served as master of ceremonies, Jennings School District Superintendent Art McCoy delivered the keynote, and Normandy High School students provided the music. Proceeds help provide area students with the resources to attend and finish college.
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Photography by Diane Anderson
8/31/18 10:05 AM
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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION
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8/30/18 2:36 PM
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8/30/18 2:37 PM
Yes, we do things
a little differently.
We’re a women’s college. We are incredibly pet-friendly. We believe that your dreams are achievable. When you hear “no way,” we say “Dream up.” Stephens will give you the tools you need to be the best YOU you can be — the best designer, actor, dancer, teacher, horsewoman, writer, researcher, veterinarian, filmmaker, business owner, leader — the most confident and prepared. Not sure yet who you want to be? That’s OK: We’re here to help you figure out who you are, what you love and what success looks like for you.
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THINK AGAIN B Y R AY H A R T M A N N p.46 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND p.48
ANGLES
Q&A
CLEANING HOUSE Cheryl Lovell restored order to the St. Louis Housing Authority. BY JEANNETTE COOPERMAN
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
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ANGLES Q&A
A
YOUNG MAN LIES back on one of the serpentine benches in the
St. Louis Housing Authority lobby with an infant curled against his chest, sound asleep. Behind him, emblazoned on the wall, is the agency’s mission: “to efficiently build and maintain desirable, affordable housing.” It sounds so simple—yet for so long, it wasn’t being done. When executive director Cheryl Lovell arrived in 1999, SLHA had a score of 14 on a scale of 1 to 100. She shot the agency above the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 60-point flunking mark inside a year, then into the 80s and, for the past five years, the mid-90s. So how does a Vanderbilt-educated civil engineer with a law degree from Saint Louis University turn around a historically corrupt, inept, and wasteful bureaucracy? And what made her bother? What was your first job? Inspector for a power plant. We poured a lot of concrete. Then I became an area engineer, which was a lot of problem-solving. After eight years, I got a little bored, so I went to law school. But sometimes I thought I was not being part of the solution but [instead] part of the problem. So you took a job at the East St. Louis Housing Authority, then came back across the river to SLHA, which at the time was not exactly… Yeah, it was a mess. The mayor was Clarence Harmon, and he’d dismissed the whole board and hired a new one. We just started chipping away, tackling the easy problems first, straightening up the grants and recordkeeping. Then we worked on rent collection and turnover time. And then they started doing physical inspections and we had to get used to their system, because it’s not logical, because it’s HUD. You tore down those awful high-rises and replaced them with much more appealing developments. How’d you find funding? With Hope VI, which doesn’t exist anymore. It transformed Darst-Webbe into what you see now, Blumeyer into Renaissance Place, Cochran into Cambridge Heights. What’s the biggest difference in the new approach? Less density and a mix of incomes so it’s not all public housing. Some of it’s market rate, some of it subsidized, and the units are indistinguish-
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“IF YOU JUST GO IN AND PAINT AND PUT DOWN NEW FLOORING, IT’S LIPSTICK ON A PIG.”
able. Public housing was originally supposed to be “modest design”—no doors on closets, and the apartments weren’t air-conditioned. You even had grant money left over to renovate the rest of the inventory. We used some interesting financing techniques. Once the systems get to be 40 years old, if you just go in and paint and put down new flooring it’s lipstick on a pig. These buildings were built in the ’70s by turnkey developers—the sort of people who later jumped out of windows in Chile. I visited a large building on Forest Park, and 5-gallon buckets hung in the ceiling where the pipes were leaking; they’d come up with a collection system. OK, this one goes first. How’s the Section 8 waiting list these days? Humongous—22,000 families. It hasn’t been open since July 2014. We opened it for one week and got 27,800 applications; we’ve worked our way through 5,000 so far. What assumptions do people make about your clients? That they’re the “welfare woman with 10 kids.” In public housing, the average family size is 2.2 people. About 25 percent get income from Social Security, about 25 percent from SSI [Supplemental Security Income]. Only 7 percent receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which is what people still call welfare. And about 35 percent work. You’re retiring. What will you do? We have a little program now, Ascend Mobility Connection, to locate families with housing vouchers in areas of high opportunity, neighborhoods with less than 10 percent poverty, so the kids can go to a good school. Moving that program along would not only help the families but would [also] make the whole community a little more inclusive. [A slight, rueful smile.] It’s a little closed-minded right now. Online at stlmag.com: Mueller’s inspiration, early challenges, and the snafus she dreads.
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
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October 2018 stlmag.com
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ANGLES
THINK AGAIN B Y R AY H A R T M A N N
AN UNBEARABLE TAX
Why the Zoo just proved the case for charging admission.
W
E HAVE ENOUGH problems in St. Louis without
stooping to use my ideas to fix them. But in the case of something called Proposition Z on the county’s November ballot, the Saint Louis Zoo has ignored that truism. (More on that later.) First things first. Voters in the county will be asked November 6 to approve Proposition Z, a one-eighth of 1 percent sales tax to help operate a satellite facility of our beloved Zoo. The additional $25 million in revenue would help fund a new (and surely worthwhile) conservation breeding campus on 425 acres in North County. There’s so little public information available about this project—even now, just two months before it will appear on the ballot—that we can only speculate about the details. At press time, the Zoo hadn’t even launched a website promoting the measure. I don’t think that’s a result of poor planning.
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The Zoo is unquestionably our town’s most revered institution. It’s rightfully viewed as an unparalleled civic treasure, and it receives unconditional love from people all over the region. So I think the Zoo is counting on Prop Z to pass, because it’s “Z as in Zoo,” and what the Zoo says is good for the Zoo must certainly be good for St. Louis. The details are just details. The smart strategy is to make this a referendum on how much we love the Zoo, bolstered by the mainstream media adulation that’s sure to follow. I will vote no on this proposition but without any desire to lead the charge against it, because it’s hard to imagine the measure’s not passing by a healthy margin. If it did, it would represent quintessentially bad governance— something St. Louis practices with regularity. That bad governance spans four issues: 1. The use of regressive and job-costing sales taxes. 2. Increased taxpayer support for a zoo that is sufficiently well off to forgo tens of millions in annual admission revenues—from people living outside the city and county—because it arrogantly clings to a 20th-century tourism model in the 21st century. 3. A terribly squandered opportunity to promote regionalism by involving the people of St. Charles County—who happen to outnumber the population of the city—in support of a zoo that is as dear to them as it is to everyone else in the region. 4. An unfortunate departure from the central structure of the Metropolitan Zoological Park and Museum District, one of St. Louis’ best and most underrated government initiatives. Through the ZMD, taxpayers provide long-term support to five important cultural institutions, of which the Zoo is just one (albeit by far the largest). The first point is a pretty simple one. Sales taxes are already too high in St. Louis County (more than 10 percent in some jurisdictions). Viewed through a conservative economic prism, a further increase can only hurt commerce (and cost jobs) by putting county businesses at a further competitive disadvantage to St. Charles County and other surrounding jurisdictions. Through a liberal economics prism, sales taxes are the most regressive kind collected by the county, disproportionately hurting lower- and middle-class residents. But even if one assumes, for the sake of argument, that St. Louis County could withstand another sales tax increase, there’s a larger point that transcends politics: The county is facing a budget crisis, and it can’t
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adequately fund such basic government functions as staffing the county jail and supporting the parks, the Health Department, and other vital agencies. Give scarce sales tax dollars to the Zoo? The second point—Zoo admission policies—returns me to the first sentence of this diatribe. As those who follow my work know, I have been screaming for nearly a decade about how stupid it is for the Zoo to allow free admission to tourists (and other non-residents of the ZMD tax district) at a time when admission revenues have become a major source of income for virtually every other zoo in the nation. My point has been consistently clear: The Zoo should always provide free admission to residents from the city and county, who support it with their hard-earned tax dollars, but not to people who don’t support it. Why? Because in 1970, when the ZMD was created, zoo admission fees were chump change around the nation. Today, they are a major sustaining source of revenue for cities large and small, a way to bring in millions from outside one’s region. Conservative estimates indicate that our world-class Zoo could easily charge admission rates that would generate $80– $100 per visit from a family of four for those who enjoy this jewel but don’t support it with their tax dollars. My corollary proposal has been to expand the ZMD to include the surrounding counties that are as much a part of St. Louis as St. Louis itself (especially when the Cardinals win a World Series). Well, guess who’s just adopted the principle that the people who support the Zoo should be entitled to free admission but that all others should pay to enter. Why, it’s the Saint Louis Zoo, which has announced that admission to the new campus would be free to county residents. Isn’t that rich? What happened to all our valiant principles, not to mention the supposed logistical issues of charging admission that have made Zoo officials so adamant about leaving millions of tourist dollars outside its gates? If this new satellite should be supported because we love our free Zoo, then why shouldn’t it be free as well? To be fair, there is precedent: The main zoo already charges for parking, the Children’s Zoo, the train, the carousel, and so forth. But that’s what’s even more outrageous about the “free admission” policy: Not only is this not a free zoo, but also the same city and county residents who support it with more than $20 million in hard-earned property-tax dollars get zero consideration when it comes to those extras. By the way, that disproportionately hurts families with young children, who are most in need of such services. If the Zoo took the same approach that it is proposing for the satellite facility, there would be no need for the sales tax at all. The fee structure would follow a simple principle: Those who support the Zoo (as taxpayers or members) get in free; everyone else pays. That brings us to the corollary idea of involving St. Charles County. In an op-ed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, County Exec-
ZOO ASKEW
Admission costs in 10 other cities CHART DOESN’T REFLECT EVERY PRICE VARIATION AT EACH INSTITUTION.
SLM publisher Ray Hartmann is a panelist on KETC Channel 9’s Donnybrook, which airs at 7 p.m. Thursdays.
utive Steve Ehlmann revealed that the county had offered 450 acres for free and “the $800,000 the county annually receives back from the Regional Parks Tax.” A Zoo spokesman told me, “The St. Charles offer didn’t properly address the Zoo’s priorities with respect to its infrastructure needs and its animal conservation initiatives.” I have no business getting into that argument. But I will say this: Good for Ehlmann, a conservative Republican who proudly disagrees with me on most things. Regionalism can’t be a one-way street. At least he made an effort to get his county involved in supporting the Zoo. Had he been able to do so, perhaps the $7.1 million that two generous donors gave the Zoo to purchase the land could have met some other need. I’ll stand by my argument that people in surrounding counties should join the ZMD, join the Zoo, or pay admission. I realize that option wasn’t being offered (nor would it have been accepted by Zoo officials). But squandering this opportunity to bring St. Charles County under the Zoo’s tent of supporters is troubling. Finally, there’s the ZMD piece of this story, probably the wonkiest. The bottom line is simple: The ZMD represents a wonderful concept, something we should take pride in, as we do our Zoo. Not many communities support their cultural institutions as generously and reliably as we do through the ZMD. We should continue to do so forever. But we should support the ZMD as a district, without regard to the popularity of any particular institution. In fairness, the Zoo is not the first ZMD institution to try raising tax dollars independently; others have attempted the same strategy, without success, on multiple occasions. But that doesn’t make it right. When it comes to public funding, the ZMD should act as a single entity. Conversely, when it comes to serving the public, what St. Louis needs from all of the ZMD members is leadership, vision, and a regionalism that extends beyond their individual noble missions. Starting with the Zoo.
October 2018 stlmag.com
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ANGLES SNAPSHOT BENEATH SKINKER AND ROSEDALE
Notes From Underground In October 1940, city fathers traveled through a tunnel meant to channel the River des Peres— or, as it was known on its bad days, the River de Pew. It seems weird to see politicians in pinstripes touring a sewer tunnel, but this one was remarkable. The cement walls were cast onsite, and the huge pits to hold them were dug almost entirely by hand during the Depression. In 1988, the tunnels were declared a historic landmark, and they’re still considered an engineering wonder; some stretches were dug under rail lines as streetcars clanged overhead. As perfectly designed and mammoth as they are, they still can’t contain the entire off-rush of polluted water, which ends up in the Mississippi, and the open trenches that run through the city aren’t just nasty but also hazardous. So the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District is digging again, this time with the help of a tunnel-boring machine nicknamed Chelsea the Chomper. Crews will start work in 2020. The tunnel will be 9 miles long, stretching from Forest Park to Lemay. And before it’s opened to the river, we’ll surely see city officials taking a grand subterranean tour once again. —STEFENE RUSSELL 48
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Photography by W.C. Persons, courtesy of the Missouri History Museum
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THE DISH
A New Twist Because of their myriad combinations and permutations, charcuterie boards have become one of the most popular sharable items on modern-day restaurant menus. Meats, cheeses, breads, butters, pickles, crudités, pâtés, chutneys, nuts, spreads…There are no rules and no limits. Even the boards themselves show artistry and creativity. At Topgolf, the “eatertainment” complex in Chesterfield, a giant homemade pretzel becomes the chef’s palette, the base for a selection of cheeses, grapes, berries, olives, Genoa salami, prosciutto di Parma, jalapeño sausage, candied pecans, and two sauces—PBR-cheese and Dijon—for dipping and dabbing. With 102 bays on three levels, Topgolf is designed to accommodate parties small and large, and the Jumbo Pretzel Board is the perfect party-starter. 16851 N. Outer 40. —GEORGE MAHE Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
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MAIN COURSE
All Hail
Ben Poremba’s return to the kitchen generates a resounding chorus of huzzahs. BY DAVE LOWRY
last are modestly portioned, save for a whole baked branzino. A single skewer of cubed chicken is tweaked with herbs and nicely scorched on the grill. Lamb meatballs with a smoked tomato sauce World War II.) The are flavored with ras el hanout, a combiroom holds about nation of cardamom, paprika, turmeric… two dozen seats ar- well, basically every spice in the Middle ranged around small East. It provides a flamboyant, spicy bite. tables that only seem Breaded, fried shrimp are served with smaller when plates a chermoula dip comprising garlic, ginger, fenugreek, and lemon juice. It would arrive. Perhaps the mirrored wall is supmake even Styrofoam chips mouthwaposed to evoke a bigtering but is even better on the shrimp, ger space—but it’s rewhich have been flattened and dusted ally just a Jumbotron with paprika and coriander. Plump, sucreflection of sorts. culent grilled scallops are served with a L o c a l a r t i s t Jo r - piquant vinegared salad. (These sweet dan Gaunce’s eye- bivalves are lovely, but a note to The King and all other scallop-selling eatcatching portraits eries: If you can’t offer a quartet of scalof dapperly dressed a n i m a l s i n d i g e - lops for less than $20, consider featurnous to Nor th Africa—a moun- ing some other seafood. Even perfectly ISIT THE BENEVOLENT KING and get your vote in for the weirdprepared, the dish looks skimpy.) tain goat, a fennec fox, a camel, that est animal portrait. (Ours was aforementioned macaque monkey— The fun, however, is in the smaller for the monkey.) This spring, decorate the black walls. plates, appetizers, and salatim (cold A quartet of hungry diners could Ben Poremba opened the Maplewood noshes whose translated name, “salpretty much cover the menu’s expanse. ads,” hardly does them justice). Jben, restaurant in the former Water Street for example, is a dill-flecked puddingspace, expanding a restaurant empire There are roughly half a dozen appetizers, small plates, and dinners each. The like cheese that’s both light and delicate. that already includes Elaia, Olio, Nixta, and Parigi. At the time, he stressed that Use the accompanying spears The Benevolent although the traditional Moroccan cuisine of fennel, dill, and cucumber King of his childhood inspired the menu, riffs to swirl up tasty globs; it’s a 7268 Manchester 314-899-0440 and improvisation could also be expected. remarkable crudité/dip combithebenevolentking. For such a regal name, The King nation. S’men is salted, fermentcom ed butter with a rich, refined is humble. (It’s named in honor of a Dinner Tue–Sat aroma like that of the world’s Moroccan monarch who did much to save the lives of Jews and others during lightest blue cheese. Smeared on rustic bread from Olio’s bakTHE BOTTOM LINE Exotic small plate Moroccan-inspired specialties are served in a clubby setting with great cocktails. ery, it’s a satisfying appetizer. Whole branzino: European bass with chicory, capers, lemon juice, olive oil, and sea salt
V
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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
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M’samen are flaky, crispy, butterybrown flatbreads served with hardboiled eggs. And z’houg is a splendidly spicy sauce of garlic, cilantro, and chilies. (Get acquainted now: Z’houg is the next chimichurri, about to become a culinary hit. Trader Joe’s already carries it.) If you’re a lover of chunky peanut butter, masabacha is going to thrill you. This hummus variation, studded with whole cooked chickpeas and spiked with epazote (the oregano-fennel herb), is both smooth and crunchy. Watchers of food travel shows have seen hosts extolling the delights of tarama from Algeria to Greece. Try The King’s version, called ikra, to see why. The Greeks wouldn't approve of the smoked caviar in it, but this Balkan take, a rosy purée of the eggs and olive oil in a cream cheese consistency, has a lovely smoky aroma. It's a dip of complexity and nuance and, here, and absolute must. Here, it’s an absolute must. The pastry of briouat crunches like the papery husks of Vietnamese eggrolls. It’s rolled into crispy “cigars” and stuffed with spiced sardines in a delectable example of how good these little fish can be. And you must not pass up The King’s desserts. An array of house-made cookies—some with fig filling, others dipped in chocolate—are delightful, but malabi just might become your new favorite final course. The creamy milk custard, with a heady perfume of rosewater, is topped with…well, it’s like frayed rope cotton candy. Weird. Delicious. The best approach to an evening at The King is to come for cocktails and a leisurely amble through these lovely mezze. Those drinks, by the way, are way above average. So, incidentally, is the noise: In decent weather, patio seating offers a more reasonable decibel level and a view of always-entertaining downtown Maplewood. The Benevolent King’s food might not be entirely Moroccan, but it is entirely worthwhile and should become a regular meal for diners along Manchester Road’s increasingly enjoyable souk. Just be prepared for that monkey.
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October 2018 stlmag.com
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FIRST BITE
Cinder House Rules
Gerard Craft joins forces with the Four Seasons Hotel. A FOND LOOK BACK AT NOAH'S ARK If Noah’s Ark did nothing else for St. Louis, it introduced clam chowder to the mainstream. Howard Johnson’s had it years before, but no one seemed to care. The Ark woke us up to the pleasures of creamy shellfish broth. Founders David and John Flavan originally planned the eatery to look like a steamboat. They wanted to have live animals outside, but health regulations put the kibosh on that. Fiberglass animals, they thought, might get swiped. Could they go on the roof? The steamboat became an ark. Opening in the late ’60s, it became a hot spot almost overnight.
THOUGH IT’S TRUE that renowned chefs around
the world have lent their expertise and names to hotel restaurants, the phenomenon is still a rarity in St. Louis. It’s fitting, then, that the city’s most famous chef has partnered with the city’s highest-profile hotel to create Cinder House, which overlooks the Gateway Arch and the Mississippi River from its eighth-floor catbird seat at the Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis. It’s logical that much of the cooking at Cinder House is done at a 14-foot wood hearth, its smoldering embers adding an aromatic char to a 16-ounce Prime ribeye that arrives with a lagniappe of three sauces. Not so obvious is the emphasis on Brazilian dishes, until one realizes that it was Craft’s nanny, Dia, who kickstarted the chef ’s love of food. A paean—a pão de queijo Craft calls Dia’s Cheese Bread—is made with gluten-free tapioca starch and served with cured
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Gerard Craft’s newest restaurant is situated atop the Four Seasons.
ham, whipped lardo, and pickled vegetables so you can build little sandwiches the way Craft used to do. The chef takes such Brazilian staples as feijoada for a spin, cooking each ingredient separately to intensify the flavors, and the open-fire grill adds smoke and intensity to the components in the fish stew, moqueca. Breakfast is traditional, with nods to Brazil. At lunch, Craft eschews the esoteric, opting instead for burgers, tacos, and lobster rolls. Enjoy them outdoors at long banquettes, under the shade of fruit-producing kiwi vines. Inside, the shades of blue and green are reminiscent of the ice caves of the Patagonian Andes. Welcome to the Cinder House dichotomy: very cool and very hot. 999 N. Second. —G.M.
It was prime territory for dates and pre-prom dinners. A lunch buffet brought in business types. At night, an immense salad bar drew more traffic. Four years after opening, it served 400–500 gallons of chowder a week. Cocktail stirrers resembled giraffes; shorter versions served as cocktail picks. In 1979, the restaurant began hosting dinner theater in the Animal Kingdom Room. Three years later, a fire did considerable damage. Within days, the Animal Kingdom Room and The Cage reopened, but the main dining room was unusable for a time. Eventually, things slowed down. Noah’s Ark became Captain Tony’s, which also served as a dance club until 2000. The building was demolished in 2007, but our affection for that clam chowder remains undiminished. —ANN LEMONS POLLACK
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
9/10/18 10:49 AM
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October 2018 stlmag.com
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SECOND HELPING
The Cutting Edge David Dresner’s potsticker concept comes to Tower Grove South. BY BYRON KERMAN
T WOULD BE EASY to call out Crispy
I
Edge for serving entrées that are so darned cute, they push our buttons. Like the Hello Kitty logo or Anne Geddes prints of babies wearing rutabaga costumes, the meals at the Tower Grove South eatery are maybe a little too adorable. But no one really cares. The fastidiously prepared potstickers may be served on tiny plates with complimentary dipping sauces, but the precious daintiness of it all means naught; this joint elevates the humble Chinese appetizer to new heights. The chefs stuff 11 different fillings into almost as many potsticker doughs. They then pan-fry the li'l dough pockets to a satisfyingly chewy char and plate them with 11 different sauce combos. It sounds like the freakishly precise and miniature A perfect work of Oompa-Loompas. There are dinner entrées, too. pies shrunk to the size of pairing: the Matchbox cars. The decadent Whoever’s doing it, the work pays off. One, named From the Sea, conchorizo-date and The Mediterranean lamb potsticker fea- sists of ahi tuna strips beneath a Mediterranean winner is the Apple Pie pottures a parsley-and-fennel dough that not-too-piquant wasabi cucumsticker: apple pie filling inside lamb potstickers. yields to a succulent nugget of lamb. It’s ber salad, garnished with—what cinnamon dough, bathed in served with a cool tzatziki sauce. The traelse?—potstickers. bourbon-caramel sauce. ditional potsticker, with its ginger-porkOrdering can be tricky. How many potNothing makes a diner feel old like a rescabbage filling and citrus ponzu stickers does it take to fill you taurant where dark walls and dim lightglaze, easily outdoes the often up? You can order three of one ing necessitate the use of the flashlight gummy potstickers at many variety and three of another, feature on the iPhone to read the menu. Chinese buffets. Owner David Crispy Edge is indeed one of those. The thinking that a half-dozen Dresner and executive chef Tori potstickers sounds like enough brightest corner is the hydroponic garFoster really show their stuff for a meal. They’re so delicious den, where grow lights make for a lurid with a chorizo-and-date filling that in 10 minutes, your plate is fuchsia glow. It’s hard to imagine that this Crispy Edge tucked into a turmeric-dough 4168 Juniata empty and you’re still hungry. was once the Grand Oak Hill Community potsticker, served with lemon 314-310-3343 Be sure to add sides: couscous, Center, home to summer art camps for crispyedge.com pepper cream sauce. The sauce Dinner Fri & Sat, street corn, or beans and rice, kids and drop-in activities for seniors. functions like a creamy dessert, breakfast and for instance. This dumpling destination is a great offsetting the spice. (Think of a lunch Sat & Sun Dessert is as adorable as a place to take out-of-towners. They bite of spicy Indian food cooled baby porcupine. Single pot- won’t find a spot like this anywhere else, by a sip of mango lassi.) stickers resemble Hostess fruit from Manhattan to Manchuria. THE BOTTOM LINE Pan-fried potstickers with house-made doughs, fillings, and dipping sauces make for a superb night out.
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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
9/10/18 10:49 AM
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October 2018 stlmag.com
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Hot Spots W H AT ’ S N E W A N D N O TA B L E THIS MONTH
1. Cinder House You don’t often hear “spectacular” and “reasonably priced” in the same sentence in the description of a restaurant—especially one located in the Four Seasons and helmed by renowned chef Gerard Craft—but here, the descriptors are apt. 999 N. Second. 2. Yellowbelly Celeb chef Richard Blais consulted on this seafood–and–rum-based spirits concept from the owners of Retreat Gastropub. Expect interesting twists on seafood and innovative takes on traditional surf and turf dishes. 4643 Lindell.
3. Bakers & Hale Located on 6 acres in Godfrey, Illinois, this seed-to-table restaurant by chef Rex Hale and co-owner Kelsi Baker Walden boasts two menus and multiple seating areas. It’s well worth the drive. 7120 Montclaire. 4. Peel Wood Fired Pizza With more than 20 Neapolitan-style pies on the menu, the 280-seat Clayton outpost—the biggest pizza joint in the metro area—also boasts huge salads, wood-fired sandwiches, a substantial beer selection (including 10 Peel Brewing options), and several kinds of paella. 208 S. Meramec.
5. The Frisco Barroom The popularity of this Webster Groves restaurant will persist long after the two patios close for the season. Consider the northern Michigan– inspired dishes, including pierogis and smoked whitefish dip. 8110 Big Bend.
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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
9/10/18 10:50 AM
ON THE BURNER INS, OUTS & ALMOSTS AS OF A LATE-AUGUST PRESS DATE
CLOSINGS
Morning Glory (Vista) 2609 Cherokee, late Oct.
Snax Gastrobar 3500 Watson, Aug. 25
Balkan Treat Box (Stratton’s Cafe) 8103 Big Bend, Nov.
Vista 2609 Cherokee, Aug. 18
Flying Saucer Draught Emporium 900 Spruce, Sept. 26 (announced)
OPENINGS
Bakers & Hale (Rotten Apple) 7120 Montclair, Godfrey, Ill., Aug. 6 EdgeWild (Bull & Bear Grill & Bar) 1071 Route 157, Edwardsville, Ill., Aug. 16 Café St. Louis (Bixby’s) 5700 Lindell, August 18 A Fine Swine BBQ & Pizza (Papa John’s) 3106 Broadway, Mount Vernon, Ill., Aug. 21 Cinder House (Cielo) 999 N. Second, Aug. 21
COMING SOON
Savage 2655 Ann, early Sept. Yellowbelly 4659 Lindell, early Sept. Gringo Tacos + Margaritas + Burgers (Robust) 635 Washington, late Sept. Han-Lao (Camille’s Sidewalk Cafe) 1250 Strassner, late Sept. Espresso Yourself Coffee & Café 5351 Devonshire, Sept.
BEAST Butcher & Block 4156 Manchester, Nov. The Bismark 410 N. Tucker, Nov. Grand Tavern by David Burke 634 N. Grand, Nov. Il Palato (Remy’s Kitchen & Wine Bar) 222 S. Bemiston, Nov. Dao Tien Bistro (SanSai Japanese Grill) 822 Olive, late Oct. Elmwood 2704 Sutton, fall
WANT TO KNOW WHAT’S COOKING IN THE LOCAL FOOD SCENE? Receive our top dining content in your inbox every week
Firenza Pizza (SanSai Japanese Grill) 20 Allen, fall Copia (Elephant Bar) 1085 West County Center, Nov.
RESTAURANT REVIEWS · NEWS · INTERVIEWS
Prados The Meadows at Lake Saint Louis, late fall Kimchi Guys (Drunken Fish) 612 N. Second, Dec. Robata (Bradford’s Pub) 720 Westport Plaza, Dec.
MOVING
Juniper From 360 N. Boyle to 4101 Laclede, early Sept.
SIGN UP FOR ON THE BURNER STLMAG.COM/NEWSLETTERS
October 2018 stlmag.com
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HOT SEAT
How many projects does your company, Trail Blais, do in a year? One or two at most. I’m uncomfortable saying I’m a celebrity chef, but I do a lot of live show work, and I have my own places to watch over, so my time is limited. Yellowbelly is my only outside restaurant now, for this year. It has all my attention. What was it about the concept that attracted you? Mostly the owners, Travis and Tim. If you notice, we all kind of have cool haircuts. We may start a boy band. What did you know about St. Louis before? I’ve done a few small events here. There’s an emerging culinary scene, and local chefs have been winning big awards. I actually handed Kevin Nashan his James Beard Award a year ago. I love the Cardinals but have never been to a game. That’s my way of asking for tickets. What was your first impression? What Travis and Tim are doing at Retreat Gastropub—the food, the cocktails, the graphic design—they were all solid. This isn’t a Gordon Ramsay restaurant nightmare situation. I did not come here to save something; I came here to be a part of something that’s already pretty great.
Firestarter
Celeb chef Richard Blais creates a hot, hip menu at Yellowbelly.
Y
E L L O W B E L LY C O - O W N E R S
Travis Howard and Tim Wiggins tapped esteemed chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author Richard Blais to help with menu development at the restaurant (4643 Lindell), which specializes in California-style seafood and rum-based drinks. Before the opening, the Top Chef: All-Stars winner gave a top-shelf interview. —GEORGE MAHE
Welcome to St. Louis. Was it the Yellowbelly concept, the owners, or the city? Yes! [Laughs.] How exactly did the collaboration with Yellowbelly come about? It was like a blind date that really, really worked out. It didn’t start on Tinder, but I swiped. Wait, do you swipe on Tinder? I’m a married man. Let’s say we connected digitally. Does that sound better?
ONLINE Visit stlmag.com to learn whether toasted ravioli will appear on Yellowbelly’s menu.
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What’s your specialty? I try to bring a new bag of tricks to the table. I’m known as the molecular gastronomist, but who wants to be known as that? Years ago, I’d walk down the streets of New York and people would point at me and say, “Liquid nitrogen dude! Li-quid-ni-tro-GENNN!” It’s, like, I have a name; I’m not just some guy with a cryogenic fluid in his backpack. So will there be molecular gastronomy? [Laughs.] Yes! But all at the service of flavor and the experience. There will be things like sous-vide cooking, too, but the restaurant won’t be a school or science lab. How about foams? Everything that’s old is new again. Maybe foams are ready for a comeback. The word “foam” will not be on the menu, though. We’re past that stage. Talk about the menu. Yellowbelly will not be exclusively seafood. Not to sound Photography courtesy of Richard Blais
9/10/18 10:50 AM
cliché, but we will have a lot of surfand-turf items but not your traditional 6-ounce filet and a lobster tail—but even that might pop up. It’s important to me to use Missouri-raised animals and local farmers. There will also be more vegetables than people might expect. Any menu specifics? Pork belly musubi, which is basically a rice sandwich with seaweed, but ours might have eel sauce. Local corn cooked in lobster butter. A prawnand-pork dumpling. Potatoes cooked in sea-salted water. Things like that. Anchovies. Fish sauce as a component. There’s always going to be a tie to the sea. H ow m u c h t i m e w i l l yo u s p e n d a t Yellowbelly? If you’re a Star Wars fan, you know that Obi-Wan never really died—he’s always there—so I guess I need to work on the hologram Richard Blais… Is your consulting company, Trail Blais, a one-man show? No, chefs from my team are helping open the place and train the kitchen staff. I plan to be in St. Louis periodically—as much as St. Louis wants me. As a consultant, can you enjoy a meal without your head being on a swivel? I can relax, and I really love simple things. That said, my brain is wired with Spidey sense, so I feel I have to be paying attention. I don’t want to miss the energy, good or bad. Where is the national culinary scene heading? In my podcast [Starving for Attention], we discuss a lot of tech innovations. The world is heading toward robots, but right now we’re still at the digital stage, using data to influence certain purchases and ping certain restaurants… As much as I’m a modernist, I appreciate how the flavor of, say, charcoal impacts a dish, so maybe it’ll be robots cooking food over an open grill. Are there any tech-influenced concepts in your head? I love drones. I want to open a doughnut delivery concept called DroNuts that delivers doughnuts via drone. If Travis and Tim like what’s happening at Yellowbelly, maybe we’ll do DroNuts next.
October 2018 stlmag.com
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1415 S. 18th St, St. Louis, MO 63104 314-865-3522 sqwires.com
Banquet Facility and Catering Available.
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SPECIAL PROMOTION
6:00AM
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A BLUES TEAM PHYSICIAN For twenty-two years running, sports medicine specialists at Washington University Orthopedics work hand-in-hand with St. Louis Blues Hockey Club players, coaches and management to keep world-class athletes on the ice and performing at peak efficiency.
TAKING CARE OF PATIENTS Meetings at a Washington University clinic or hospital where they treat non-professional athletes and active people with a variety of sports injuries. By 7:00 a.m. they are seeing patients or in the operating room by 7:30 a.m.
5:30PM PRE-GAME MEETINGS A long day of clinical work finished, they travel to Enterprise Center (formerly Scottrade Center) for a 6:00 p.m. meeting with Blues trainers and management to discuss any new player issues. They then visit injured players to determine if they can play that evening and also consult with injured players from visiting teams.
THE BLUES TEAM PHYSICIANS DESCRIBE THEIR TYPICAL HOME-GAME DAY
6:30PM
WHO ARE THE BLUES TEAM PHYSICIANS?
7:00PM
RICK WRIGHT, M.D. MATTHEW MATAVA, M.D. MATTHEW SMITH, M.D.
When necessary they also later operate on severely injured Blues. Shoulder injuries and separations are common. They may also refer injured players to other
GAME PREP Players take to the ice for warm-ups. The team doctors are rink-side to discuss any problems that might crop up.
PUCK DROP The Washington University sports medicine specialists remain near the bench ready to go on the ice in an emergency. Between periods they meet with trainers and players in the training room to address active issues or injuries.
Washington University specialists, such as hand surgeons, when appropriate. Says Wright: “We have 50 partners who are sub-specialized in every joint of
10:00PM
the body, so we can always get the expertise we need.” In working with professional athletes, he adds, “We learn more about injuries and use that knowledge to take care of our weekend warriors and high school and collegiate athletes that come into our clinics.”
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POST GAME Wright and his colleagues see any injured Blues or visiting players, taking on-site x-rays and referring players to a Washington University oral or plastic surgeon also on site.
9/10/18 10:50 AM
National Leaders in:
treating you like a pro. Be treated like a pro. Every day, team physicians from Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University Orthopedics work to keep the St. Louis Blues healthy and on the ice. This same commitment to excellence is what you can expect when an injury interrupts your life. Team physicians for the St. Louis Blues and you. Learn more about our sports medicine team by calling 314-514-3500.
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restaurant openings in metro St. Louis outpaced closings by about three to one, so logically, the number of restaurants in our biennial Best Restaurants issue has swelled as well—from 50 in 2012 to 150 (in no particular order) in this issue. Go find your favorites: Thanks to our burgeoning culinary scene, the list of places to visit is always growing. OV E R T H E PA S T D E CA D E ,
RESTAU R
Best
PHOTOGRAPHY BY KEVIN A . ROBERTS
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NO. 1–31
The People Behind the Plates MIKE RA N D O LPH
Randolph didn’t get two semifinal nods from the James Beard Awards because of his DJ-ing talents. Dean Martin croons and then Bruce Springsteen wails as diners work through a dozencourse meal at Privado (6665 Delmar). The incongruity’s apt, a metaphor for his distinctive approach, with happily inventive presentations playing on the palate like edible jazz. At his tapas-style Público (6679 Delmar), Latin-American specialties get the same “Let’s try this” treatment. Even the slightly more predictable Half & Half (8135 Maryland, 220 W. Lockwood) monkeys around, with “beermosas” and the like to accompany the enormous blueberry pancakes and bacon-swaddled meatloaf. It’s all great fun, but Randolph’s eateries display some serious cuisine, boldly offered by a guy who isn’t afraid to take chances.
SMALL PLATES FROM PÚBLICO
U RANTS
150 TOP ST. LOUIS SPOTS, FROM STALWARTS TO NEWCOMERS, FAST CASUAL TO FINE DINING
B Y J E N N Y AG N E W, B I L L B U R G E , J E A N N E T T E C O O P E R M A N , PAT E B Y, S A R A H K LO E P P L E , A N N L E M O N S P O L L A C K , D A V E L O W R Y , G E O R G E M A H E , J A R R E T T M E D LOctober I N , A N D2018 E M I Lstlmag.com Y WASSERMAN
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Dishing It Out NO. 41
R I C K LEWIS
HOT FRIED CHICKEN AND SIDES
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If Lewis had never contributed a spoonful of culinary talent to the local scene beyond his fiery Nashville-style fried chicken, it would have established him as one of the city’s most accomplished chefs. But some chefs are overachievers, so Lewis veered off, debuting Grace Meat + Three in The Grove. It’s Sundayafter-church fare: ribs, meatloaf, greens, and, of course, fried chicken. Lewis’ intent is to create the kind of convivial place where communal tables and meals on trays (or in skillets) make it as much a gathering spot as a restaurant. And there are the classic Lewis touches: a turkey leg brined in sweet tea, deviled eggs bedecked with country ham, cathead biscuits. The attention to gourmand-caliber talent is hiding just beneath the “country simple” concept. 4270 Manchester.
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THE NEW ITALIAN
T
he modernization of Italian restaurants has been one of the area’s most dramatic dining evolutions. Checkered tablecloths and “a bottle of red” still thrive, with such time-tested establishments as Dominic’s (5101 Wilson), Il Bel Lago (11631 Olive), Kemoll’s (211 N. Broadway), Bar Italia (13 Maryland Plaza), Lorenzo’s (1933 Edwards), and Peppe’s Apt. 2 (800 S. Geyer) worth return visits. But check the scene at Acero (7266 Manchester), with its sleek wood-andbrick interior and quartino carafes of Italy’s varietals. Or consider Parigi (8025 Bonhomme) and Pastaria (7734 Forsyth), within blocks of each other, the former as swank as any NYC eatery (and with the coolest ceiling ever), the latter a paradise of house-made pastas and stunning cucina rustica. Even the classic Charlie Gitto’s on the Hill (5226 Shaw) recently added a commissary and a mini bakery. Sometimes, the “new” Italian’s a lot like the old. For instance, you can still find cannelloni at Del Pietro’s (1059 S. Big Bend) and Sugo’s (10419 Clayton)—but the hip atmosphere sets these places apart from its predecessors. Other restaurants elevate Italian fare. I Fratellini (7624 Wydown) presents such specialties as braised rabbit ragu with pappardelle. At Cibare Italian Kitchen (777 River City Casino), the oven inferno chars magnificent pizza. And Sardella (7734 Forsyth) has made even simple dinner rolls sensational with black garlic butter. New or old, you'll never run out of ways to enjoy Italian in St. Louis.
FRO M TOP: ACE RO ’S VIBE , CI BAR E ’S BU CATI NI ALL’ AMATRI C IANA, PARIG I’S FAGI OL I NI E GAMBE RINI
LO CAVO R E I
TURN “I make my dinner menu based on what’s growing on the roof,” chef/owner David Kirkland explains of sourcing ingredients from Sally’s Rooftop Garden & Terrace, atop the .ZACK building in Grand Center. Considering vegetables first is a shift for Kirkland, who doesn’t like the term “vegetable-forward” but admits that’s how he now thinks. If zucchini is growing on the roof, for instance, he’ll make noodles of it and serve them under salmon. Before opening Turn, Kirkland says, he was “reactionary to seasons,” describing how he’d default to certain proteins. Now he plans for seasons, thanks to the bounty above him. 3224 Locust.
NO. 21 SUSHI CHEF
BAIKU SUSHI LOUNGE
Though some go for the hip vibe, nigiri aficionados appreciate chef Eliott Harris’ sourcing of fish from Japan. Sushi lovers can’t get enough of the specialty rolls and his first-rate interpretation of the now-trending poke bowl, served with shrimp chips. 3407 Olive.
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NO.
THE FAMILY FAVES How the kid-friendly establishment has evolved
A
C LO C K WISE : KATIE ’S ARTIC HO KE T-RAVS, RO O STER SO UTH G RAND, THE C LOVER AND THE BEE ’S P EARL SUGAR BUBBLE WAF F LE
N O . 3 2 B R E A K F A S T, L U N C H & D I N N E R I N C L A Y T O N
AVENUE
Clayton’s a food mecca—but it’s hard to find a place that serves three squares a day. Enter Avenue, open 7 a.m.–10 p.m. weekdays. The best time to visit? Between 3 and 6 p.m., when happy hour includes half-price beers, $5 wines, and select $3 small plates. 12 N. Meramec.
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T ONE TIME, dining out with the family meant animatronic mice and stuffedcrust pizza. In recent years, however, local restaurateurs have brought a certain sophistication to the kid-friendly establishment. Consider Katie’s Pizza & Pasta Osteria (katiespizzaandpasta.com). There’s modern art on the walls, upbeat music on the speakers, and Cool Hand Luke on the big screen, yet the kids are right at home, with butter noodles so good, Mom and Dad will want to share. Pi Pizzeria (pi-pizza.com) is the same, with a hip atmosphere and craft beers—but a laidback vibe and slices of apple “pi” for dessert. Beyond pizza joints are other lively spots where parents and kids can unwind. The patio at Billy G’s (131 W. Argonne) is a perfect example. Parents will appreciate the alfresco bar and sprawling cabanas; tykes will embrace the kids’ menu and coloring sheets. Three Kings Public House (three kingspub.com), too, offers an extensive beer menu and quality food—and the entrées on the kids’ menu come with a cookie. Then there’s breakfast. Few places are more family-friendly than Rooster (roosterstl.com) where black-and-white roosters drawn by youngsters hang on the walls, and The Shack (eatatshack.com), where the barnwood walls are covered in colorful scribbles. Webster’s The Clover and The Bee (100 W. Lockwood), with its whimsical floral mural, specializes in “food that is fresh, casual, and simple yet sophisticated.” It’s a philosophy that Russell’s on Macklind (5400 Murdoch) echoes with itsfreshly baked sweets and sandwiches. Finally, there are the classics. The Boathouse (6101 Government)—that Forest Park institution where kids obsessively watch the ducks and dogs—has benefited from a recent makeover, courtesy of the Sugarfire Smoke House team. And in its 10th year, the colorful Fountain on Locust (3037 Locust) continues to serve up both ice cream martinis and the $1 World’s Smallest Ice Cream Cone. Many St. Louis restaurants, parents and kids alike can have their dessert and eat it, too.
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Dishing It Out NO. 331
MATT M c GUIRE
“It’s back!” The exultation was tempered by subsequent clarification: This was not a reincarnation of the cherished King Louie run by chef Matt McGuire. Louie aims for the same kind of fine dining in a relaxed atmosphere as his previous place—but with a lower price point that allows neighborhood diners to drop in regularly. Pizzas from a volcanic wood-fired oven, a couple of pasta dishes, polenta with roasted mushrooms— there’s a definite Italian bent to the menu (and the wine list). But roasted chicken, steak, and a stunning bowl of mussels demonstrate the chefs’ adroitness in the kitchen. Little details, such as a crusty focaccia and a superior dessert port selection, add to the selections. Louie’s a perfect fit for the DeMun area: casual, with atmospheric lighting and service that’s refreshingly homey yet expert. 706 DeMun.
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PORK LOIN CHOP WITH GRILLED SHISHITOS
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NO. 341
The People Behind the Plates RO B CO N N O LE Y
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Drop into Grand Center for breakfast at Squatter’s Café any morning—and expect a line. Some diners are there for the sweet potato hash with pork confit or biscuits and gravy with candied bacon. Others come for the jars of yogurt with smooth surprises such as bacon jam and sweet tomato sauce. Still others buy boxes of his handmade artisanal chocolates. Focused on locally sourced seasonal fare, Connoley has quickly made this fun, relaxing place a draw, and now he’s planning to bring the same spirit to Bulrush, a new eatery where foraged ingredients are a constantly changing centerpiece. Few restaurants offer more innovative approaches to dining, from supper classes where your meal is accompanied by lessons on minimizing waste to multicourse “speed dining.” Connoley’s determined to change attitudes—and delight palates. 3524 Washington.
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THE B E ST IN BBQ
FROM TOP: SALT + S M O K E SALT + Last fall, Tom Schmidt and SMOKE’S Haley Riley opened a second location, in the former PRIME BRISKET, SUGARMathew’s Kitchen space in FIRE SMOKE St. Louis Hills. There you’ll HOUSE find the same proven menu as the one at the Loop location, with dry-rub smoked wings, trashed ribs, and jalapeño-andcheddar bologna. 6525 Delmar, 5625 Hampton.
PAPPY’S FAM ILY Pappy’s Smokehouse (3106 Olive), that Memphis-style Midtown ’cue joint where the lines are perpetual, started a St. Louis movement. Though the names are different—Bogart’s Smokehouse in Soulard (1627 S. Ninth), Dalie’s Smokehouse in Valley Park (2951 Dougherty Ferry), Adam’s Smokehouse in Clifton Heights (2819 Watson)— the convivial spirit, slow-smoked ribs, and popular pulled pork remain the same.
S U GA R F I R E S M O K E H O U S E There seems to be a theme here: All of these barbecue joints are expanding—and none faster than Sugarfire Smoke House. With six metro area locations, it has branched out well beyond St. Louis, opening five more spots, from Colorado to Indiana. As owner Mike Johnson noted late last year, when he announced plans to expand, “There are so many great barbecue restaurants here, and they all seem pretty busy.” sugarfiresmokehouse.com.
BEAST CR AFT B B Q CO. Food & Wine named it the Best BBQ in Illinois— and soon it will have an outpost in Missouri, BEAST Butcher & Block in The Grove (4156 Manchester), where pitmaster David Sandusky will continue serving up such crowd-pleasers as wagyu brisket and Duroc pork steak. 20 S. Belt W., Belleville, Illinois. A FIN E SWIN E There’s a reason that this New Baden barbecue joint won SLM’s Best BBQ bracket last June: Pitmaster David Stidham’s competition-winning ’cue is worth the half-hour drive down I-64—or to Mount Vernon, where he recently opened A Fine Swine BBQ & Pizza. 423 W. Hanover, New Baden; 3106 Broadway, Mount Vernon, Illinois.
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LO CAVO R E I
BAKERS & HALE “Definitely worth the trip” is how diners from across the metro region have summed up Kelsi Walden-Baker and Rex Hale’s new “seed-to-table” restaurant on 6 acres in Godfrey, Ill. Two different menus and three dining areas guarantee different tastes and experiences, from tacos and burgers to a Zephyr squash “steak.” Don’t miss the house cocktails, featuring regional spirits and garden garnishes. 7120 Montclaire, Godfrey, Illinois.
N O. 4 4 R E STAU R A N T R E I N V E N T I O N
J. DEVOTI TRAT TORIA & GROCERY
The name explains the concept at chef Anthony Devoti’s former Five Bistro: The same farm-focused, made-in-house fare but offered at a price point that families and weeknight diners can afford. 5100 Daggett.
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NO.
THE WINE-CENTRIC SPOTS
TWISTED TREE 10701 Watson WINE: Of its 100-plus bottles of wine, consider
a Rombauer Chardonnay ($14 by the glass or $55 by the bottle). That’s before you inhale those delicately fried onion rings and a dryaged tenderloin. H A P P Y H O U R : At the bar and on the patio, 3–6 p.m. Tuesday–Friday.
BALABAN’S 1772 Clarkson WINE DINNERS: It’s hard to miss the best wines
when attending Balaban’s monthly wine dinners, which recently featured Cakebread Cellars and Stag’s Leap wines. HAPPY HOUR: “Balabargain” takes place every Monday, when three courses are $25 and corkage fees are waived for purchases from the wine store.
EDGEWILD edgewildwinery.com W I N E C L U B : At Edgewild Restaurant & Win-
ery, Wine Club members receive a bottle of wine every month, which can be picked up or enjoyed at the restaurant sans corkage fee. B E E R C LU B : Want to branch out beyond wine? A membership to the Beer Club at Edgewild Bistro & Tap in Creve Coeur includes 10 percent off food, $1 off beers, and more.
ROBUST 227 N. Lockwood WINE FLIGHTS: This Old Webster establishment is
known for “Robust Factor” descriptors, which help pair wines with such shareable plates as meatballs or lump crab cakes. INSIDER TIP: Flight Night is on Wednesdays, when the restaurant cheekily announces that “the Robust airport is open.” Expect special prices for the retail bottles as well.
HERBIE’S 8100 Maryland WINE LIST: From brut rosé to Malbec, Herbie’s
FROM LEF T: T WISTED T REE ’S SURF & TURF, HERBIE ’S PORK C HO P, E D G EWILD ’S T UNA P O KÉ
list is plentiful, with myriad options by the glass and bottle. Labels range from New Zealand to California to France. HAPPY HOUR: Between 2 and 6 p.m. weekdays, enjoy $5 house reds and whites. CORKAGE FEE: $15
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TRUFFLES 9202 Clayton AWARDS: For the past four years, the Ladue watering hole won the prestigious jury prize award from The World of Fine Wine for its superb wine program, which boasts an astounding 1,800 selections. INSIDER TIP: Free informal wine tastings are held 5–6 p.m. Mondays. Patrons pick their favorite, and it’s then served in the restaurant at cost the following week.
ONE 19 NORTH
SASHA’S WINE BARS + SCARLETT’S WINE BAR
119 N. Kirkwood
sashaswinebar.com, 4253 Laclede
M E N U : Glasses both red and white pair best
S A S H A’ S O N D E M U N : The tablet-based menu
with the restaurant’s menu of Spanish-inspired tapas and flatbreads (especially that delectable bacon jam flatbread). MUSIC: Consider enjoying that glass or bottle on a Friday or Saturday night, when live music’s performed 9 p.m.–midnight. INSIDER TIP: Select bottles are $20 on Mondays.
includes photos of dishes, as well as the lengthy beverage list. SASHA’S ON SHAW: Enjoy nightly happy-hour specials starting at 9 p.m. on the sprawling patio. SCARLETT’S WINE BAR: Former Pig & Pickle ownerchef Ryan Lewis has elevated the menu, with such specials as Crab Cornbread.
VERITAS GATEWAY TO FOOD & WINE
CYRANO’S CAFÉ
15860 Fountain Plaza
603 E. Lockwood
WINE LIST: By-the-glass options change weekly
W I N E L I S T : Twenty glass wines are priced
at this Ellisville eatery. INSIDER TIP: Wine tastings are available 6–8 p.m. nightly, at $7 for a full tasting of at least six wines, perfect for pairing with the signature grilled stuffed trout or with a braising bowl at lunch.
between $7.50 and $9.50—as affordable as any wine bar in town. FOOD MENU: Cyrano’s is one of the few places to offer smaller entrées priced in the mid-teens. INSIDER TIP: The 40-seat private event room is ideal for parties and showers.
N0. 56 SUSHI UPGRADE
NIPP ON TEI
In 2018, the sushi menu at this West County bastion of Asian fusion fare took a quantum leap. Trust Nick Bognar’s omakase offerings and expect what many are calling the finest sushi in the city. 14025 Manchester.
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THE FAST CASUAL JOINTS LO CAVOREI
WINSLOW’S HOME Owning a farm, Winslow's Home is in a unique position, says executive chef Cassy Vires. Working with farmers on the rural Augusta property, Vires can call in a request for a particular herb or vegetable. Beyond growing produce, the farm raises livestock, including cattle and goats. Though Vires cites many of the reasons that chefs typically value local sourcing— the environment, the flavorful ingredients, the chance to support local businesses— still more important to her is ethics: “Local doesn’t mean much if the sourcing isn’t ethical.” 7213 Delmar.
BL K M KT E ATS Burrito-size sushi rolls are the name of the game at this takeout-focused eatery. Sushi lovers flock for the OG Fire roll, made with spicy salmon or tuna and the signature OG Fire sauce. Those poke nachos are just as delicious. 9 S. Vandeventer. H I - P O I NTE D R I VE- I N Under the umbrella of Sugarfire Smoke House, expect big and bold burgers, with specials that’ll have you doing a double-take. The white cheddar mac is a must-get side—and you might even see it topping a burger now and again. 1033 McCausland.
Chicken Adobo are forever favorites, but that Crunchwrap is unlike any fast casual item in town. guerrillastreetfood.com. U NI O N LOA F E R S The Botanical Heights hot spot serves what’s hands down the best bread in town. Consider popping in for lunch, when sandwiches are loaded with high-end ingredients. Giant Neapolitan-style pizzas
take over the dinner menu; we recommend the spinach-bacon variety. 1629 Tower Grove. LO NA’ S LIL EATS Vegan-, vegetarian-, and carnivore-friendly, Lona’s serves up its fan favorite dumplings and build-your-own wraps. Patrons can choose from rice paper, a plate, or flour tortilla and then add proteins, fillers (rice, noodles, greens), and sauces. 2199 California. ’ Z Z A P I Z Z A + SA L A D Oblong pies bake for just two and a half minutes at restaurateur Chris Sommers’ fastcasual chain. We love the Marg, with fresh mozzarella and basil—but the poke bowl salad is among the most popular items. zza-pizza.com. F ROM TOP: B L K M KT EATS ’ O G FI R E , GUER R I L L A ST R EET FO OD
G U E R R I L L A STR E E T FO O D Filipino-inspired fare differs at each outpost (South Grand, Delmar, The Grove, and 2nd Shift Brewery). Flying Pig and
NO. 64 WORTH THE QUIRKINESS
PRIVATE KITCHEN
Guests must reserve a table and order in advance. (The menu’s on Facebook.) The reward is some of the most authentic Shanghai-style Chinese food in town. The owners also operate Soup Dumplings STL next door. 8106 Olive.
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Dishing It Out NO. 65-661
QUI TR AN
Tran is restless, which is good news for St. Louis’ dining scene. He got his start at Mai Lee, then brought great ramen to West County with Nudo House. Now, he’s putting down stakes in the Loop with another outpost. Before opening Nudo House, Tran obsessively studied the ramen-making experience (traveling to apprentice with ramen gurus and finetuning the house broth). He then added other thoughtful touches—an open kitchen, legitimate ingredients, banh mi, house-whipped softserve ice cream—to set it apart. He’s a consistent presence, overseeing preparations and schmoozing with customers. It will be interesting to see how he manages to re-create this wonderful atmosphere at the new location. Given his track record, odds are good that he’ll succeed. 11423 Olive.
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BANH MI PHO DIP SANDWICH
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NO.
HIP HANGOUTS
POLITE SOCIETY 1923 Park DISH: Start with the Confit Chicken Wings, served
with three different sauces, then try the Miso Honey Lacquered Halibut or the Bistro Steak. VIBE: Among the most stylish spots in town, Polite Society is full of antique books, Old World maps, and moody bulb lighting attached to pipework. INSIDER TIP: Lunch is served 11 a.m.–2 p.m. weekdays. The PBLT (the P stands for pork belly) might catch your eye.
1764 PUBLIC HOUSE 39 N. Euclid DISH: We’re still obsessed with those Jumbo
Crawfish Toasted Ravioli, but consider returning for breakfast or brunch, where the Breakfast in Bread serves up sourdough rounds stuffed with crawfish, roasted veggies, or—in slinger fashion—chili and potato hash. All are topped with an over-easy egg. DRINK: The shareable 168-ounce Mondo Mule (served in a double-handled copper mug), perfect for your happy hour gang. I N S I D E R T I P : Sister restaurant Gamlin Whiskey House (236 N. Euclid) has the best selection of dark spirits in town.
NO. 77 SICILIAN SOUL FOOD
PENO
Chef-owner Pepe Kehm operates this neighborhood trattoria, blending Southern Italian family recipes with unexpected flavors. The cozy 25-seater is known for its chalkboard menu of daily specials. 7600 Wydown.
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FROM LEFT: POLITE SOCIETY, NIXTA , THE DARK ROOM’S SWEET BISCUIT
NIXTA
MISSION TACO JOINT
THE DARK ROOM
1621 Tower Grove
missiontacojoint.com
3610 Grandel Square
DISH: Its pulpo (crispy octopus) was the center
V I B E : Each location’s interior incorporates
DISH: The $6 Sweet Biscuit—a salad plate–size,
of attention in a rave writeup in Bon Appétit, which named it one of America’s best new restaurants last year. DRINK: At night, Nixta’s Bar Limón is the place to be—and a mezcal margarita is the drink to order. INSIDER TIP: The restaurant recently began serving brunch 11 a.m.–3 p.m. Sundays, offering such items as churros and huevos motuleños.
über-cool murals, a design concept inspired by San Francisco’s Mission District, the local chain’s namesake. SIDE DISH: We can’t get enough of that off-thecob street corn, tossed in a garlic-lime mayo and queso fresco. You’ll be savoring it by the spoonful. INSIDER TIP: Tacos and tequila shots are $2 after 10 p.m. every night.
fruit-studded, iced version of chef Samantha Pretto’s signature item—is only available at weekend brunch. (And there’s live music on Sundays.) V I B E : Rotating photographic exhibits supplement live music nightly in the small, hip space. INSIDER TIP: The kitchen stays open late, with hours that mirror the live music schedule.
BILLIE-JEAN
RUTH'S CHRIS STEAK HOUSE
7610 Wydown
ruthschris.com
N A M E SA K E : The restaurant was named after
FIRST COURSE: Go old school with a batter-fried
owner Zoë Robinson’s parents, Billie (her mother) and Jean (her father). VIBE: For an elegant speakeasy-style design, different shades of black are used copiously throughout the space. Would you believe it was an all-white frozen yogurt shop before? DISH: After you’ve devoured those unbeatable mahogany-glazed spare ribs as an appetizer, consider the roasted quail, made with a golden raisin, pine nut, and cornbread stuffing.
lobster tail or crabmeat-stuffed mushrooms. MAIN COURSE: The 22-ounce bone-in ribeye and the 16-ounce provide equal meat and equal satisfaction. The three-course Prime Time menu (served 4–6 p.m. daily) offers exceptional value. V I B E : On Friday and Saturday nights, dine and drink on the patio in Clayton, accompanied by live music. INSIDER TIP: The downtown location has reservable tables overlooking the Arch.
HIRO ASIAN KITCHEN
CAFÉ NAPOLI
THE PEACEMAKER LOBSTER & CRAB CO.
1405 Washington
7754 Forsyth
1831 Sidney
DISH: As the temp outside begins to drop, noth-
WINE LIST: Expect a massive tablet-based global
DISH: Its lobster roll is one of the most popular
ing’s more mouthwatering than Hiro’s Big Bowl Ramen.” Made with wheat noodles, the namesake Hiro comes with braised pork belly; the spicy seafood variety’s got shrimp and clams. SPECIAL EVENTS: Be on the lookout for announcements about the restaurant’s pop-up kamayan dinners. INSIDER TIP: Try recently opened sister restaurant Hiro Poké Co., located in The Eatery.
wine list, from Napa faves to rare vintages. INSIDER TIP: Sister restaurant Napoli 2 in West County features excellent fresh pastas and the same tablet-based wine list. HAPPY HOUR: At Bar Napoli, sit at the bar to see revered bartender Han Tran in action. LEGENDARY PATIO: Even on nights when the rest of Clayton is slow, Café Napoli is often busy, especially on the see-and-be-seen patio.
dishes, but if you really feel like digging in, opt for one of the boils (lobster, shrimp, blue crab, or crawfish), available after 4:30 p.m. SIDES: Hushpuppies will disappear from your table faster than the waitstaff can set them down, but the Lobster Frito Pie is the real star. A C C O L A D E S : Chef/owner Kevin Nashan took home a coveted James Beard Award for Best Chef: Midwest in 2017.
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NO. 781
The People Behind the Plates B E N G RU PE
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Who thought a bungalow and dilapidated gas station could become premier side-by-side restaurants? Ben Poremba, the entrepreneur who’s opened eateries all across town. In fact, Poremba got so busy, he turned the spatulas over to Grupe—a good choice, considering the chef has multiple gold medals from the Culinary Olympics and worked in several private clubs’ kitchens, refining his craft. Since joining Elaia, he’s revamped the menu, and his influences are evident: rabbit ravioli, lamb and carrot tartare. Grupe’s not afraid to take chances. Try the tasting menu (with so many courses, you might want to take notes so you can reply coherently when friends ask about it) or the reasonable prix-fixe meals. Odds are good that you won’t recognize more than a few ingredients—and better that you’ll savor them all. 1634 Tower Grove.
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B I R D’S THE WO RD BYR D & BA R R E L Zesty, slightly sweet, and pitch-perfect, the Nugz rule. After a three-day brine in buttermilk, these zaftig chunks, dredged and seasoned, chill in the walk-in before being fried. “It makes for a crispier coating,” says owner Bob Brazell. 3422 S. Jefferson. GAL L AG H E R ’ S Brined overnight and rubbed with spices, Gallagher’s chicken gets dredged in a mix of two flours seasoned with thyme, powdered garlic and onion, salt, pepper, a hint of cayenne, and a few secret ingredients. The finished pieces, fried in soy oil, emerge a deep brown. It’s nirvana from the first nibble. 114 W. Mill, Waterloo. J U NI P E R A 24-hour brine— with citrus, ginger, garlic, salt, and a hit of umami from a hush-hush ingredient—gets
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the chicken party started. “We soak it in buttermilk with hot sauce before the fry,” says chef/owner John Perkins, who then adds baking powder for a bubbly crisp coating and finishes pieces with giant Maldon sea salt flakes. 4101 Laclede. L E M M O NS BY G R BI C Don’t look for traditional fried chicken here. Instead, discover fried chicken schnitzel, a Balkan twist by chef Senada Grbic. A slice of tender chicken breast— pounded thin, brined in buttermilk, rubbed with Vegeta, and coated in flour seasoned with garlic and fresh herbs before being fried—arrives at the table golden brown and inviting. It’s wickedly good. 5800 Gravois. S O U TH E R N Manager Billy Andrews ticks off five stages to chicken perfection: “Brine, rub, flour, sauce, and season. The heat is in the sauces.” Things get more complicated when the heat ramps up. General Tso’s is sweet, with plenty of spiciness. Hot means searing hot, and Cluckin’ Hot goes down screamin’. 3108 Olive.
LO CAVO R E I
BAILEYS’ RESTAURANTS To illustrate the philosophy behind sourcing locally, restaurateur Dave Bailey uses the example of buying a whole animal: One pig might supply burgers at Baileys’ Range, sausage at Bridge, pepperoni at Hugo’s Pizzeria, ham at Rooster, and pulled pork at several restaurants, including L’Acadiane. Working with a local purveyor “helps the flavor of the end product,” he says, and allows chefs to be more creative. Bailey, who also oversees Baileys’ Chocolate Bar and Small Batch, focuses as much on his team as he does on the food. A recent survey, for example, revealed that 60 percent of his employees live in South City. In other words, the city benefits from both his workforce and his restaurants. baileysrestaurants.com.
NO. 91 POTSTICKERS
CRISPY EDGE
With nearly a dozen variations on the menu, owner David Dresner pays serious attention to assembling each style of ’sticker, from dough to filling to sauce to pan-frying that perfect (you guessed it) crispy edge. 4168 Juniata.
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S THE WORLD continues to embrace fast casual restaurants, how are the nicer restaurants across town adapting? We asked some of St. Louis’ stalwarts. Everyone agrees that quality food and service remain hallmarks of fine dining, but chefs’ approaches vary nearly as much as customers’ attire. Sidney Street Café (2000 Sidney) chef/ owner Kevin Nashan believes firmly that people will always appreciate a nice night out. Diners at his Benton Park restaurant are in no hurry, says the James Beard Award– winning chef. “We’ve always said we’re ‘tastefully casual’,” says Frank Kane of Citizen Kane’s Steak House (133 W. Clinton), “so the casual has always been part of who we are.” The restaurant environment still needs to be impeccable, clean, and hospitable, he notes. Customer attire is more casual, and attention spans are shorter, especially when cell phones are involved, says Paul Manno Jr. of Paul Manno’s Cafe (75 Forum Shopping Center). His Chesterfield restaurant doesn’t have a website to make reservations, so he and his staff can interact more with customers. At Annie Gunn’s (16806 Chesterfield Airport) owner Thom Sehnert hasn’t noticed a substantial change. Diners don’t rush (the restaurant figures two and a half hours per party), and customers have remarked on the relatively few cell phones at the tables. The popular menu also remains largely unchanged, except for seasonal specials. New offerings are luring diners to LoRusso’s Cucina (3121 Watson) alongside its signature dishes. Owner Rich LoRusso also removed tablecloths to make the atmosphere feel more casual. At Cardwell’s on the Plaza (94 Plaza Frontenac) the secret to chef-owner Bill Cardwell’s longevity is his ability to consistently provide quality, value, and variety, plus the option “to eat up or eat down—like serving a burger and a $45 lamb entrée to the same table. And I pay my bills.” Credit Café Provencal (427 S. Kirkwood) for introducing many locals to low-priced French wines, garlicky escargots, pull-apart epi bread, and prix fixe dinners. With the French bistro now in its 26th year, co-ownerchef Ed Neill still subscribes to the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach. At Océano Bistro (44 N. Brentwood), guest relations manager Robert Fussner doesn’t feel that the restaurant has changed much, either. Service can make the difference, he says: “Everyone ought to feel like they’re the most important person in the room.” A fixture since 1962, The Tenderloin Room (232 Kingshighway) is another spot
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with a timeless menu. F ROM TOP: THE TENDERDino Karagiannis’ family has owned the steaks-and- LO IN RO O M’S P EP P ERLO IN chops restaurant since the À , LA TENDERbeginning. Hotel restauLO IN, ANNIE rants have historically G UNN’S been more laidback about dress, but the casual trend makes it even more acceptable now, he says. Steve Komorek of Trattoria Marcella (3600 Watson) says the South City restaurant has added happy hour, with a special menu and discounted drinks, which is drawing more diners from the neighborhood. At The Crossing (7823 Forsyth), owner/chef Jim Fiala sticks with the tried-and-true. The cheese soufflé appetizer, for example, is a favorite, and regulars and traveling businesspeople account for a good chunk of the clientele. Even as the menu evolves, he adds, the atmosphere and service should remain consistent.
Asked about changes at Tony’s (410 Market), Vince Bommarito Sr. sighs: “We don’t have a firm dress code anymore. We used to have some jackets we’d loan guys, but no more.” (The Tony’s menu is available at Anthony’s Bar downstairs, providing a more casual option.) “We’re here to serve the people, and we want them to be happy,” he says. “You’ve got to change with the times.”
N0. 104 HAPPY HOUR MENU
FIVE STAR BURGERS
Every day (yes, including Saturdays), 4–6 p.m., Five Star offers ridiculously good deals: $1.50 sliders, mini burgers, and fries; half-price drafts; and $3.50 glasses of house wines. We’ll toast to that. 8125 Maryland, 11621 Olive.
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Dishing It Out NO. 105-1091
LOD GIN G HOSPITALIT Y MAN AGEMEN T
So you think all corporations are crass, soulless, and bland? Check out the Cheshire Inn, with a cozy-cool trio of local eateries: Basso (7036 Clayton), tucked in the basement; the swank Boundary, upstairs; and the classic Fox & Hounds. Play bocce or soccerstyle pool at Westport Social (910 Westport Plaza) and soothe your loss with a hoppy Elysian Space Dust beer. Find a spot to relax on the deck of Three Sixty (1 S. Broadway), with sunset panoramas that can be improved only by an Old Fashioned. Lodging Hospitality Management runs all of these hip dining-anddrinking spots. Bob and Steve O’Loughlin not only upped the region’s dining entertainment but are also working on the aquarium at Union Station. Almost makes you rethink corporate modalities, right?
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THE SLEEK INTERIOR AT BOUNDARY
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THE NEW CLASSICS
BAR LES FRÈRES
FARMHAUS
7637 Wydown
3257 Ivanhoe
It’s all about amour at Bar Les Frères. The Clayton restaurant's low-lit red-walled interior makes it the perfect backdrop for a romantic date. All the dishes have a certain je ne sais quoi, but don’t miss the hors d’oeuvres. The potato blinis, served with crème fraîche and caviar, will have you falling in love all over again.
A constantly evolving menu means there’s always something fresh at Farmhaus. Chef Kevin Willmann has made a name for his creative dishes, such as the nachos with bacon lardons and the Ozark Forest mushroom salad. Entrées include a dry-aged New York strip or Gulf fish the chef caught himself. Dishes change seasonally, highlighting the best available ingredients throughout the year. Diners may order à la carte, but consider opting for the tasting menu instead.
BRASSERIE BY NICHE 4580 Laclede Gerard Craft’s French-inspired CWE restaurant, with its authentic interior and classic fare, transports diners to Paris. A menu du jour offers a traditional meal with a starter (gazpacho or a salad), protein (mussels or braised chicken), and dessert (Floating Island or chocolate mousse). Pair your meal with some wine (yes, there are plenty of by-the-bottle French options) or a cocktail (perhaps the Rêve de Provence or Parisian). Look for the chalkboard outlining the daily drink specials.
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STONE SOUP COTTAGE 5809 Highway N As we noted when the restaurant opened, in 2009, “Stone Soup is a very special place.” Named SLM’s 2010 Restaurant of the Year, the Cottleville restaurant still requires reservations months in advance for its six-course prix-fixe menu. Before dinner, enjoy champagne on the sprawling patio, wander down to the growing fields, and guess what was just picked for dinner.
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THE BLOCK
PRASINO
146 W. Lockwood
1520 S. Fifth, St. Charles
A meat lover’s paradise, the Webster Groves restaurant doubles as a butcher shop, complete with a case of local cuts near the door. Don’t miss happy hour, 5–7 p.m. weekdays, when the restaurant offers such affordable starters as house-made crispy pork rinds, the Potted Pig (confit of pork and sweet apple–and–raisin chutney), and Amish chicken wings. The bacon is some of the best in town, and the bacon jam is addictive.
Executive chef Tony Marchetto loves knowing a tomato’s story when he’s “putting a knife through it,” he says. He values the relationships developed with a dozen different purveyors and with his customers, calling the process a circle. The restaurant’s staff volunteers at the farms to become familiar with the products, and the farmers dine at the St. Charles restaurant. A twist on nachos is just one example of a dish developed around locally grown shiso (Japanese mint) leaves. Ahi tuna, avocado, cucumber, and Fresno chilies rest atop tempura-battered shiso leaves, replacing the run-of-the-mill chips served at many other restaurants.
ELEMENT 1419 Carroll
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Walking into Element, housed in a former warehouse that now boasts a climbing wall, can be a journey; finding the place requires a bit of navigation and a trip up an elevator. But stepping off that elevator is like entering a new world of thoughtfully made American cuisine. Enjoy dinner and a drink on one of two terraces, offering beautiful sunset views of the city.
OLIVE + OAK 102 W. Lockwood The Webster hotspot manages to simultaneously do two things that might seem contradictory: offer an upscale dining experience and make you feel right at home. The eatery is ostensibly a neighborhood spot, with a warm interior and brightly lit bar, but chef Jesse Mendica’s food draws crowds from all over. The menu changes regularly, though some dishes have remained staples, including the blue crab gratin with pretzel bread and beef tenderloin with soft buttered potatoes.
REEDS AMERICAN TABLE 7322 Manchester Maplewood’s become a go-to dining destination, with Reeds among its brightest stars. The restaurant puts inventive spins on classic dishes, drawing international inspiration. Don’t miss the chicken adobo or the pork schnitzel with spicy peach mustard. The wine, beer, and cocktail lists are carefully curated by Alisha Blackwell-Calvert, named a Top 40 Under 40 Tastemaker for 2018 by Wine Spectator.
THE PRESTON 212 N. Kingshighway Executive chef Gunter Weber takes bold chances with such inventive dishes as Deep Fried Deviled Eggs with smoked trout roe and Coffee Rubbed Petit Filet with queso fresco arepa. Though the small plates are the stars, don’t miss the cocktails, including the Goodnight, Mr. Preston, which pays homage to The Chase restaurant’s namesake architect.
SCAPE 48 Maryland Plaza Snag a seat on the back patio for dinner beneath the glimmering string lights. The menu gives equal weight to land and sea: The stars are a dry-aged pork porterhouse and lobster pappardelle. And though dinner is noteworthy, don’t miss brunch. The CWE eatery offers a Bloody Mary bar and such dishes as cream-filled beignets and buttermilk-fried chicken and waffles.
THE TAVERN KITCHEN & BAR 392 N. Euclid, 2961 Dougherty Ferry SLM’s 2011 Restaurant of the Year serves up a seafood-heavy menu accented with vegetables from local farms. Tasting boards allow diners to sample meat, seafood, or a combination. Credit the Tavern with introducing ahi poke to many St. Louisans.
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PANGEA
This New Town newcomer rivals any in our region in terms of creativity, quality, and taste, as evidenced by such dishes as the Duck Grilled Cheese. No Menu Mondays and Kids Eat Free Wednesdays keep ’em coming back. 3245 Rue Royale, St. Charles.
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J O H N BA R R A N D K E L LEY HA LL-BA R R
THE FISHERMAN’S BOARD WITH A CIVIL ALCHEMY AVIATION
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Real estate was John Barr’s thing. Then he got involved in wife Kelley Hall-Barr’s candle business—so opening a restaurant was the obvious next step. (Or, more accurately, opening a barroom: John Barr. Barroom. Get it?) The idea was to have a little dive with some snacks. Things got out of hand. The Frisco Barroom is a 250-seat eatery with a separate bar, a dining room, an incredible patio, and a private upstairs dining space and comfy lounge. It’s all low-key and relaxed but with an upscale ambience. The menu’s all over the place: sandwiches, many stuffed with house-cured meats; burgers; wings; potato pierogis; smoked whitefish dip. The bar is like a well-stocked, well–run factory, turning out excellent cocktails. The rooftop seating offers views that will make you happy to live here. But John and Kelley, one question: Where are the candles? 8110 Big Bend.
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RE STAU RA N T R.I.P.S.
We mourn the departures but celebrate the alternatives.
A . MILAGRO MODERN MEXICAN
Last meal served: March 24, 2018 Why (we think) it closed: Even the glasshalf-full owners admitted that Milagro “is an amazing restaurant in a terrible location,” adding that after eight years, people still had a hard time finding it. Why we’ll miss it: Milagro offered sophisticated takes on Mexican cuisine and a beverage program to match. Where to go instead/now: Milagro may still relocate. In the meantime, head to Nixta for Instagram-worthy fare that pushes the creative envelope.
B. REMY’S KITCHEN & WINE BAR
Last meal served: December 31, 2017 Why (we think) it closed: A slow decline in business, possibly a result of the departure of chef Lisa Slay, a 20-year Remy’s vet. Why we’ll miss it: Slay’s menu of American and Mediterranean dishes was predictable but solid. Where to go instead/now: Owner Tim Mallett’s other restaurant, the underrated Big Sky Café in Webster Groves, offers a similar wine list and affordable fare.
C. RANDOLFI’S ITALIAN KITCHEN
Last meal served: September 2, 2017 Why (we think) it closed: It was perceived as a special-occasion restaurant but lacked the high check average, as evidenced when customers would order a few beers and split
a signature Neapolitan pizza. Why we’ll miss it: Many people thought Randolfi’s had the best fresh pasta around, available in two sizes (initially, anyway). Where to go instead/now: No other place in town combines old-school Italian décor with such excellent food. Acero, the highly rated restaurant in Maplewood, comes the closest.
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D. BIXBY’S
Last meal served: December 31, 2017 Why (we think) it closed: The Butler’s Pantry’s five-year foodservice contract for the space, inside the Missouri History Museum, expired, and it opted not to renew the lease. Why we’ll miss it: Bixby’s Sunday brunch was one of the best in town. Same goes for its elevated view of Forest Park. Where to go instead/now: Café St. Louis opened there in August. The renovated Boathouse and Panorama (inside the Saint Louis Art Museum) are also nearby.
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E . THE LIBERTINE
Last meal served: January 6, 2018 Why (we think) it closed: After a succession of chefs (each with a different culinary outlook), the owner decided to pass on a new five-year lease. Why we’ll miss it: The creative cocktails were arguably the best in Clayton. Where to go instead/now: Nowhere nearby can match the vibe, but rum-focused Yellowbelly in the CWE will likely become one of the city’s hip gathering places. EI
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CAFÉ OSAGE Before becoming Café Osage’s executive chef, Scott Davis made a practice of working closely with farmers. Like many chefs, he’d tell a farmer what he wanted while planning his menu. These days, though, with onsite gardens at Café Osage and the bounty of Bowood Farms in Clarksville, the situation is reversed. “Whatever’s ready is what I get,” he says. If massive amounts of vegetables ripen at the same time, he finds a way to work them into dishes so he can continue “to showcase the summer harvest in the wintertime.” That means chickpea toast spread with roasted eggplant and pesto, topped with heirloom tomatoes, squash, and freshly grown herbs, for now; then expect stewed chard from the hoop house and something pickled or preserved for that cold January day. 4605 Olive.
THE CAPITAL GRILLE You might not be able to tell from the tailored atmosphere, but The Capital Grille in Clayton is one of more than 50 locations around the country. In an elegant atmosphere, dry-aged steaks pair well with such scrumptious sides as lobster mac and Parmesan-crusted French fries. The experience is high-end and formal, yet inviting instead of stuffy. 101 S. Hanley. 801 CHOPHOUSE & 801 FISH The Iowa-based chain prides itself on serving top-notch steak and seafood. 801 Chop has a killer deal on Sundays, when a three-course prixfixe meal’s only $36. And look no further for fresh oysters and fried Ipswich clams than 801 Fish. 137 Carondelet Plaza, 172 Carondelet Plaza.
SHAKE SHACK At founder Danny Meyer’s hometown outpost of the New York fast food chain, expect those famous flat-grilled burgers and crinkle-cut fries, plus such locally inspired items as a Provel burger and a gooey butter cake concrete. 60 N. Euclid. TEXAS DE BRAZIL Nothing’s understated about Missouri’s first outpost of the popular churrascaria chain. Crimson walls, wrought-iron chandeliers, and a gargantuan silk flower centerpiece are focal points. Yet the décor doesn’t outshine the food from Brazilian picanha to the feijoada. 1137 Saint Louis Galleria. WEBER GRILL RESTAURANT Besides those unbeatable pretzel rolls and grillfired burgers, the restaurant delights with its Weber Grill Academy. The CLOCKWISE: cooking and teaching facil801 FISH, ity offers two-hour classes PLATE FROM (think Grilling Backyard TEXAS DE BRAClassics and Smoking 101) ZIL , CAPITAL and space for private events. GRILLE’S BUR1147 Saint Louis Galleria. RATA SALAD
NO. 131 NEW AMERICAN CHINESE
GOOD FORTUNE
Inside a stylish Botanical Heights space, chef Ryan McDonald puts an inventive spin on Chinese favorites. Crab Rangoon are rolled instead of pinched, and they’re filled with salt cod. Consider ordering from the takeout menu, too. 1641D Tower Grove.
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Don’t take our word for it. Consider USA Today, Esquire, and Bon Appetit instead. They’ve all rated Vicia one of the best new restaurants in the country—with good reason. It’s an experience, one in which the food is just part of the enjoyment. The setting is impressively modern and minimalist; if Bill Gates were Scandinavian, Vicia is what his house might look like. And the service? Impeccable. But it's chef Michael Gallina and wife Tara Gallina who've added the glow with their attention to detail. The pair, alumni of Blue Hill at Stone Barns, specialize in conjuring fabulous dishes from the most ordinary of vegetables: collard greens, polenta tamales, rutabaga carbonara. (Yes, there’s meat, too, but it’s more of an accent than a highlight.) The attention to presentation is marvelous—dishes are inevitably artworks. It’s unquestionably one of the most extraordinary restaurants in the Midwest. 4260 Forest Park.
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SIP & SAVO R
no. 133-141
RETREAT GASTROPUB 6 N. Sarah Can’t find a seat at Yellowbelly? Consider a return visit to Travis Howard and Tim Wiggins’ original CWE spot for craft cocktails. Shining a spotlight on aged spirits and fresh produce, Wiggins whips up such seasonally inspired drinks as the Tan Lines, with chocolate milk–washed tequila, Luxardo Bitter Bianco, ginger, St. George Raspberry, and lime.
FRAZER’S 1811 Pestalozzi Lead bartender Terry Oliver prepares inventive cocktails that match the Soulard mainstay’s whimsical interior. Don’t miss the surfing-inspired Shred the Mar Mar with Southern California/Mexico–themed ingredients, including agave blanco, ancho reyes verde, fenugreek-cumin syrup, fresh lime, and orange bitters.
OLIO 1634 Tower Grove The Botanical Heights hotspot is known for its Mediterranean fare, but the cocktails have their own following. Pull up a seat at the filling station-turned-restaurant’s bar, or snag a seat on the back patio to enjoy a drink. During “Spritz Hour,” some cocktails are $5. Try the crowd favorite Venetian, a pared-down drink with Aperol, Cappelletti or Contratto, and orange.
BLOOD & SAND 1500 St. Charles Now open to the public, the formerly members-only club serves up music- and film-inspired cocktails in swanky digs. The restaurant’s namesake drink, title taken from a 1920s film, is scotch, sweet vermouth, orange juice, and cherry liqueur. Fans of ’90s girl bands will appreciate the Wannabe, a Spice Girls–inspired drink with Rowan’s Creek Bourbon, Cynar, Big O Ginger Liqueur, Amaro Lucano, and bitters.
PLANTER’S HOUSE 1000 Mississippi St. Louis revelers looking for superior cocktails gravitate toward this corner bar in Lafayette Square. The brave of heart might opt for the Cousin Grumpy with Scofflaw gin, Bols Aged Genever, Dolin Dry Vermouth, Aperol, olive bitters, rosemary tincture, and cured meat garnish. The speakeasyvibe Bullock Room is hidden but well worth the search.
SANCTUARIA 4198 Manchester The only thing that could outshine the tapas and the eclectic atmosphere are the myriad cocktails, some of which are seasonally inspired. Check out the 120-plus bourbons to see why Sanctuaria has been named one of America’s Best Bourbon Bars by The Bourbon Review for the past five years.
F ROM TOP: THE TUNNEL VISIO N AND IF SHE CAN’ T DANC E C O C KTAILS AT RETREAT GASTRO P UB, THE TUMBLED C O C KTAIL AT P LANTER ’S HO USE
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CLEVELAND -HEATH
With an efficient–but–easy-going staff, a casual vibe, and stellar comfort food, it’s easy to see why Cleveland-Heath is a popular Edwardsville spot. Must-get items include the pork porterhouse, grass-fed burger, and kale salad. 106 N. Main, Edwardsville, Illinois.
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Craft cocktails are the name of the game at Gerard Craft’s hip, dimly lit CWE bar. The drink menu includes citrus and tiki-inspired drinks. Trust the bartender’s recommendation, or choose from a long list of classics, listed by the date each was invented.
THE BENEVOLENT KING 7268 Manchester Ben Poremba’s new Middle Eastern joint is drawing crowds to Maplewood, in no small part because of its drinks. General manager/bartender Tony Saputo crafts custom cocktails, including the $18 Rex, a super-velvety 4-ounce Manhattan made with a secret whiskey and pricey Barolo Chinato.
THE BAO 14 N. Central Steamed buns and cocktails don’t always go hand in hand, but that’s exactly what diners will find at this Clayton addition, where general manager Ben Bauer (formerly of the Libertine) pairs cocktails with Asian-inspired fare. The pandan Smash includes Pandan-infused cognac, coconut, lime, cilantro, and Angostura; the Tokyo Milk Dart combines soju, house citrus soda, and watermelon agua fresca.
ONES TO WATCH # 1 4 3 C I ND E R H O U S E Signaling Gerard Craft’s return to top-tier dining, Cinder House is the most anticipated St. Louis restaurant in years. No expense has been spared in the dining room build-out at the Four Seasons, and the kitchen’s filled with custom wood-fired equipment to support the South American-focused menu—a nod to Craft’s Brazilian nanny. 999 N. Second. # 1 4 4 SAVAG E After a year of underground dinners with Square 1 Project, chef Logan Ely is making his mark on the restaurant scene with his own grassroots restaurant in Fox Park. Expect a rapidly changing menu of hyper-local small plates, with plenty of surprises along the way. 2655 Ann. # 1 4 5 Y E L LOW BE L LY After the success of Retreat Gastropub, partners Travis Howard and mixologist Tim Wiggins are teaming up with Top Chef: All-Stars winner Richard Blais for a second location, this time with a seafood-centric menu and what’s bound to be one of the city’s best beverage programs (see p. 62). 4643 Lindell. A ND O N TH E NE A R H O R I ZO N… At Elmwood (2704 Sutton), two Niche alums—one making his triumphant return to fine dining, the other among the city’s finest restaurant managers—are teaming up for a noteworthy addition to Maplewood. And inside Midtown’s new Angad Arts Hotel, Grand Tavern (634 N. Grand) promises to deliver small plates and “contemporary takes on classic American dishes” by celeb chef David Burke, who’s opened myriad restaurants across the U.S., including the acclaimed Park Avenue Café in New York.
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Restaurateurs of the Year
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PAUL AND WENDY HAM ILTON Tuscan, French, pizza, steakhouse, beer, bourbon… Whatever form it takes, the Hamiltons are about hospitality. BY JEANNETTE COOPERMAN
T
he grapevines twisting above your head at the new Hamilton’s Urban Steakhouse & Bourbon Bar were cut on Paul and Wendy Hamilton’s 7-acre farm. The lights dangling from them are Edison bulbs, because Paul pays attention to the quality of light. Sound, too: He says it should start vibrant enough to mask an intimate conversation when the place is near-empty, then soften as the crowd builds so voices don’t have to strain. He started learning this stuff when he was in short pants: His father had run three restaurants before moving the family to a farm in Pennsylvania. Paul earned a degree in hotel and restaurant management, worked at Walt Disney World, then switched to the St. Louis–based Clipper Cruise Line. He and Wendy met on the high seas, where their passengers taught them the art of casual perfection. “They were adventurous and affluent,” Paul explains. “They didn’t want to be treated hoity-toity, but they wanted good service.” The Hamilton Hospitality empire (hamiltonhospitality.net) began in 2003 with Eleven Eleven Mississippi. Patrons kept trying to bring parties of 60, so the Hamiltons bought the 1876 Schnaider Brewery malt house as an event and catering venue, Moulin Events, complete with a big ballroom and two smaller rooms on the second floor (with a firstfloor banquet room to follow). The third floor had housed only a giant ventilation fan and grain chute but had gorgeous arched windows. Paul and Wendy tiptoed upstairs, climbed through one of those windows onto a big flat roof, and realized that they had another restaurant to open: St. Louis’ first on a rooftop.
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The street number was 2017— vingt-dix-sept in France, where they’d just vacationed. Vin de Set, they decided, no need for a bistro to get fussy with pronunciation as long as they served creative French food. On the building’s main level, they opened the Grand Petite Market (wine, spices, and gifts), then had fun creating sauces and meatballs for PW Pizza. In the basement, they carved out the Malt House Cellar for smaller events and 21st Street Brewers Bar to showcase the best local craft brews. Oh, and they bought a lot across the street and put in an orchard, an apiary for honey, and root and vining veggies and peppers. They also purchased the building west of 2017 and started a commercial greenhouse with aeroponic tower gardens for herbs and sprouts and microgreens. Out of breath yet? You’ll be abashed when you see Paul on a Bobcat, grading the new parking lot, or building shelves for the bourbon bar, or hanging those grapevines. He builds everything he can himself. Wendy handles the rest of the décor, keeping the themes restrained and authentic. The black-and-white photos of Tuscany in Eleven Eleven are the Hamiltons’ vacation shots; the statue of St. Louis in a custom-built niche of Vin de Set’s back bar was found near the grain chute, encrusted with dirt, probably a fancy gift from the 1904 World’s Fair. Atmosphere would mean little, though, without excellent service and award-winning dining. Even the director of operations and Eleven Eleven’s general manager have degrees from the Culinary Institute of America, and the Hamiltons hire chefs carefully, looking for both attitude and skill; they don’t want a celeb who’ll burn through staff and then burn out. “If you can’t teach others how to create a dish, you might as well be a line cook,” says Paul. He and Wendy do tastings every season, helping with menu development, suggesting tweaks. Hospitality never rests; its vigilance is what lets us relax.
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WE SURROUND OUR COMMUNITY’S MOST CRITICAL PROBLEMS, AND WE FIGHT FOR CHANGE. Life’s most difficult challenges are rarely overcome by meeting a single need – a meal, warm clothes, a safe place to stay. We help with vital and immediate needs like these, but we don’t stop there. Establishing a strong foundation is crucial for people to thrive and reach their full potential. We identify root causes and mobilize the community to tackle the underlying challenges. With these pillars in place, we can focus on building a better tomorrow. United Way — Helping people live their best possible lives.
Greater St. Louis
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Todd is soaring now that his mom received the help she needed. Todd’s mom went from being homeless to graduating college and helping others who are homeless. Watch her inspiring story at HelpingPeople.org.
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T H E
M A K I N G
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O F BY JEANNETTE COOPERMAN
D A N A L O E S C H H O W A N E A R LY MARRIAGE, BILL CLINTON’S ANTICS, AND 9/11 TRANSFORMED A SWEET YOUNG WOMAN INTO A S L E E K , I N S U LT-H U R L I N G M E DI A S TA R W HO CA L L S THE REST OF THE MEDIA “ R AT B A S TA R D S ”
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THE VIDEO CUTS FROM
DANA LOESCH— in a dark-red top, dramatically backlit against a dark-blue backdrop—to blackand-white footage that suggests the placid ’50s and the unrest of the ’60s. “They use their media to assassinate real news,” she begins, not bothering to explain who “they” are. “They use their schools to teach children that their president is another Hitler.” Each word is punctuated with derision. “All to make them march. Make them protest. Make them scream racism and sexism and xenophobia and homophobia… The only way we save our country and our freedom is to fight this violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth. I’m the National Rifle Association of America, and I’m freedom’s safest place.”
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As a girl, Lori-Ann Planthold had sleepovers with Dana. When she catches a glimpse of her sweet junior high friend as the new spokeswoman for the NRA, she can barely recognize her, has to dig out a yearbook to be sure. The supercurly hair is now glossy and straight, and her thin lips are plumped; even her mannerisms are different. Jason Granger flips on his radio, hears a woman’s voice, and does a double-take. Is that Dana Eaton? From the Meramec college newspaper? It sounds an awful lot like her…except that this woman is raging against ideas the Dana he knew cherished. He listens to more sound bites, then shrugs: “I don’t fault people for their beliefs—but I do fault them for propagating hate and anger.” Many of us change our political views, but it’s usually by increments, over decades. At the start of her twenties, Dana Eaton Loesch did an abrupt and dramatic 180 and shot forward. She’s had quite a trajectory.
A plain, skinny little girl with a mop of untamable curls, Dana Eaton feels invisible, and she hates it. She takes it personally when the bus driver misses her stop because he doesn’t see her. At playtime, she swings, because it’s something she can do alone. When she was 5 years old, her mother summoned the courage to kick her father out, and now it’s just the two of them, and it’s really quiet. No more drama or chaos—but no company, either. Her mom’s working two, sometimes three jobs to avoid going on welfare. Dana’s in therapy, and writing out her feelings helps her sort through the muddle. On weekends, they drive to visit her mom’s family, the Scaggses, in Annapolis, Missouri. A town of fewer than 400 people, it’s set at the foot of the St. Francois Mountains, fed by clear streams and surrounded by woods. Dana has a swarm of cousins there, fifth-generation Scaggses, and they all play together, crowd around the table for family dinners, watch one another’s backs. Envy jabs her like a straight pin. Dana’s lonely but not shy; her thin body burns with energy. As a toddler, she cracked up her uncle Jim Scaggs by grabbing a hairbrush and using it as a mic. In the evenings, Dana’s grandpa pulls her into the recliner with him, sensing that she needs a friend. His rules for life are simple: You work hard, you get up every morning with a smile on your face, and you take care of your family. He was raised during the Depression, and in World War II, he saw other Marines whose bodies had been chopped into pieces. A God-fearing Southern Democrat, he’s raised 10 kids on not much money, pulling logs out of the woods with Missouri mules. Dana worships him. Sunday nights, she hates going back to the city. By junior high, though, she has a few friends. She and Lori-Ann spend hours doing cartwheels on the lawn outside Dana’s smallish brick ranch house in Imperial. Dana’s definitely not popular—most of the kids think she acts like a know-it-all. Their teasing doesn’t faze her; she must have really thick skin, LoriAnn decides. Dana always seems happy, always gets the highest grade on the test, always does the right thing—never drinks or goes to parties—and she’s really nice, not a mean girl at all.
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At Fox Senior High School, in Arnold, Dana moves closer to coolness. Gymnastics, track, and ballet have given her muscle, transforming her from skinny to lean. In her senior class photo, the wild curls are pulled back and her forehead is covered with a wide curve of bangs. Her smile seems a little forced, like she’s hating this whole thing, but she’s strikingly pretty nonetheless. Girls who don’t bother with the popular group assume that she’s in it. One classmate finds her “snotty and self-absorbed,” with an aura that says she’s better than you and doesn’t have to bother saying hello. Is it poise, or aloofness? the classmate wonders. Dana’s definitely more mature than the rest of them. She’s got a serious boyfriend, and they’re always together. By the time she reaches St. Louis Community College–Meramec, she’s honed her social skills. Forging a “second family” with the college newspaper staff, she rapidly climbs to editor-in-chief, and the Montage wins multiple awards. In the newspaper office, Dana dresses for comfort: jeans and T-shirts, nothing flaunted. Staffer Jason Granger finds her humor “somewhat sarcastic but not bitingly so—if you leave an opening, she’ll take it, but not a mean sense of humor by any stretch.” As an editor, she’s fair, never ripping someone’s work to shreds or trying to embarrass anyone. The only big argument erupts when the sports editor opens mail addressed to The Editor. Dana takes her role seriously. In her parting column, she writes, “I can not fathom the idea of not speaking in plural form. I would never omit my staff.” She uses “my staff” five times in that column, never “our staff ” or “we,” and she ends grandiloquently, “When I close the door behind me on Friday, another chapter in the history of the Montage will close too.” By then, she’s used her platform thoroughly. In the paper, she vents her fury at the notion that good drivers should pull over to avoid someone’s road rage: “I’m sick of letting the bad guy get by.” She finds the distribution of Gideon Bibles offensive: “I feel my choice has been taken
“ T H E O N LY WAY W E S AV E O U R COUNTRY AND OUR FREEDOM IS TO FIGHT THIS VIOLENCE OF LIES WITH THE CLENCHED FIST OF TRUTH. I ’ M T H E NAT I O NA L R I F L E A S S O C I AT I O N OF AMERICA, AND I’M FREEDOM’S S A F E S T P L A C E .”
away.” She defends same-sex relationships: “Who are we to judge what is ‘normal’ or not? Who are we to impose our own beliefs onto perfect strangers?” Later, when she writes Flyover Nation, she’ll say her support for Bill Clinton ended in her freshman year of high school, when Paula Jones filed her sexual harassment lawsuit. But Dana’s still writing editorials in support of Clinton in college. “I don’t trust anyone enough to take their word for it,” she states early in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. “I don’t think Clinton did it. I think Lewinsky is a vixen.” Half a year later, she rails about how “Kenneth ‘no-life-Republican-conspirator’ Starr has wasted Lord knows how many trees to write 445 pages of absolute crap.” Bruised into cynicism, she tells readers to stop whining about morals: “Don’t you know that there ARE NO MORALS in politics?” Even after acknowledging that Clinton’s “a damn good liar,” she concludes, “You can hate me all you want to, but yes, I support a man who has protected my college funding and increased it, increased protective services for battered and abused women, supported funding for the arts, given tax breaks to middle and lower class families, signed the Brady Bill,” which established a waiting period before firearm purchases.
Sources for this profile include Dana Loesch’s books, radio shows, TV shows and guest appearances, colleagues, relatives, and friends. After multiple attempts to contact the Loesches, we sent a letter by old-fashioned post, using the address on public record. Many weeks later, Dana’s executive producer emailed to say that she would not be cooperating and pointed out that the letter had been mailed “to her new home, which we feel puts her family at risk.”
To speak at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference, Dana chooses a frilly lace blouse and black jacket and slacks instead of the previous year’s tight leather dress. Looking toward the press section, she says, raising her volume, “Many in legacy media love mass shootings. You guys love it. I’m not saying that you love the tragedy, but I am saying that you love the ratings. Crying white mothers are ratings gold.” The next morning on CNN, Alisyn Camerota asks how she could possibly say such a thing. Dana responds coolly, “Because it’s true.” By 1998, when Dana reaches Webster University on a journalism scholarship, she’s chopped her hair to a pixie and pierced her nose. No longer editor-inchief, she leaves little impression on journalism professor Don Corrigan, who sees none of the idealistic passion that fueled her fiery opinion pieces at Meramec. Music, though, she’s still passionate about. Nine Inch Nails, Black Sabbath, Ministry, The Cure... At Meramec, she dated the newspaper’s handsome photo editor, lead guitarist in a band called Arsenic Orange, all the while strenuously insisting that she was a feminist, hated men, treated them badly, and never wanted to marry. Now she volunteers to interview a guy called Chris Loesch, lead singer of Full System Purge. Seven years older than Dana, Chris is what a previous generation called “a ladies’ man.” He even has a famous Continued on p. 118 pickup story about a OCTOBER 2018 STLMAG.COM 99
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SP ECIAL ADVERT IS I N G S ECTI ON
RESTAURANT PROFILES / Q+A’S Get to know St. Louis eateries and the notable staff behind them. October 2018 stlmag.com
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S P EC IA L A DVE R T IS IN G S EC T IO N
RESTAURANT PROFILE
THE SAINT LOUIS CLUB 7701 Forsyth Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63105 314-726-1964 | stlclub.com
Stepping off the elevators into The Saint Louis Club gives members and guests that “Dorothy, we’re not in Kansas (nor St. Louis) anymore” feeling. With stunning views, striking décor, a smiling concierge, complimentary coffee and French pastries in the morning, live music, innovative cocktails and small-plate Bistro Bites at night, not to mention fine French cuisine and the region’s deepest, most carefully curated wine cellar, the Club strives to make every visit, “the BEST part of your day,” from 7 a.m. to midnight weekdays; 4 p.m. to midnight Saturdays. Located at the top of Clayton’s Pierre Laclede Building, the Club offers special menus, services and amenities diners won’t find anywhere else, from USB ports and outlets all around the bar to 100-point wine dinners to on-site car detailing. General Manager Mike Brady describes the 54-year-old Club as, “less expensive than you think, more rewarding than you can imagine.” Though private, the Club offers interested applicants complimentary One-Day Guest Passes by appointment. Saint Louis Club’s world-renowned Executive Chef Pierre Chambrin retired in September. He arrived at the Club 24 years ago with a sterling reputation and unparalleled skills, straight from his role as executive chef at the White House during both the Bush and Clinton administrations. Chambrin has left Saint Louis Club in the capable hands of his innovative protégé Mathieu Lefebvre. Chef Pierre invited Lefebvre from a promising culinary career at Michelin-rated restaurants in France & Switzerland 14 years ago. Now, Chef Mathieu and his team of 32 highly trained French and American chefs will continue to deliver a custom a la carte experience even for large private parties. Their secret? The staff uses an innovative “speed-plating” area that never allows a plate to sit waiting for its server nor a guest to sit waiting for the next amazing course.
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BEST KNOWN FOR... THE HIGHEST-LEVEL FRENCH CUISINE WHITE-GLOVE SERVICE ON TWO FLOORS, DENIM-FRIENDLY ON ANOTHER PRIVATE PARTIES 10 rooms for 6 to 600
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S P EC IA L A DVE R T IS IN G S EC T IO N
CHEF Q+A
RESTAURANT PROFILE
CLAIRE DOMIAN
PORTER’S STEAKHOUSE
REGISTERED DIETITIAN NUTRITIONIST, BUTLER’S PANTRY
1414 Park Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63104 314-664-7681 | butlersboardroom.com
From the culinary experts at Butler’s Pantry, Butler’s Boardroom brings five-star dining to corporate St. Louis. With a focus on health and portion control, in-house Registered Dietitian Nutritionist Claire Domian, weighed in on flavorful cuisine to fuel even the hungriest of appetites. HOW IS BUTLER’S BOARDROOM REIMAGINING OFFICE MEALS IN ST. LOUIS? We
offer nutritious and delicious curated dining experiences for organizations of all sizes to enjoy. From energizing breakfasts to engaging themed lunches and expansive offerings for dietary needs, the new menu and revamped look is combined with the same quality of food and dependability of service that St. Louis counts on from our team. WHAT SETS BUTLER’S BOARDROOM APART? We offer a new level of corporate
catering—one that highlights the quality of food instead of the quantity. Say goodbye to the cold turkey sandwich and hello to Beef Tenderloin on a Pretzel Roll with caramelized onions and house-made horseradish cream!
1000 Eastport Plaza Drive, Collinsville, IL 62234 618-345-2400 | porterscollinsville.com
Voted by Open Table as one of the top steakhouses in the country, Porter’s Steakhouse inside of the Doubletree Hotel—Collinsville/St. Louis, offers a casually chic dining atmosphere. Under the direction of Executive Chef, Tim Eagan, Porter’s offers a wide selection of mouth-watering steaks including their Signature Grilled Pepperloin which is marinated for 48 hours and grilled to perfection. In addition to being a steak lover’s dream, Porter’s also offers a wide array of fresh seafood, poultry and seasonally driven dishes. Insider tip: don’t miss the Lobster Mac & Cheese. Porter’s Steakhouse has several private dining options to host your next event and the service staff to execute your party flawlessly. Visit Porter’s Steakhouse for lunch daily from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Dinner service begins nightly at 5 p.m. Thursday nights, enjoy Porter’s Prime Rib Night and live music in the lounge beginning at 6:30pm. See you soon for the ‘Porter’s Experience’.
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MIXOLOGIST Q+A
KYLE MATHIS BAR MANAGER, WESTPORT SOCIAL
910 Westport Plaza, St. Louis, MO 63146 314-548-2876 | westportsocial-stl.com
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE GAME TO PLAY AT WESTPORT SOCIAL? We get some
pretty heated Ping Pong matches going between staff! If you hear hoots and hollers between lunch and dinner service, it is likely coming from a friendly match between bartenders and bar backs. WHAT INGREDIENTS ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO USING THIS FALL/WINTER?
Using warm spices and darker spirits as the weather cools down is great but I also love to keep summer in the back of people’s minds. We don’t shy away from Gin and Tequila in the winter. Especially together. A pepper tequila with some age on it and a bright floral gin pair really well together. I also look forward to creating cocktails for a diverse set of restaurant concepts. We will be launching new fall/winter menus at Westport Social by the end of September.
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RESTAURANT PROFILE
CARDINALS NATION 601 Clark Street, St. Louis, MO 63102 314-345-9880 | stlballparkvillage.com/dining
Cardinals Nation is the clubhouse for Cardinals fans and foodies year round. Our sports-inspired menu and atmosphere bring an old-school vibe to a contemporary dining experience. Cardinals Nation Restaurant and Bar is great for family, friends and fans of all ages. From local favorites to innovative creations, whatever comes out of the kitchen is guaranteed to satisfy any major league appetite. This four-story venue houses the Cardinals Nation Restaurant and Bar, Cardinals Museum, Cardinals Authentics Shop, Hall of Fame Club and the AT&T Rooftop Seating Deck. The spaces on all four floors can accommodate private events for any occasion. Let Cardinals Special Events create your next memorable experience at Cardinals Nation. To learn more and take a virtual tour visit cardinals.com/events today.
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CHEF Q+A
RESTAURANT PROFILE
EDGEWILD 550 Chesterfield Center, Chesterfield, MO 63017 | 636-532-0550 12316 Olive Blvd, Creve Coeur, MO 63141 | 314-548-2222 1071 State Route 157, Edwardsville, IL 62025 | 618-307-9692 edgewildwinery.com
EdgeWild specializes in inventive American cuisine, featuring a wide selection of freshly-made dishes from tasty traditional favorites to reinvented classics. Led by Executive Chef Aaron Baggett, EdgeWild now boasts three locations: EdgeWild Restaurant & Winery in Chesterfield, EdgeWild Bistro & Tap in Creve Coeur, and EdgeWild in Edwardsville. EdgeWild’s wine selection is extensive, with both EdgeWild label wines and others from high-end domestic and international winemakers. EdgeWild Bistro & Tap features more than 75 beers on tap, by the bottle or can. EdgeWild was voted #10 “Best Winery Restaurant” in America (USA Today 10Best, 2016).
JOSH BENTRUP EXECUTIVE CHEF, WEBER GRILL
1147 St. Louis Galleria, St. Louis, MO 63117 314-930-3840 | webergrillrestaurant.com
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IF YOU HAD TO SELECT SOMEONE’S MEAL FOR THEIR FIRST VISIT, WHAT WOULD YOU PICK?
If someone was dining with us for the first time, I would be excited to guide them through our menu. My personal favorite is our slow Smoked Beef Brisket with Weber’s BBQ spice and Hickory BBQ Sauce. Pair that with some fresh grilled corn on the cob, bourbon baked beans and house made corn bread and you’re in business! If you’re not a meat eater, our Cedar Planked Salmon is one of my favorites too. It’s grilled on a cedar plank to impart unique flavors, topped with honey, bourbon glaze and served with our grill roasted, garlic green beans. Another favorite are our Carolina Mustard Glazed Pork Chops. These are paired with our whipped sweet potatoes and roasted garlic spinach; always a fan favorite. All of our menu items are grilled on authentic Weber charcoal kettles that you can see with our open kitchen concept.
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Join us for an
Open House
Sunday, November 4 | 1-3pm Our individualized programs are designed to help students with learning differences unlock their potential! Come tour our schools, visit with our faculty and staff, and hear lifechanging stories from our current families. No reservations necessary - we look forward to seeing you!
Grades PreK-8
Grades 9-12
501 Bacon Avenue St. Louis, MO 63119
2845 N. Ballas Road St. Louis, MO 63131
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(314) 968-3893 | www.MiriamSTL.org 8/23/2018 11:12:35 AM
An extraordinary childhood! Come be ! amazed
Sneak a Peek at K-5 Wed. Nov. 7 @ 6:30 pm
Middle School Open House Thur. Nov. 29 @ 8:30 am
Academic excellence, Jewish knowledge and social responsibility for grades K-8. RSVP online: www.mirowitz.org/events For a tour, call Patty or Lee’at: 314-576-6177 or pbloom@mirowitz.org
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OPEN HOUSE GUIDE
OPEN HOUSE GUIDE OPEN HOUSES ALLOW PROSPECTIVE FAMILIES TO TEST-DRIVE DIFFERENT SCHOOLS __ Touring the campus and speaking with faculty and staff are important steps before making a selection. We’ve compiled a list of open house dates for several local schools so you can easily keep track of your admissions schedule.
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OPEN HOUSE GUIDE
QUICK LOOK OPEN HOUSE DATES
HERE’S YOUR CHEAT SHEET FOR THE 2018–2019 OPEN HOUSE SEASON __ Don’t forget to check out the following pages for more details about each school.
OCTOBER 2018
NOVEMBER 2018
DECEMBER 2018
10/10
11/3
12/1
Rossman School
The College School Community School Wilson School
Rossman School
11/4
JANUARY 2019
10/13 Great Circle
10/14 Whitfield School
10/16 The Fulton School
10/18 St. Louis University High School (SLUH Night)
10/20 John Burroughs School
10/21 Crossroads College Preparatory Forsyth School (regular admissions)
10/25 Lutheran High School South
10/26 Kirk Day School
10/27 MICDS
Cor Jesu Academy De Smet Jesuit High School Incarnate Word Academy Miriam Notre Dame High School Ursuline Academy St. Louis University High School Villa Duchesne and Oak Hill School (all grades)
11/7 Saul Mirowitz Jewish Community School (lower school)
11/10 Missouri Military Academy New City School
11/11 Lutheran High School North Our Lady of the Pillar Saint Louis Priory School
11/13
1/12 Forsyth School (early childhood)
1/15 Community School
1/16 Rossman School
1/27 Andrews Academy—Creve Coeur Green Park Lutheran School Villa Duchesne and Oak Hill School (age 3 through sixth grade)
1/29 Community School
MARCH 2019
Community School
4/3
11/28
Miriam
Rossman School
11/29 Saul Mirowitz Jewish Community School (middle school)
BY APPOINTMENT Chesterfield Montessori School Villa di Maria Montessori School
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Admission Open House Sun, Oct 21, 2018 3:00-5:00p CAMPUS TOURS 5:00-6:00p PLAY & PICNIC
Unforgettable. FORSYTH. THERE’S NOTHING LIKE IT.
AGE 3 - GRADE 6
ForsythOnline.com Wydown-Forsyth Historic District
INDEPENDENT • COEDUCATIONAL • GRADES 7-12
Open House Saturday, October 20 Pre-register at jburroughs.org/openhouse or at 9 am on the day of the event Presentation begins at 9:30 am
John Burroughs School 755 South Price Road, 63124 • 314.993.4040 • jburroughs.org
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S P EC IA L A DVE R T I S I NG S EC T I O N
OPEN HOUSE GUIDE
PROFILES Andrews Academy– Creve Coeur 888 N. Mason Road St. Louis, MO 63141 314-878-1883 andrewsacademy.com
offer two toddler classrooms (ages 16 to 30 months), as well as Montessori classrooms for children through age 14 years. The toddler classrooms allow children to explore their independence and connection to the world.
OPEN HOUSE
January 27, 2019
The College School
DID YOU KNOW?
7825 Big Bend Boulevard Webster Groves, MO 63119 314-962-9355 thecollegeschool.org
100% of student accepted into prominent St. Louis secondary schools.
Chesterfield Montessori 14000 Ladue Road Chesterfield, MO 63017 314-469-7150 chesterfieldmontessori.org OPEN HOUSE
Call to schedule a tour DID YOU KNOW?
In response to high demand for their AMI Montessori programs, Chesterfield Montessori School expanded yet again to
OPEN HOUSE
November 3, 2018
Community School 900 Lay Road St. Louis, MO 63124 314-991-0005 communityschool.com OPEN HOUSE
November 3 & 13, 2018 January 15 & 29, 2019 DID YOU KNOW?
CS alumni will be freshmen this year at wonderful colleges and universities all across the nation, from Harvard, Yale and Penn in the east, to Stanford and Berkeley in the west, and many other great colleges in between.
DID YOU KNOW?
The College School’s Early Childhood Program has been inspired by the Reggio Emilia philosophy for more than 25 years. Teachers create joyful, engaging classroom environments and intentional learning opportunities that are rooted in the interests and motivations of the children.
Cor Jesu Academy 10230 Gravois Road St. Louis, MO 63123 314-842-1546 corjesu.org OPEN HOUSE
November 4, 2018
Montessori at its Best Authentic AMI Montessori education from 16 months through 8th grade. Contact us to schedule a tour: 314-469-7150 chesterfieldmontessori.org
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SPECIAL ADV ER TI S I N G S ECTI ON DID YOU KNOW?
Cor Jesu’s innovative Corporate Partners Initiative (CPI) is redefining “college preparatory,” by aligning students with real-world opportunities with the region’s top companies. These on-site, hands-on experiences are designed to expand awareness, promote personal discovery and inform better career decisions.
Crossroads College Preparatory School 500 DeBaliviere Avenue St. Louis, MO 63112 314-367-8085 crossroadscollegeprep.org OPEN HOUSE
October 21, 2018 DID YOU KNOW?
Crossroads’s rigorous academic program provides both the flexibility to explore and the focus to dive deep. With 10+ AP courses and a full-time College Counselor, each student is prepared to thrive at the college of their choice
De Smet Jesuit High School 233 N. New Ballas Road St. Louis, MO 63141 314-567-3500 desmet.org OPEN HOUSE
November 4, 2018 DID YOU KNOW?
De Smet Jesuit’s new 6,335 square foot Innovation Center combines traditional library resources with cutting edge technology to inspire interactive, project-based learning, including pop-up maker spaces, collaboration caves, and furniture that can be configured for individual or small group work.
Forsyth School
each day brings a world of opportunity
6235 Wydown Boulevard St. Louis, MO 63105 314-726-4542 forsythonline.com OPEN HOUSE
October 21, 2018 (regular admissions) January 12, 2019 (early childhood) DID YOU KNOW?
Located next door to Washington University and Forest Park, Forsyth School has an unforgettable campus with classrooms in six repurposed, historic houses for children age 3 through grade
Open House • Saturday, Nov. 3 • 8:30am Exceptional education for children age 3 through grade 6
400 DeMun Ave. • Clayton, MO • 314.725.4999 • register at wilsonschool.com
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6. Forsyth teachers value active learning and authentic challenges. Forsyth. There’s nothing like it.
The Fulton School 123 Schoolhouse Road St. Albans, MO 63073 636-458-6688 tfssa.org OPEN HOUSE
October 16, 2018 DID YOU KNOW?
TFS students range from 18 months old through 12th grade—all in one building. This creates a family-like atmosphere where students are constantly learning from their older peers, with opportunities to be mentors for the younger ones.
Great Circle 330 N. Gore Avenue Webster Groves, MO 63119 314-301-4617 greatcircle.org OPEN HOUSE
October 13, 2018 | 11 a.m–2 p.m.
DID YOU KNOW?
OPEN HOUSE
Great Circle Academy inspires students in grades K-12 to find their strength and rekindle a love of learning, whether on the autism spectrum, challenged by behavior or communications disorders, or needing a sober high school for their recovery journey.
November 4, 2018
Green Park Lutheran School 4248 Green Park Road St. Louis, MO 63125 314-544-4248 greenparklutheranschool.org OPEN HOUSE
January 27, 2019 DID YOU KNOW?
1:1 technology, brand new science curriculum, Balanced Literacy, sports, music, and plenty of activity is just the start at Green Park. Families drive from 23 zip codes each day for academic rigor centered in Christ and a place to be known.
Incarnate Word Academy 2788 Normandy Drive St. Louis, MO 63121 314-725-5850 x1149 iwacademy.org
DID YOU KNOW?
Incarnate Word Academy is a sponsored ministry of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word. The school is part of the congregation’s network of ministries in health, education and social justice that extends into Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Ireland, Peru, Tanzania, the United States and Zambia.
John Burroughs School 755 S. Price Road St. Louis, MO 63124 314-993-4040 jburroughs.org OPEN HOUSE
October 20, 2018 | 9:30 a.m. DID YOU KNOW?
Burroughs’ strong curriculum in STEM and humanities is now further complemented by its new 76,000-square-foot Science, Technology & Research building, which brings together science, computer science, industrial technology/engineering, family and consumer science, and the library under one roof.
FALL OPEN HOUSE Saturday, November 3 9 AM - 12 PM
PreK-Eighth Grade thecollegeschool.org
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Structure + Responsibility + Love = Since 1889, parents have looked to Missouri Military Academy to give their boys structure, responsibility and love they need to grow, compete and thrive — and become young men in full command of their lives.
MMA
M I S S O U R I M I L I TA RY A C A D E M Y
Serving grades 7 through 12 PG Mexico, Missouri • 888-564-6662 missourimilitaryacademy.org
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Kirk Day School 12928 Ladue Road St. Louis, MO 63141 314-434-4349 kirkdayschool.org OPEN HOUSE
school in the fall of 2019! This 6th through 8th grade school will be on North’s 47-acre campus and will include the excellent academics, athletics and Christian environment that Lutheran North is known to provide.
MICDS (Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School)
Lutheran High School South
OPEN HOUSE
October 26, 2018 DID YOU KNOW?
Kirk Day School provides elementary students with timeless foundations in both academics and the Christian faith. Their challenging academic curriculum, well prepares students to excel at the secondary school level. 95% of alumni gain admission to their first choice private high schools. 70% of alumni graduate high school with academic honors.
Lutheran High School North 5401 Lucas and Hunt Road St. Louis, MO 63121 314-389-3100 lhsnstl.org
9515 Tesson Ferry Road St. Louis, MO 63123 314-631-1400 lhssstl.org OPEN HOUSE
October 25, 2018 DID YOU KNOW?
Lutheran South offers classes specifically designed for students interested in the health industry. Through a partnership with Maryville University, students can take medical terminology and medical careers courses for college credit in addition to the 22 advanced classes the school provides.
OPEN HOUSE
101 N. Warson Road St. Louis, MO 63124 314-995-7367 micds.org
October 27, 2018 DID YOU KNOW?
The MICDS STEM building is the most advanced of its kind in the region and earned LEED v3.0 Platinum certification for its design and construction, LEED’s highest level of certification, attained by just a small percentage of LEED-certified projects.
Miriam 501 Bacon Avenue St. Louis, MO 63119 314-968-3893 miriamstl.org OPEN HOUSE
November 11, 2018
November 4, 2018 March 3, 2019
DID YOU KNOW?
DID YOU KNOW?
Lutheran North is opening a middle
Miriam School just opened a new 12,000
FALL OPEN HOUSE Saturday, October 13th 11am - 2pm Join us for a tour and discover how Great Circle Academy can cultivate academic success for students grades K-12. We help students find their strength and learning power, whether on the autism spectrum, challenged by behavior disorders or needing a sober high school for their recovery journey. We’re a place where no one is different. That’s what makes us different.
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square foot middle school wing, plus extensive renovations to the existing elementary school. Miriam Academy is St. Louis’ first private, independent high school for teens with learning challenges Miriam improves the quality of life for students with learning differences with a new approach to unlocking their potential.
SLUH ONWARD INTO OUR THIRD CENTURY
Missouri Military Academy 204 N. Grand Street Mexico, MO 65265 573-581-1776 missourimilitaryacademy.org OPEN HOUSE
November 10, 2018 DID YOU KNOW?
Consistently achieving 100% college acceptance, Missouri Military Academy graduates have gone on to Case Western Reserve, The Citadel, Savannah College of Art and Design, University of Washington and more. The Class of 2018 earned more than $6.5 million in scholarships.
BELIEVE IT. BECOME IT. SLUH NIGHT
Thurs, Oct 18 – 6:30 to 8 p.m. Register at sluh.org/admissions
OPEN HOUSE
Sun, Nov. 4 — 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Last campus tours start at 3 p.m.
INSIDE SLUH VISITS Schedule your visit at sluh.org/admissions
New City School 5209 Waterman Boulevard St. Louis MO, 63108 314-361-6411 newcityschool.org
314.531.0330
sluhigh |
sluh |
@sluhjrbills
SLUH.ORG
OPEN HOUSE
November 10, 2018 DID YOU KNOW?
As part of its upcoming 50th Anniversary, New City is constructing a new maker space! This addition to the campus will house state-of-the-art technology and tools to allow countless exciting projects and curricular innovations—from coding and robotics, to wood working and sewing, to music and film production.
Notre Dame High School 320 E. Ripa Avenue St. Louis MO, 63125 314-544-1015 x1104 ndhs.net OPEN HOUSE
November 4, 2018 DID YOU KNOW?
The mission of Notre Dame High School is to develop confident, compassionate Christian women leaders. Many advanced college credit courses challenge ND students. The NDHS academic program prepares students for college while developing skills in time management, organization, and self-advocacy. October 2018 stlmag.com
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Our Lady of the Pillar
which makes each student one-of-a-kind. The school’s rich curriculum emphasizes strong academics, character development and leadership skills, preparing graduates to excel in an ever-changing world.
403 S. Lindbergh Boulevard St. Louis, MO 63131 314-993-3353 olpillar.com OPEN HOUSE
November 11, 2018
Saint Louis Priory School
DID YOU KNOW?
500 S. Mason Road St. Louis, MO 63141 314-434-3690 priory.org
Offering advanced academic instruction, virtue and faith-based training, and service outreach opportunities to help students realize their full potential as pillars of the greater community.
November 7, 2018 (Lower School) November 29, 2018 (Middle School) DID YOU KNOW?
Mirowitz students travel 17,444 miles (over nine years) to restore prairies, lobby elected officials, test water quality, pick vegetables on a kibbutz and walk in the footsteps of MLK. As they do so, they joyfully connect with their heritage and develop skills for a lifetime of leadership.
OPEN HOUSE
November 11, 2018 DID YOU KNOW?
Rossman School
A Benedictine school, Priory offers a strong college preparatory program. Ranked #1 Catholic high school in Missouri, #1 allboys high school in Missouri and #1 high school for STEM in Missouri by Niche.com. Priory – Outstanding Preparation for an Exceptional Life.
12660 Conway Road St. Louis, MO 63141 314-434-5877 rossmanschool.org OPEN HOUSE
Wednesday, Oct. 10 | 8:30–10:30 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 28 | 8:30–10:30 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 1 | 9–11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019 | 8:30–10:30 a.m.
St. Louis University High School 4970 Oakland Avenue St. Louis, MO 63110 314-531-0330 sluh.org OPEN HOUSE
October 18, 2018 (SLUH Night) November 4, 2018 DID YOU KNOW?
Saul Mirowitz Jewish Community School
DID YOU KNOW?
Size: 4.60” wide x 4.60” high, color Educating children age 4 through grade
348 South Mason Road St. Louis, MO 63141 314-757-1546 mirowitz.org
6, Rossman’s exceptional educators are dedicated to discovering and nurturing that
Choose
OPEN HOUSE
To commemorate the bicentennial of SLUH, which officially began November 16, 1818, Mayor Lyda Krewson has declared November 16th as “St. Louis U. High Day” in the City of St. Louis.
WHITFIELD age 4 - grade 6 | Creve Coeur
Join our community of innovation, collaboration, and trust
O P E N H O U S E : S U N DAY, O C T O B E R 1 4 , 1 P. M . GRADES 6-12
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COED
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C O L L E G E P R E P A R AT O R Y
Open Houses Oct. 10 | Nov. 28
175 S. Mason Rd. • St. Louis, MO 63141 • 314.434.5141 • www.whitfieldschool.org
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Ursuline Academy
for all aspects of life; academic and social. Montessori, by design, meets the developmental needs of children in mixed-age classrooms, and Villa di Maria provides an authentic, world-class experience for each child.
341 South Sappington Road St. Louis, Missouri 63122 314-984-2800 www.ursulinestl.org OPEN HOUSE
November 4, 2018 | 12–4 p.m. DID YOU KNOW?
Ursuline Academy is part of a worldwide network of approximately 150 Ursuline-sponsored schools in 35 countries. The Global Education Program offers students opportunities to engage with peers on six continents and to develop global competencies applicable to future careers.
1280 Simmons Ave Kirkwood, MO 63122 314-822-2601 villadimaria.org OPEN HOUSE
Call to schedule a tour DID YOU KNOW?
Villa di Maria’s founder trained under Dr. Maria Montessori to prepare children
175 S. Mason Road St. Louis, MO 63141 314-434-5141 whitfieldschool.org OPEN HOUSE
October 14, 2018
Villa Duchesne and Oak Hill School 801 S. Spoede Road St. Louis, MO 63131 314-432-2021 vdoh.org OPEN HOUSE
November 4, 2018 (all grades) January 27, 2019 (age 3 through sixth grade) DID YOU KNOW?
Villa di Maria Montessori School
Whitfield School
Villa Duchesne and Oak Hill School is linked with more than 150 Sacred Heart schools in 30 countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Congo, Egypt, England & Wales, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malta, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Poland, Puerto Rico, Scotland, Spain, Taiwan, Uganda, and the United States.
DID YOU KNOW?
Members of the class of 2018 (60 of 75 students) received merit, athletic, and leadership scholarships totaling $3,065,720 for their first year of college alone.
The Wilson School 400 De Mun Avenue Clayton, MO 63105 314-725-4999 wilsonschool.com OPEN HOUSE
November 3, 2018 DID YOU KNOW?
Along with achieving scores that place them in the top five percent for essay writing, Wilson students have unique educational experiences that shape their character, like traveling to Memphis and Little Rock as part of their Civil Rights unit.
Discover your Passion for Learning
Children Ages 3–12 Tours by appointment, 314-822-2601 AMI Accredited Education 1280 Simmons Ave. Kirkwood, Mo 63122 www.villadimaria.org
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O F BY JEANNETTE COOPERMAN
T H E
D A N A L O E S C H
M A K I N G
H O W A N E A R LY MARRIAGE, BILL CLINTON’S ANTICS, AND 9/11 TRANSFORMED A SWEET YOUNG WOMAN INTO A S L E E K , I N S U LT-H U R L I N G M E DI A S TA R W HO CA L L S THE REST OF THE MEDIA “ R AT B A S TA R D S ”
OCTOBER 2018 STLMAG.COM 97
“The Making of Dana Loesch” Continued from p. 99
nightmarish experience in which he just might have turned into a werewolf. His business partner, musician Doug Firley, has no idea why this works, but it does. When Chris shows up at their recording studio in Soulard with a lovely young reporter in tow, Firley invites her back the next morning for a Mardi Gras party. She demurs, says she’ll be hanging out with her boyfriend. But sure enough, on Saturday morning she shows up with Chris, and by Sunday she’s broken up with the boyfriend. Three months later, Chris and Dana have had their ring fingers tattooed with each other’s Gaelic initials, and Dana is pregnant. She drops out of college. Both a little offbeat yet eager for the world’s attention, they’re the kind of couple who fall so hard for each other, they create their own ecosystem. They clash only over politics: Chris is a devout conservative, and Dana, though disenchanted, still clings to pacifism and a few other liberal ideals. With the birth of their child, though, a fierce protectiveness wells up in her, and many of Chris’ conservative ideas start to make more sense. The final turning point is 9/11, an attack on her homeland. “Thank God Bush is president,” she blurts. She’s also returned to religion. Her warm, gregarious father-in-law gives off the vibe of a hearty outdoorsman, but he’s a revered pastor in the evangelical Church of Christ. Dana grew up more religious than her left-leaning mother, always looking up churches they could attend, but she distanced herself in her late teens. Now that gap snaps shut; she pronounces herself and Chris “nondenominational Jesus freaks.” They have a big country wedding, and a musician friend, Craig Warner, videotapes it, grinning when they play “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” at the reception and all the guys and girls line up on opposite sides. Friends from this time see Dana as sweet and accepting, Chris as forceful and edgy, spoiling for a fight: She bakes pies for family gatherings and swoons when Chris
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punches a guy after a concert because he won’t move out of their way. Early on, they live out in the country, and Dana’s often home alone with their baby son. She complains often, and Warner realizes that she’s “fearful, almost paranoid, about an army of robbers that’s going to come and attack her home.” They move to the city, and Chris takes a job as production manager for the magazine you’re reading now. The sales reps can’t quite figure him out: He clearly wants to be a rock star, wears guyliner and black nail polish and chains, but his politics don’t match that world. As a former colleague puts it, he’s “more emo than all the women in the office put together.” Firley concedes his business partner’s musical talent but gets tired of Chris’ evangelizing—“not only about religion but about politics, everything. Any idea he has is a calling, and he has to convince everybody else that he’s right.” Dana likes to be right, too, but at this point, she’s softer about it. She freelances a few fluff pieces for St. Louis Magazine: travel to Vienna, a celeb lookalike, good picks for a Mother’s Day brunch—but in just one year, she’s styling herself D.E. Loesch and writing investigative pieces about a child kicked off a transplant list and an unsolved murder in East St. Louis. In a history of anarchists, she marvels at 19th-century strikers who managed “the shutdown of every branch of industry in a single day.” (Years later, she will rant about the fast food workers’ strike and make a point of ordering fast food to support their bosses.) Dana’s editor, Elaine X. Grant, threatens dire consequences if she doesn’t meet her damned deadlines; she’s always late, with some weird bad-luck excuse. She’s a good writer, dogged in pursuit of a story, “smart—but not very thoughtful,” Grant says. “Her apparent need to foment controversy many times overcame her ability to separate the truth from the merely sensational. Once she believed something, she was like a dog with a bone; she ignored all contradictory evidence.” Somehow Dana’s stories for SLM also wind up on her anonymous website, AntiRadar, where she uses the pseudonyms Cat (for catalyst) and Momus (for the god of blame and ridicule) to test her new conservative outlook. “The internet felt like the Wild West,” she says later. “I could give as good as I got. I loved it.”
“While being a mother isn’t easy and I definitely have my Calgon moments,” Dana writes, “I ultimately think that the moms who talk about how they feel victimized by motherhood give other women a false impression of parenting. Yes, it’s tough. Did you seriously think that something which began by RAMMING ITS WAY OUT OF YOUR VAGINA was going to be a cakewalk?” After the Loesches’ second son is born, Dana shifts gears, creating Mamalogues. com, an award-winning mommy blog that’s since been erased from the web. In it, she takes motherhood to heart but not in a cloying way; her husband, kids, and relatives are comic foils, and she’s frank about how annoying they can be. She admits pretending to be gassy to avoid sex with Chris and announces that they’ve taken up spanking because their 1-year-old was deliberately defying her by messing with the Christmas tree lights. In 2006, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, eager to be hip, makes her a columnist. Her pieces—a little too blunt, a little too pat—make the paper nervous, so she’s consigned to cyberspace. In 2008, after a column on keeping firearms in the home, the Post ends the relationship altogether. She must have made the “little old blue-haired liberals” uncomfortable, she decides. But so what? Chris had urged her from the start to be more political; he told the Riverfront Times it would “grow the audience quicker.” At a conference in San Francisco a few months later, chewing gum with blithe confidence, Dana tells a reporter about the reach of her blog: “I’ve gotten a radio show with it.” The show is on KFTK (97.1 FM), and though she tells the RFT she’s always had terrible stage fright and “never in a million years thought I’d be doing radio,” program director Jeff Allen remembers her begging for the show, insisting that she’s ready. He grins when she shows up with stacks of paper, backup facts for every point she wants to make. Soon she’s down to two or three pages. Listeners love The Dana Show so much, KFTK gives her a bigger day slot, bumping Sean Hannity later to make room. Allen teaches Dana to cut through the noise, get “a really good sense of what listeners care about, pick out two or three things that are worth talking about, and make it entertaining.” Ratings shoot up. She’s even surprising herself, he suspects, at how good she is at this. She poses for a publicity shot in a black rock ’n’ roll T-shirt and safety goggles, pointing what looks like an AR-15 straight
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up and sticking out her tongue. The attitude works for her—most of the time. “She can get really passionate about something, to a fault,” Allen says, “and she’ll go places where she knows she’s going to get heat, and on the management side, you’re saying, ‘It probably would have been better not to go there.’” Also, she’s not exactly convivial. On-air personality J.C. Corcoran (now at KBDZ, 93.1 FM) works across the hall from her for almost five years, and he keeps trying to say hello, engage her in conversation. She just looks at him like he’s nuts. He gets so exasperated that one day he yells, “Hello, Dana!” through a megaphone. Rather than bond with co-workers, she brings Chris everywhere; she’s always loved his chatty ease with strangers. “Station get-togethers where we had no spouses included—there was Chris,” says Carl Middleman of KSHE (94.7 FM). “She said she didn’t like traveling alone.” Warner donates his services as webmaster for Dana’s blogs because he knows that the Loesches “don’t have dough.” What he can’t understand is why they’re so defensive about being broke—and about their kids. One day, discussing the economy, Warner says something like, “Look, we’re all struggling now. You have kids; that’s something you have to focus on”— and Dana slams back, telling him not to talk about her kids. It happens on another occasion: One mention of her kids and everything shuts down. He’s bemused: “We were just having a pleasant conversation!’” By 2008, there’s not much chance left for a pleasant conversation. Insisting that Barack Obama is a socialist and therefore a Nazi, Chris calls his supporters libtards and brownshirts. “You’re calling me a Nazi,” Warner says wearily. Oddly, he and Dana never get into it like this, but he can tell she and Chris are “becoming the same person. It was a weird thing to be there for the evolution of it.” Years later, long after Chris has left Shock City Studios, people are still talking about Dana’s transformation. “Over time, she put herself in a state of being mad all the time,” says Firley, “and it became permanent. The outrage got stuck, and she just scowled all the time. For a while, you thought, ‘If this is an act, I get it. You’re monetizing it.’ I would have respected her a lot more if she stayed normal and just said, ‘I play a bitch on air.’ That was always the question: Is this real? And we began to figure out ‘No, this is real.’”
After the mass shooting in the Capital Gazette newsroom, writer Shaun King tweets an old article in which the accused shooter said he wanted to smash the face of a reporter into concrete. King also tweets an old clip of Dana talking about mass media on NRATV: “I’m happy, just frankly, to see them curb-stomped… They are the rat bastards of the Earth.” He asks if she now sees why “it is disturbing that you said you want to smash the faces of journalists into concrete.” Dana says she was referring to reports being curb-stomped, not people. Then she says, “I condemn the recklessness and violence you encourage.” In 2009, Dana uses The Dana Show to announce that she’s co-founding the St. Louis Tea Party. She and Bill Hennessy stand beneath the Arch and throw teabags into the Mississippi, protesting increased taxation and big government. (Two years later, they’ll argue and split, and Chris will take back his blue teapot logo.) Now a strident talk radio celeb, Dana provokes extreme responses—sexual, worshipful, hateful. When someone implicitly threatens her kids, she buys herself a handgun, learns Krav Maga, decommissions her blog, and announces that she just might quit altogether. Word vibrates through the web, and Andrew Breitbart calls Dana personally, insisting that the safest place for her is in the spotlight and offering himself as an ally: “We will get through this.” That fall, he makes her editor-in-chief of Big Journalism on Breitbart.com. He exults to the RFT that she’s “a stay-at-home mom who homeschools her kids; she’s beautiful; she’s smart; she’s fearless. She’s a pure rising star.” Introducing herself on the site, she says she no longer believes in journalistic objectivity; there is only “bias for agenda and bias for truth.” In 2011, CNN offers Dana an additional gig as political commentator. But in January 2012, the network’s thrown into temporary shock, keeping her off the air for several weeks, after she speaks up on The Dana Show for the U.S. Marines who urinated on the corpses of Taliban soldiers. “I’d drop trou and do it, too,” she says. “That’s me, though. I want a million cool points for these guys.” (She dismisses the appalled reports of her comments as “disingenuous.”) That March, Andrew Breitbart dies of heart disease. His successor, Steve Bannon, is less enamored of Dana. In December, she files a contract dispute in U.S. District
Court here in St. Louis, accusing Breitbart LLC of sabotaging her career by binding her to “what amounts to indentured servitude in limbo.” She seeks freedom from her contractual obligations and “at least $75,000 in damages.” (The suit will be dismissed with no monetary settlement.) No longer editing or blogging (she says her boys are old enough to deserve privacy), Dana does more and more guest speaking. At a Colorado gun show and rally in 2013, she delivers her own version of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech: “I too have a dream! I dream that one day our lawmakers will leave us alone! Let us do what we want! Stay out of my gun case! Stay out of my bank account!” (She later says the point of her speech was to illustrate that King’s permit to carry a concealed firearm was denied in 1956. “Gun rights are civil rights.”) In 2014, Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze TV offers Dana a show, and the Loesches move to Dallas. KFTK continues to run The Dana Show in syndication until 2016, when its ratings begin to plummet. But the gossip Corcoran hears is that the St. Louis station “can’t wait to get rid of her” personally. This mystifies him: “She’s doing exactly what you want to do on air, and she’s—not a rising star, a shooting star! But they were having trouble getting her to cooperate with promotions and activities outside her three-hour air show.” Early friends of the Loesches are definitely glad to see them go: “She espoused so much hate and vitriol and was such a controversial figure that the fact that Chris was still involved in Shock City— even though he wasn’t doing anything— was a problem,” says Firley. “The St. Louis music scene wanted nothing to do with him; they’d go record in Nashville rather than use us.” Dana continues to construct her personal narrative, saying on multiple occasions, “I was a broke, unwed student from a single-parent household.” She rails against Whoopi Goldberg for trying to make a single-parent household seem OK and says it sucked; she talks about how noble her mom was for working three jobs and never taking food stamps, and how she, Dana, was “a statistic.” All this makes it sound like it lasted a little longer than it did. Dana’s parents divorced when she was 5; according to property records, her mother remarried four years later, when Dana was 9. October 2018 stlmag.com
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In April 2014, Dana confronts her mirror image: Shannon Watts, a Mizzou grad and ordinary mom who founded Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America after the Sandy Hook school shooting. (“They couldn’t pick a name that didn’t sound like a porno title?” Dana asks on Twitter.) “Do you claim to speak for all moms?” she calls as she hurries after Watts, who’s holding a rally outside the NRA convention. “Would you like to correct the record when you accused me of being employed by the NRA?” Watts refuses to answer the barrage of questions, so Dana turns to her audience and shrugs: “I’m just one mom, and I was wanting to talk to another mom… She seemed like a lonely woman who sits in her driveway drinking boxed wine.”
Of Chelsea Manning she tweets, “Bradley Manning is a male. No amount of overreaction from triggered progressive men will force me, a woman, to redefine my gender for him.” On NRATV, she adds, “Just because you get some boobs, and you put some red lipstick on, poorly applied, and a very poor smoky eye bad dye job, that don’t make you a chick.” According to examples gathered by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Dana has categorized being transgender as a mental illness, “mocked transgender protections as creating a ‘crazy world’ and compared being a transgender youth to her own childhood wish to be a flower.”
Dana loves being a mother. She’s long had a fierce desire for the security of family—and for male protection. Her narrative is that she hated and distrusted men, but she always had a boyfriend, and she married at 20. She’s been guided along the way by a male history teacher in high school, a male newspaper moderator at Meramec, Andrew Breitbart, Glenn Beck, and, now, Wayne LaPierre. With women, she refuses to indulge in automatic solidarity. “Take a Midol,” she tells critics. In her book Hands Off My Gun: Defeating the Plot to Disarm America, she writes that when Piers Morgan got fed up and threw a wad of paper at her, she “didn’t take it personally because he threw like a girl.” When a feminist author admits being uncomfortable with the assumptions of chivalry, Dana snaps, “I think it’s a luxury of third-wave feminism to complain about people holding doors open for people where her country, Nigeria, it ranks top in the world for female genital mutilation.” The Fox TV hosts all stammer at once, nobody quite sure how to follow that leap. Dana is highly critical of women who play up their appearance, yet she does it herself, sometimes in black leather, sometimes in demure schoolgirl collars or lace. She politicizes her role as mother, weaving it into her public persona, then goes ballistic when anyone talks about her family. She likes traditional roles, tells her husband he has to call the repair guy because he is a man and that is his job. Fluidity seems to annoy her. Early on, she defended gay rights. She now writes that marriage is “a covenant between a man, woman, and God before God on His terms,” a religious civil liberty reserved for those who share certain beliefs.
When Dana is invited to be a guest host on The View, February 3, 2014, she opens up about her political conversion, saying that she realized she didn’t agree with big government and that 9/11 changed her mind about pacifism: “I had always thought, ‘Well, no one’s ever going to come over to the United States.’” She also tacks on, a little incoherently, “It’s the problem of what happens when people forget they should be kind.” Brow furrowing, Whoopi Goldberg asks: “Doesn’t that mean that the discourse we have about the things that freak various people out, whether it’s guns or abortion, should be held with a respect for each other’s views?” Dana agrees but adds a verbal shrug: “People want to see a show.”
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Part of that “show” is stormy anger, torrents of it. The First Amendment is almost as sacred to Dana as the Second, and she’ll even extend its protections to the “godless left.” She defends the journalists at Charlie Hebdo; a farmer who wonders aloud whether African-Americans were “better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life”; a teenager who says gay people sicken him; a politician who insists that it’s rare for a victim of “legitimate rape” to become pregnant; a billboard comparing Obama to Hitler (although once Donald Trump is president, she’ll excoriate liberals for parallel rhetoric). Her first book, Hands Off My Gun, comes out in 2014. “My family is from the kind of rural town on which lemonade commercials are based,” she writes. “Kids catch tadpoles and crawdads on gravelly river banks; they skip down the holler and run barefoot into the Qwik Mart with gifted change.” She’s moving toward a larger point—“People had
[guns] in gun racks in their pickups, without any fear that a child might grab one”—and the lyrical prose is a perfect setup. But it’s quite a contrast to her offhand remarks in her twenties, when she emailed friends about her “hoosier family from the Ozarks (Gawd I love them)” and blogged about her aunt’s “giant yellow hillbilly teeth” and the town’s “alcohol problem” and her “kuntry family reunion…in the armpit of the Ozarks. Really though, it’s beautiful country out there, so long as you overlook a few lilly-white rednecks and my Aunt Paula’s hair lip.” (All this sounds mean until you find out that she compared her beloved grandfather to a cockroach because he just wouldn’t die. This is not a woman who softens her words.) What’s consistent in the book is Dana’s trademark sarcasm and class resentment: She characterizes the “anti2A” lobby as wearing designer suits and having “catered rallies and New York-plated, chauffeured SUVs.” She calls “assault weapons” a “made-up kittens-and-dandelions term used by people who have no understanding of firearms. ‘Assault weapon’ has come to define any long gun that is black with lots of ‘stuff’ stuck on it. Handguns are not included, although once you affix a silencer on a gun, grabbers think it makes it ‘shootier’ and then you get into ‘assault-y’ territory.” Media Matters for America points out multiple instances in which she quotes the Founding Fathers’ remarks about state militias’ being adequately armed and prepared for war—but applies them to every individual in peacetime. The book is credited with turning the tide against gun control. In 2016, she comes out with her second book, Flyover Nation: You Can’t Run a Country You’ve Never Been To. The cover shows Dana, pistol slung low on her hip, holding a cowboy hat on with one hand, hair blowing across her face as she stares up at a stormy sky. This book is credited with predicting the coastal–flyover divide that decides the presidential election. Dana endorses Ted Cruz and even provides a bullet list of reasons she refuses to endorse Trump, but she quickly expresses loyalty to the new president. As she’s preparing to assume more responsibilities with the NRA, TheBlaze TV cancels her show and rumors fly, so on the goodbye episode, Beck lets her don his Darth Vader helmet (she and Chris are huge Star Wars fans). “I know there’s some people in the media that are talkin’,”
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she says after the helmet shtick. “You and I are good friends.” Beck leans toward her, his cheek resting on his hand, and smiles: “We’re really good friends. I’m really glad that you’re a friend and you’re on our side. You’re super, super smart. I tell this to everybody here: Look, don’t ever fight with Dana. She will win. And with what we’re facing, the NRA is more important than ever.” She retains her cool poise; he gets a little teary. He ends by saying, “The future of everything, everything, is at stake.” They show highlights of earlier episodes: Dana posing with a gun, saying that the goal for self-defense is “to make a mess for the medic” and winking. Dana playing a staffer at The Terrorist Guild, wearing a hijab and chewing gum as she tells a client, “It says here that you blew up a bus, but no one was killed, and your claim has been denied.”
•
In one of her Twitter volleys, Dana keeps demanding that comedian Michael Ian Black explain his dead-serious charge that the NRA is a terrorist organization. “Maybe you could ask the question in a different way,” Black suggests, “because I’ve tried answering in as many ways as I can think to answer. Your terrorist organization, the NRA, is dedicated to increasing access to the weaponry they know will be abused. That is your job. That is what you do.” Early in 2017, the NRA promotes Dana from special adviser on women’s policy to special assistant to the executive vice president for public communication. She’s been preparing for this role for a long time, rhapsodizing about the smell of a new gun and urging Americans to take responsibility for protecting themselves. In Hands Off My Gun, she says gun control lobbyists “go on MSNBC and flash whitened smiles and explain how more women should be left to the devices of brutes who would ravage them.” In April 2017, she does the famous “clenched fist of truth” video and tells Fox News that the reaction to the video is “insane. Apparently me condemning violence is what’s inciting and dividing America.” She also takes on The New York Times, calling the paper “an old gray hag…that has subsisted on the welfare of mediocrity.” In October, she opens another video by saying, “We are witnesses to the most ruthless attack on a president, and the people who voted for him, and the free system
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that allowed it to happen, in American history.” She says those who oppose Trump’s presidency, “slashing away with their leaks and sneers, their phony accusations and gagging sanctimony, drive their daggers through the heart of our future, poisoning our belief that honest custody of our institutions will ever again be possible.” But never fear: They will “perish in the political flames of their own fires.” After bringing a New York Times reporter with her to a firing range, Dana confides, “Looking back, I think I always wanted to know that I was safe.” The Loesches’ world view has always had an us-versus-them quality, with Chris in the role of Dana’s protector. “Chris attacks anyone from her previous life who speaks out about what she was like,” says one observer. When a woman remarks on Facebook that Dana is nothing like she used to be, Chris goes after her with an army of Dana’s supporters. Pretty soon, the post vanishes. On another occasion, after he is briefly ejected from Twitter—ostensibly for defending Dana so hotly—Chris posts, “I will never stop defending my wife’s honor from lies and liars. It’s called being a man, a husband and a partner in life.” Though Dana was, as she often says, “born for the storm,” she’s fierce about protecting her family from the gale winds her remarks whip up. You get the image of her galloping bareback amid thunder and lightning, Chris riding alongside to goad her stallion forward—and the boys safe and dry in the carriage with the family’s adored French bulldogs. Clearly, Dana feels under siege—from enemies online, from marauding criminals, from the devil himself. “The first greatest lie ever told is that the devil doesn’t exist,” she’s said. “Evil is real.” She’s accused CNN of calling her a child murderer, Piers Morgan of attacking her family. In October 2017—some months after her lucrative NRA promotion—she announces on Twitter that a man has called, threatening to shoot her in her backyard, and that another has threatened to rape her to death. She posts a photo of stuffed trash bags: “Spent my weekend preparing to move due to repeated threats from gun control advocates.” She adds a #MeToo hashtag, because she, too, feels threatened. “Some people on the left have tolerated sexism toward conservative women,” she tells Fox News. There’s an outpouring of outraged support, even from Chelsea Clinton (whom
Dana regularly mocks as the face of “white privilege”). “Dana—this is all awful & unacceptable,” Clinton posts. “Those of us who disagree with you the strongest have a particular responsible [sic] to strongly condemn.” Two months later, the Loesches move from a $750,000 home to one that lists for $1.9 million in a gated community of the same Dallas/Fort Worth suburb (one of the wealthiest in the U.S.).
•
In February 2018, Paul Guyot, a St. Louis– based screenwriter and producer known for his work on Geostorm and NCIS: New Orleans, tweets, “Dana Loesch came to me 10yrs ago pitching a sitcom starring herself: “A hot young mom who does far right radio show.” Said her age & looks would make 1 side hate her & 1 love her so everyone would watch. Was obsessed w the potential fame & money. I turned her down.” Bill Maher picks up the tweet and runs with it. “I once received an unsolicited offer of unwanted assistance from someone in California we did not know, my agent did not know, that wasn’t of interest to us and wasn’t pursued,” Dana tweets in response to Guyot. Chris tweets: “That story is a lie. He pitched a reality show to us based on mamalogues. We had no idea who he was. We told him no and he still tried to be friends.” He may have; Dana produces a LinkedIn invite that says, “Though I failed at making you a TV star, I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. – Paul.” But in an email to Warner on September 9, 2006, she wrote, “Also (please keep it on the downlow) Mamalogues may be a primetime sitcom by spring. Nothing’s certain yet, we’re still in the meeting phase. DUDE!” On December 27, 2006, she writes, “We’ve also had good news on the sitcom front: VERY positive feedback and a lot of people are wanting to attach themselves to the project.” A different offer, perhaps? At any rate, she pronounces Guyot a “Weinstein-wannabe skeeze”—which, for Dana, is mild. She describes Amy Schumer’s “Michelin Man rolls spilling over the top of her underpants” and U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, now in her eighties, as taking on “the posture of a cocktail shrimp.” Neil Young sounds “like a bloated cow farting and dying all at once.” After the San Bernardino shooting, she tires of “tragedy dryhumping whores.” Listening to Democratic
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Socialist candidate Alexandria OcasioCortez reply to a question is, Dana says, “like trying to watch someone put word magnets in order on the fridge.” She’s always been fearful, never timid. Dana comes out full force and doesn’t waver. She shows no curiosity about other perspectives, only scorn. In a 2008 blog post, she explains: “When my emotions run high I have to work very hard not to verbally eviscerate people, even if they have nothing to do with my problems.” There are examples. After Kayleigh McEnany (now spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee) announces in 2016 that you can’t be a true conservative unless you support Trump (at the time, Dana most definitely doesn’t), Dana says on radio: “Babycakes, this [election is] more than going on television and flashing them pearly whites and your flat-chested, red-dressed, oversprayed bleach blonde hair while you sit here and you preach all this stuff about who is or isn’t a conservative.” When Dana is informed that McEnany has chosen to undergo a preventive double mastectomy, she doesn’t flinch or apologize, just brings out her own bona fides, saying she’s watched every woman in her family die a horrible death from cancer. “I’m sorry for the struggles she had,” Dana writes to The Daily Caller, “but perhaps being the ‘victim’ of my words can give her an insight into the kind of harm Trump’s words inflicts on others.” On air, Dana says, “I’m just doing it the Trump way: You come at me, I’ll come back at you three times as hard. You like it now? Because I can go harder.” You wouldn’t hold the “flat-chested” slip against most people, because it would be a single stray, horrible mistake. But Dana insults people so freely, and in such playground-taunt style, that it was a mistake waiting to happen. In 2009, she tweets, “Meghan McCain’s idiocy offends me. Someone throw her a bottle of bleach and lip gloss to shut her up.” In 2014, when actress Kristen Bell reminds women on Twitter that they own their ovaries, Dana responds, “If Bell were to go into politics Megan McCain would be the smarter blonde. Let that simmer.” Stung, McCain asks why the “mean girl” remark. “It was the closest I could get to a compliment,” Dana slams back. And when McCain calls it “intentional and some kind of snide hit at my intelligence,” Dana replies, “Yes, it was. I’m impressed you picked up on it
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@MeghanMcCain. Did you search your last name?” You can’t make too much of these public spats, though; over time, they start to feel like World Wrestling Entertainment. In 2017, when McCain leaves The View, Dana mourns her departure online, calling her an “incredibly sweet and genuine person,” and McCain responds, “Thank you so much for the kind words Dana! And thank you so much for you and @ChrisLoesch’s constant support and friendship.” She even adds a heart emoji. Dana’s spat with Piers Morgan starts when a British soldier is hacked to death with knives in broad daylight. “Was the guy with the machete a member of the NRA?” she tweets. “Asking for a friend.” “There is a time to shut up with stupid political wisecracks,” Morgan replies, “and this is one of those times. Show some bloody respect.” Morgan eventually unfollows her and bans her from his show. “Classic. @piersmorgan bans me from a show no one watches,” she tweets. When people say they don’t mind being shunned by Dana, she insists that they do. Or, she insists that she doesn’t mind being shunned, then makes up later and says, as she will to Morgan 236 days later (when he finally takes her back on Piers Morgan Live because their producers are friends), “I knew you couldn’t quit me, Piers.” She will argue any point, but she cannot stand to be wrong or contradicted or ignored. “Bring it, coward,” she’ll tweet. “Don’t block me, coward.” People who dare end a protracted exchange by saying they’re “bored” are corrected instantly: They’re “owned.” With friends, Dana is nothing like this. Leigh Wambsganss and her husband watch Fourth of July fireworks with the Loesches, grinning at the giant unicorn that takes up as much of their pool as the giant duck in the Wambsgansses’ pool. Dana’s fun, Wambsganss says, “not a prima donna at all. She’s a lot more down to earth than a lot of people who aren’t on national television. And she’s one of the most sweet-hearted people in the world: When I was in the hospital last year, she said, ‘What can we do?’ If I have a problem, she’s one of the first people I talk to.” Dana’s advice, Wambsganss adds, “is always godly; it comes from a biblical perspective, and it’s steered by kindness and love and strength. That makes it all the
more infuriating when she’s treated horribly in the public sphere. What makes me maddest is when people accuse her of not caring about children. Dana would do anything for anyone’s child. The anti–Second Amendment people that are so far out of the mental sphere are just—they’re just evil. It makes me want to dive in for her, because she’s standing in the line of fire.” Luckily, she’s strong, Wambsganss adds: “She’s not a woman who cares about being popular.” And yet she is. When Wambsganss visits the NRA convention, she sees “a lot of stars there, a lot of the people we love, but the longest line was for Dana. People who know the truth love her.”
•
On Fox & Friends this June, Dana announces that the incivility in this country comes from “individuals on the far left who have no better way to respond to policy disputes than with violence, than with incendiary rhetoric.” She says it’s Democrats who “whip up emotion when they can’t offer anything real in terms of policy. While Trump and Republicans were talking about jobs and trade and health care, these individuals were out there telling people what bathrooms to use, and screaming about Russia and everything else, none of which has come to fruition, by the way.” Dana’s is an unusual combination of high emotion and cold sarcasm; thick hide and defensiveness; scrappy provocation and dismissiveness. She tweets a regular reminder: “I read all hate mail & Tweets in a sponsored segment on my nationally syndicated radio show and use the profits to purchase more range ammo, (got a new Sig with it, too) and put in the plate for Jesus on Sunday. Let your hate work for me. Thank you. #DanaRadio.” “When she knows she has just upset someone, she will laugh,” Ben Howe, a friend and former colleague, tells The New York Times. She can write sentences like “When a policy debate begins with personal attack, it lacks any potential to be a serious, thoughtful discussion.” But she slides fast into personal attack. She’s capable of nuance, but she’ll abandon it in a heartbeat to present, in stark black and white, what people love as endangered and what they fear as encroaching.
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Is it money that drives her? Couldn’t have been, initially. Who would expect to make millions starting out as a conservative mommy blogger, even a rock ’n’ roll one? These days, though…. “Just last week, I was up at 3 a.m.,” says Corcoran, “and I flipped to some station, and there was Dana doing a beet juice infomercial, half an hour long. I watched the whole thing, kept thinking she’d show some sense of irony. Nope. Serious as a heart attack.” She’s even more serious about her political views, which seem every bit as heartfelt as the liberal rants of her youth. Maybe she’s simply found, like comedian Lewis Black, that genuine anger and frustration presented in a public forum can be profitable. Pinning the opinions of a woman this independent on her husband, Bill Clinton, and 9/11 seems a little, to use one of Dana’s favorite words, disingenuous. But in the context of her hunger for home, security, belonging, and inviolable truths, the opinions make sense. And her temperament’s always tipped toward sarcasm. Her uncle Jim Scaggs still can’t figure out where all that anger came from: “The things that fuel Dana are probably things that happened later in life,” he says, “not in our neck of the woods. Dad wasn’t like that. None of the siblings were like that.” She takes aim at other conservatives, too. (She was thoroughly disgusted by those who fell for Sacha Baron Cohen’s Who Is America? pranks.) But she’s hewing pretty close to the NRA’s party line these days. She’s breezy about the release of blueprints for 3-D– printed guns, referring to “what Democrats call ‘ghost guns’ and the rest of us simply call freedom and innovation.” After the August shooting in Jacksonville, her response is to call for an end to gun-free zones. In moments that count, Dana stops jousting and gathers the likeminded close. At the 2018 NRA meeting, she addresses the crowd warmly, saying, “You know what, family?” She’s found that sense of belonging again, the feeling she had with her cousins, at the college newspaper office, mothering her children, being mentored… “They don’t hate guns; they just don’t want you to have them, because they think they’re better than you,” she continues. “I’m proud to own a buttload of guns. I’m proud to be carryin’.” Gun owners delivered the presidential election, she says, and the job’s not done yet. “The fight isn’t at the federal level anymore. It is in your backyard. “There’s a storm comin’. But you all are the thunder.” ■
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S T. LO U I S SAG E
LEGENDS & LORE
How did Vincent Price’s family first make their fortune? T
HE KING OF HORROR? Bah! Vin-
cent Leonard Price was still in short pants when his family moved from Washington Avenue to 6320 Forsyth. In the 1850s, his grandfather, Vincent Clarence Price, was a baby-faced New York pharmacist and homeopath who couldn’t grow a beard. Patients just didn’t trust rosy-cheeked wisdom, so, with time on his hands, he mixed up the world’s first cream of tartar baking powder to help his mother (lovely woman, terrible cook) reinvent her leaden biscuits. Then he went west, knocking on doors to sell the stuff. Soon he was also purveying the finest extracts of vanilla and lemon, then a breakfast cereal. Sage heard he even dabbled in dog food. Then the stock market crashed. His youngest son, the first Vincent Leonard Price, was at Yale at the time, but Vincent Clarence yanked him out of school to help save at least one of the family businesses, the National Candy Company. Realizing that St. Louis was about to become the stage for the Olympics and the World’s Fair, Vincent Leonard moved here in 1902. Soon, his was one of the biggest candy companies in the country. When Vincent Leonard Jr. was born, in May 1911, the National Candymakers’ Association christened him the Candy Kid. Off to Country Day School he went, then to Yale, where he was studying art
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history when the stock market crashed even harder. This Vincent didn’t have to leave school, though, because his father had specialized in penny candy—all that anyone could afford at the time. After graduation, he left to study art at the University of London but wound up performing on the London stage. The Candy Kid came bounding home eager to be a character actor. But he was 6-foot-4, with patrician features and a refined elegance that made a Jimmy Cagney gangster role ludicrous, so instead he found roles as suave, often likable Gothic villains, then slid into the burgeoning genre of horror movies. “I sometimes feel that I’m impersonating the dark unconscious of the whole human race,” he said about 100 films later. Yet all that horror and evil and fear were balanced by oodles of joy. An art collector (he bought a Rembrandt etching at age 12), he was deeply interested in culture and food, wrote cookbooks (perhaps Granddad’s influence), and taught his daughter, Victoria, to make pancakes from scratch and wait for the little bubbles before she flipped them. “He was like a big kid,” she once confided. “Always curious, always interested in the world, with such generosity of spirit. His go-to mode was gratitude. And fundamentally, he was an optimist. He just felt like we have to go into the dark and face our fears.” And, like his granddad, he knew how to get a rise out of us.
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