St. Louis Eats and Drinks With Joe and Ann Pollack

The Piccadilly at Manhattan

A tip from one of many food fans with whom we chat sent us looking for this quiet neighborhood spot in Maplewood. South of the railroad tracks and east of Big Bend Boulevard, it stands at the corner of Piccadilly and Manhattan, which should be -- but isn’t -- the intersection of a pair of glamorous boulevards. The building clearly has been there for years and years and, in fact, the Piccadilly at Manhattan, to use its full name, has been in the same family since the 1920's.

The interior is much more contemporary, nicely painted and offering thoughtful touches like hooks under the bar for customers’ purses and jackets. Tables pay tribute to various people and places under their glass tops; the one we used held Bob Dylan pictures, record album covers and other memorabilia. There’s a good-sized deck behind the dining room, and a parking lot behind that, entered from Manhattan Avenue. It’s very much a neighborhood place; as we sat there on a pre-theater Friday, almost all new arrivals were greeting other tables and/or the proprietors, Nick and Maggie Collida. By the time we finished dinner, several folks stopped by to say hello to us, too, so we fit right in.

The menu is brief, a couple of narrow pages, mostly first courses and sandwiches, with a few proper entrees, and a couple of chalkboards with specials. Only three wines are available by the glass to supplement the expected beer, but table cards boast of 20 wines (10 white, 10 red) for $20 or less a bottle, not from labels easily recognized, but including some interesting offerings from South Africa, South America and Australia, in addition to a number of California varieties. It’s the sort of thing that piques the curiosity of the wine-inclined, and definitely is worth investigating. We were unable to dig into the list, but when we return, you can count on it.

We kicked off with an order of chicken wings. The "our way" option was described as sweet and hot. The moist, meaty wings’ sauce began as sweet; the heat kicked in a little later in the eating, and remained at moderate levels. The Piccadilly salad, large enough to be lunch on another day if we hadn’t split it, began with fresh, nicely chilled, crisp iceberg lettuce, tossed with judicious amounts of julienne salami and cheese, and some sweet red onion. The house dressing was a nicely balanced oil and vinegar mixture. Iceberg lettuce is perfectly acceptable in a casual restaurant, and the amount of dressing was just right, enough to season everything but not leave a puddle on the plate.

Main courses? We pondered. Pasta with seafood in a creamy garlic sauce and fried catfish with slaw and fries were the daily specials. Many plates of handsome, ungreasy fried chicken flew by. Our consideration of a pork tenderloin sandwich stopped abruptly when a handsome double cheeseburger was served to a fellow at the bar. We succumbed to a single, a five-ounce patty that arrived hot and juicy, alongside some seasoned fries. A grouper sandwich was piled high, its boneless pieces, clad in a light batter, were sufficiently tasty and juicy that it needed no tartar sauce.

Maggie Collida makes the desserts (their son is the chef), and we’d advise saving room if they’re as good as the one we tried. "Carrot cake," was the dessert du jour, proclaimed the chalkboard. "Roulade" is probably not a word that will ever appear in print at Piccadilly, but the carrot cake was made in a jelly roll pan and rolled around a particularly creamy cream cheese filling to produce what is technically called a roulade. We call it yummy.

Pleasant, attentive service, but realize this is a small kitchen and everything is cooked to order. That can, and does, mean that the food at Piccadilly at Manhattan will arrive piping hot and extremely tasty.

The Piccadilly at Manhattan

7201 PiccadillyAve., Maplewood

314-646-0016

www.thepiccadilly.com

Lunch & Dinner Tues.-Sat.

Credit cards: All major

Wheelchair access: Poor

Smoking: No

Entrees: $8-$16

Revival

Revival opened with quite a burden on its shoulders. Located in the building that formerly held the near-revered King Louie’s, the vibes from the previous occupant meant most visitors would inevitably begin comparisons. But it also meant that many of those same folks really wanted Revival to be successful. Certainly a brave step by the group of owners, who also operate such different restaurants as Cyrano’s and Boogaloo, to take on the challenge.

The interior hasn’t changed radically, and the patio remains, awaiting better weather. Decor tends more toward the minimalist than in the previous incarnation, but familiar faces abound. Chef and part-owner Cary McDowell is part of a management group that includes his wife, Holly; Charlie and Carolyn Downs of Cyrano’s (she’s the pastry chef at both spots); and restaurant owner-chef-maven Mike Johnson. Holly met Cary, by the way, when she was behind the bar in the early days at King Louie’s. More familiar faces are visible in the dining room from previous customers eager to try the Revival’s efforts, and a few staff members have returned.

It’s a menu that acknowledges the current nibbling trend with many options beyond entrees, but the general theme is riffs on traditional Southern and all-American foods. In other words, this is a house that offers not only shrimp and grits, but also individual pizzas.

Of the first courses we’ve tried, our favorite was the chicken liver mousse, three large fluffy scoops on crostini, far too generous to pick up and eat with one’s fingers until about half the mousse is forked up along with the accompanying greens. Cool and smooth and lightly seasoned, it’s swell. Sweetbreads, a personal favorite but an organ meat that frightens some, arrived with a generous amount of mushrooms, the whole sauteed and served with pan juices. Steak tartare is made from high-quality beef, properly moist and full of flavor. It’s topped with a quail egg cooked until the yolk is barely set, a change from the traditional raw yolk. About the only disappointment was a chopped iceberg salad. Chunkier than a Cobb, it sports pickled red onion rings, cucumber slices and cottage cheese. But alas, the green goddess dressing seemed to lack any discernible tarragon, and made up for it with sugar.

On the lunch menu, there’s a fine, juicy slab of meatloaf, dense and succulent, nicely spiced. Evenings, we’ve been happy with beef short ribs in a winy braise, the ribs meaty and tender, served with sweet potatoes cooked alongside. Mussels steamed with sausage from G&W, the fine south St. Louis  purveyor, and some tomato, gave the sensation of what Paul Prudhomme calls "flavors playing pinball in your mouth". The Revival "supper steak," a hanger steak sliced and served in an onion-laced reduction, was absolutely delicious, the sauce good enough to have us calling for some bread to wipe down the last bits. Delicious cornbread arrived, followed by some biscuits hot from the oven and so deliciously delicate they crumbled rather than split.

Eminently satisfactory.

Grilled trout is a whole, boned fresh-water trout, quickly grilled. Fair warning: It’s served head-on. That doesn’t bother us one whit, but some folks can’t abide it. We’d bet the kitchen will do the necessary surgery on request. The trout, perfectly cooked, comes with what the menu calls "camp potatoes." We’ve seen various dishes by that name; this one turns out to be tiny new potatoes, properly steamed, tender but not collapsing.

The dessert menu has two parts, called snacks and home-style sweet things, all from the aforementioned gifted pastry chef and part-owner, Carolyn Downs. Snacks includes cookies, fudge, sugared popcorn and cooked-to-order doughnuts, actually beignets (think doughnut holes, if you haven’t had that New Orleans treat), sprinkled with powdered sugar and served in a brown paper sack, the first Missouri term Joe learned when he arrived in Columbia, and asked for a paper bag to carry some purchases. The sweet things include a bread pudding with chocolate and a Dr. Pepper sauce. We didn’t taste much DP in the sauce, but it was a good bread pudding. Red velvet cake is making a comeback, at least locally. We’ve decided it sounds good, but it’s actually a safe dessert rather than an exciting one. Downs’ rendition is moist enough, always a concern, but it’s basically a nod to nostalgia rather than offering anything remarkable. On the other hand, a buttermilk pound cake topped with a spiced praline sauce was delicious, its velvety texture and charming sauce set off with a dash of sea salt, the hot thing in fashionable dessert ingredients this year. No complaints here; we know a wee bit of salt pushes other flavors forward on the tongue.

Service seems to go smoothly, although occasionally we hear stories of busy nights getting a little confusing. And with Grand Center getting even busier as more organizations move their offices into the area, lunch business should thrive. The area deserves a Revival.

Revival

3800 Chouteau Ave.

314-771-3939

www.revivalstl.com

Lunch Tues.-Fri., Dinner Tues.-Sat.

Credit cards: All major

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: Yes

Entrees: $14-$22

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Schlafly Bottleworks Brunch

If there is any meal where using the best ingredients makes the biggest difference, we’re convinced that it has to be breakfast. The difference between cheapo bacon and the artisanal product, for instance, or eggs from battery-raised chickens versus free-range, becomes apparent with the first bite–if not before, given the brilliant color of free-range egg yolks. Brunch at Schlafly Bottleworks is a good example of that. Like several other local restaurants, it lists local purveyors on the menu and on a chalkboard in the dining room, a reminder that this definitely isn’t factory food.

The brunch menu, served both Saturday and Sunday, is primarily dishes for big breakfasts, one of the best ways to spend a weekend morning, but the full lunch menu also is offered. We concentrated on the breakfast-y stuff, and watched as family groups began to fill the room, joining the solo diners and couples who had been on hand when we arrived.

Instead of omelets, the kitchen offers fritattas, the egg dish that is similarly comprised of eggs mixed with various add-ins, served open-faced and not folded or flipped. We’ve explained them as scrambles that aren’t stirred. A fritatta with artichokes, mushrooms and venison was first-rate. The pleasantly tender slices of venison also appear in the house version of a Philly cheese steak, it turns out. The fritattas arrive with a generous serving of crisply fried hash browns, carefully seasoned to avoid any memory of the too-often served, far-too-bland versions of the dish. A cinnamon-scented honey wheat English muffin added a pleasant touch.

Bottleworks’ waffles arrive crowned with blueberries and berry syrup. Tender and cake-like, they’re also accompanied by a large scoop of whipped cream that, at first glance, resembles vanilla ice cream. It’s pleasant, and satisfies the sweet tooth, but is not needed to moisten things. An order of sausage brings more possibilities, either patties or hickory-smoked, almost like Polish and made in Washington, Mo. The hickory was a single large link, wonderfully savory, juicy and nicely smoky, a vigorous contrast to the sweet waffles.

Probably the piece de resistance of the brunch menu, though, is French toast made with the single dish (other than beer) that we associate most with Schlafly: Sticky toffee pudding. Four slices of the pudding (remember this is an English/Scottish dish, and "pudding" is used where we Yanks would say "cake") are dipped into a light egg batter and grilled. No toffee sauce here, just a drizzle of the berry syrup and a cup of maple syrup, which we didn’t use. Absolutely satisfying; but come summer, this is a dish where fresh fruit would be very appropriate. The idea of ripe, juicy local peaches sliced over this is shiveringly good. Our bacon order, four large slices, was high-quality material, crisp and satisfying.

 

Yes, good coffee and attentive service. The rest of the brunch menu shows imagination, too, like vegetarian biscuits and gravy, and huevos rancheros. Somebody running the show really likes breakfast, and it shines through in the food.

Schlafly Bottleworks

7260 Southwest Ave., Maplewood

314-241-BEER

www.schlafly.com/brewpubs

Brunch Sat.-Sun.

Credit cards: All major

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Brunch Entrees: $6-$8

Ivory Coast Bistro

Once upon a time, St. Louis had plenty of small bars that also had kitchens. They offered humble food, most of it made on site, and a nearby accountant or salesman might drop in for what was often called a merchants’ lunch, or for a fast sandwich and a glass of beer. In fact, it was at such places that the now-gone brain sandwich flourished. One of the neighborhoods where such places existed is Carondelet.

For those unfamiliar with it, Carondelet (which originally was an independent city) is tucked into the city’s southeast corner, bordering both the Mississippi and River des Peres, a short hop from the sublime to the ridiculous. It’s also home to one of this year’s new crop of theaters, the Ivory Theater, named for a street it faces. That means, we hope, many first-time visitors to the neighborhood. Dining options in the area are limited. But across the sort of plaza that the Ivory Theater faces is the Ivory Coast Bistro–which, be warned, at this writing does not have a sign outside. It’s at the south end of a wedge-shaped block, and its entrance faces south. (Look for the neon beer signs.)

The Ivory Coast is larger than it looks. There’s the bar, which serves as a dining room for smokers, a non-smoking dining room, and another room with a pool table. As befits the neighborhood tradition, there seem to be a fair number of regulars at the bar. The food is relatively simple. A couple of fish specials, this being Lent, were added to the menu’s sandwiches, pasta, steak, pork and chicken. Lots of first courses, including a couple of soups. While there are some things that are less home-y than our choices, what we had was really basic American food. This is salt-and-pepper-land, not tarragon-and-chutney-ville.

Fried green beans were our chance to try something new. A light coat of cornmeal batter clung to the crispy beans, great finger food, with a bowl of chili mayonnaise for dipping. They were delicious and we rationalized that they also had fewer calories than french fries. They also stayed hot longer than their potato counterparts. Beef barley soup, clearly homemade, was full of chunks of beef, several kinds of vegetables, and barley that hadn’t been cooked so long the broth became sludgy. Good seasoning and served piping hot, a pleasing factor that has been overlooked too often lately. Entrees include a salad, surprisingly large, and with greens more sparkling than some we’ve had at three times the price.

 

The phrase "chicken dinner" is an old one, not much used in conversation any more. But that’s how our cheerful server described what she placed on the table for one of our entrees. Four pieces of fried chicken, half a chicken, had been battered and fried to a satisfying crunch. A large baked potato (wrapped in foil, alas) fought for space on the plate, leaving green beans to reside in a side bowl. The beans were seasoned with plenty of bacon, but had not been cooked until they were dead.

Chicken pot pie? It’s been a while since we’ve seen it on  menus hereabouts. The surprisingly large serving was topped with a few layers of filo dough rather haphazardly applied. Underneath, while the gravy was thinner than expected, the chicken, potatoes, carrots and celery were full of flavor. One of the problems with the filo was that it did not soak up the juices the way puff pastry or biscuit dough will.

One of the oldest bakeries in the city, Carondelet Bakery, is in the next block. We wondered–but didn’t ask–if the Ivory buys from Carondelet. We split a slice of moist carrot cake and strolled off to the theater.

And that brings us to one more thing. Allow enough time for dinner if you’re going on to a show. This isn’t 45th Street in Manhattan, or Grand Center, where the restaurants are accustomed to getting people out before curtain time. The servers flew around the dining room, and the kitchen didn’t seem to dawdle, but it’s just easier for diners to enjoy a meal if they’re not anxiously peering at their watches during most of it.

Ivory Coast Bistro

7637 Ivory St.

314-544-4900

Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner daily

Credit cards: All major

Wheelchair access: Poor

Smoking: Yes

Entrees: $11-$16

Athena's

People who write about food and restaurants, as we have for some 35 years, sometimes face serious dilemmas. As we have written many times, we do not accept free meals, and on several occasions, when a restaurateur has ignored our policy, we simply have not written about the establishment, leaving a couple of places we like out of our last book for that reason.

We faced a different situation recently, and after considerable thought and discussion, we decided that a different approach would be proper and fair to the restaurant because we thoroughly enjoyed the meals, if not the entire experience.

So we recently visited Athena’s, a Greek restaurant in Ellisville, on a Saturday night. We vary the evenings on which we dine out, mainly for our own comfort, but we sometimes pick a specific day to see how the restaurant performs under the pressure of a busy weekend or on a quiet night. We like Greek food (Ann slightly more than Joe because of her strong preference for lamb), and since we never had visited Athena’s, we settled on a Saturday night and made a reservation for 8 p.m.

We arrived a few minutes before 8 and after she looked into the dining room, were told by a charming, in-command hostess that someone was putting the wine glasses on the table and it would be ready in a moment. It was. We had used our name on the reservation, but the hostess had told us she was from San Diego and we did not think she had recognized us as restaurant writers.

We were seated, greeted, offered a drink (we declined, planning on wine with dinner) and a menu, told of the specials. It took a while before the server returned, but that was not a problem; the restaurant was quite crowded, with a large family party (at least 16 people, including a number of children) in an adjoining area and we were enjoying the opportunity to talk.

Athena’s is a good-sized restaurant with a menu that includes steaks, chops and fish in addition to a large handful of Grecian specialties – lamb shank, moussaka, pastitsio, dolmades – found in many other St. Louis Greek restaurants. We ordered avgolemeno soup and a Greek salad to start, followed by lamb shank and moussaka and a bottle of Coppola California shiraz/syrah, two names for the same grape.

Our adventure was just beginning.

We chatted about one thing and another, plans for a summer trip, discussion of local theater and politics, the Presidential race, updates on children and grandchildren. Managers and the owner and a man in chef’s white were here and there, stopping to visit with regular customers and with obvious strangers. It seemed like an extremely smooth operation, especially since someone had mentioned that the staff was short a couple of people that evening.

Not so fast. . . .

About 10 minutes later (we were not keeping exact times; we don’t operate that way), another server arrived, carrying the entrees.

"Who gets the lamb shank?" she asked cheerfully. We always cast a fishy eye at that question. She was not the person who took our order, but there should be a system whereby the server knows who gets what, especially if there are just two diners. If she had guessed, her chances of being correct were 50-50.

"What happened to our appetizers?" we asked. She looked, as the old descriptive goes, as if she had been hit in the head with a cow. "You didn’t get appetizers?" she asked, clearly startled, then apologized, did a crisp about-face and headed for the kitchen.

A few minutes later, with another apology, she returned, carrying the soup and the salad. The latter, properly rough-cut slices of red onions and green peppers with chunks of tomato, obviously had been tossed together in a hurry. The pepper slices still held seeds and much of the white membrane, though, once trimmed, they were delicious. We’d asked for the Kalamata olive vinaigrette rather than balsamic vinegar dressing for the salad, and it was a good choice, thick with lots of bits of olive.

We still were wondering about the main courses, however, and were nearly positive that the plates had been returned to the kitchen and left on a work area, or perhaps under a warming light.

The soup was tasty, with plenty of chicken, rice and a good lemon flavor, but it was not quite hot enough. Years ago, Joe listened as the late Jack Miller, who founded the excellent culinary program at St. Louis Community College at Forest Park, told his classes, "The most important thing about food service is to serve the cold food cold and the hot food hot." It’s still the most important thing, and too many kitchens ignore it.

Where we are concerned, they ignore it at their peril.

The entrees arrived, even though we were not quite finished with the appetizers , and they proved our point. The lamb was not only barely warm, but also extremely tough. The moussaka had superior flavor, with cinnamon adding a lovely touch, but it too was barely warm. We looked at one another and turned to the wine, which was delicious.

We picked around the edges of the meal. Being cold does not destroy moussaka, though it damages it severely. The broccoli was not hot enough, either, but Ann is fond of broccoli. After a while, the man who appeared to be the owner stopped at the table and inspected our plates. "Is there a problem?" he asked.

We stared at one another. It is not our policy to send dishes back, nor to complain to a server, manager or owner. We use a computer for that. But the man obviously was disturbed because a customer appeared unhappy.

We told him.

He picked up the plates and went away.

When he returned, he wore a distraught expression, which any good host would wear if he gave someone something not up to his standards. "Please," he said. "Please, if I wrap a moussaka and a lamb shank, will you take them home and have them for dinner tomorrow?"

We looked at one another again. It was, for us, a long silence. Finally Joe nodded and said we would accept his offer. The man grinned, suggested dessert and Greek coffee, a favorite of ours, and disappeared. A server came by; we ordered galaktoboureko and coffee (Greek or Turkish are similar to our tastes) and went back to the excellent wine.

But we weren’t finished. We split the galactoboureko, the creamy custard and the crunchy filo dough in a very light sauce, enjoyed the coffee (which was finished tableside, and at a swell temperature), finished the wine and asked for a check. When the server presented it, everything we had ordered was on it – except the $30 bottle of wine and the dessert.

We didn’t think twice about accepting the dessert – it’s the sort of courtesy many restaurateurs extend to good customers, or to smooth a ruffled feather – but the wine was a different matter. We don’t know if it was a mistake (after all, there already had been a sufficiency of them) or an attempt to deflate potential criticism, but we mentioned it, the check was removed and returned with the wine added. We paid it.

And as we drove home, we discussed what had happened and what we, or the restaurant should have done. We think the restaurant was right in removing the plates when they were brought at the wrong time. If the plates then sat in the kitchen long enough to dry out, fresh entrees should have been prepared. Lamb shanks are braised and are nearly ready to serve, and the moussaka, prepared in the oven, is in a similar category. We think the entrees remained in the kitchen while we were served the appetizers, then were brought back to the table..

Should we have accepted what amounted to two more entrees, $28.89 according to the menu? Well, we don’t go to restaurants to embarrass owners or chefs or servers, and whether or not we were recognized as food writers, we think Athena’s should have been allowed to try to make amends. And did, because both entrees were superior – and given our oven, they were hot enough. The lamb shank was tender, in natural juices slightly thickened and touched with just a slight note of what seemed to be fresh rosemary. The moussaka was splendid, heightened by the cinnamon, and with good ground beef and properly cooked slices of potato.

We write about this to offer a little slice of life -- and to explain that we were happy with the restaurant and much of the service. We’ll dine at Athena’s again. We really had no sign whatsoever that anyone, staff or patrons, recognized us. Just another Saturday night with St. Louis Eats and Drinks.

Athena’s Greek & American Cuisine

15662 Manchester Rd., Ellisville

636-527-0771

Lunch & Dinner daily

Credit cards: All major

Wheelchair access: Fair

Smoking: Yes

Entrees: $12-$27

Bar Italia

Once upon a time, Bar Italia was cutting edge. When it first opened in 1983, St. Louis didn’t know what to make of this place that called itself an Italian restaurant but whose menu looked so different. Gelato? Cold bean salad with tuna? Risotto? But people soon caught on, and (well before Starbuck’s arrival in St. Louis) people were sipping espresso and having serious conversations or reading paperback books long after the usual lunch hour because that sort of thing was encouraged, too. It became the Restaurant Of The Moment, then settled in contentedly.

Several years ago, Bar Italia moved to a larger site in the next block, and then added even more capacity. For a long time, the menu, except for a few items, didn’t seem to change. Even now, many of the old favorites are still available, like the linguine Siciliana, with an eggplant sauce and a generous amount of ricotta. Unfortunately, both cuisine and service slipped. We had several unhappy experiences, then found ourselves looking elsewhere for lunch or a late-night glass of wine.

We’re happy to report now that Bar Italia, in its 25th year, again is a Central West End bright spot, indoors at this time of the year, on its lovely patio when warmer weather arrives.

The menu is as wide-ranging, but with a few new dishes joining the old favorites.

The house salad always has been a classic, tender lettuces lightly dressed with olive oil, vinegar and lemon juice, with a few excellent olives served alongside. The current kitchen staff lives up to the high standards set by their predecessors. Roasted red peppers and anchovies, topped with a dollop of ricotta salata, are just as basic, just as tasty. The bread, traditionally good, has improved even more with some new rolls.

We veered off from the old favorites for main courses, unable to resist cacciuco, the fish stew traditionally attributed to Livorno, Tuscany’s seaport. Tomato-based, it featured a couple of kinds of fish, lots of bay scallops, a few large mussels and some potatoes. The fish wasn’t overcooked, a little unusual in restaurants’ fish soups, and the seasoning was assertive but not overpowering. Two large slices of sirloin, nicely seasoned and grilled to the requested medium-rare, sat on mashed potatoes, the whole topped with a red-wine reduction with a hit of garlic and rosemary. Alongside came green beans, carrots and a couple of thick slices of grilled zucchini. The unremarkable vegetables took third place after the savory steak and velvety potatoes.

Dessert calls for a stroll to the cabinet at the end of bar, to inspect the gelato and pastry. In addition,  the dessert list carries a few items and there often are special desserts as well. We went for something old and something new, the old favorite being the lemon tart. It’s morphed from a wedge of a larger tart to an individual tart. The tart is centered with a round of dark chocolate about the size of a quarter. But the custard is the same, dense and lemony, and so is the pastry, inevitably soggy from its life in a refrigerator. The lemon filling is so good, we’ve never worried about the soggy crust. The other choice, a daily special, was a bread pudding made from panettone, the winter holiday yeast bread that contains raisins, citron and orange peel. Each individual pudding resembled a muffin, its fluffy and tender, lightly sweet, and just moist enough. It’s among the best of its sort we’ve ever had.

The wine list, not surprisingly, is all Italian, with lots of interesting bottles that are seldom seen locally, and a fine selection of grappa. Definitely not the same old thing.

Bar Italia

13 Maryland Plaza

314-361-7010

www.baritaliastl.com

Lunch Tues.-Sat., Dinner Tues.-Sun.

Credit cards: All major

Wheelchair access: Adequate

Smoking: Yes

Entrees: $14-$26

Brunch: Capri at the Renaissance Grand

It’s been a cold, gray winter here in St. Louis. But we recently ate brunch sitting in wicker chairs under palm trees. Waikiki? San Diego? Nope. Washington Avenue. The Capri restaurant at the Renaissance Grand, to be precise. Despite the palm trees, this is a very casual spot. Weekend hotel guests aren’t interested in dressing up, and neither are folks having a bite before going to a function across the street at America’s Center or the Jones Dome.

On Sunday, however, a buffet brunch joins the regular a la carte breakfast menu, though we were disappointed that the restaurant has eliminated its heavenly lemon souffle pancakes. Darn it. The buffet is in a side room, invisible from the host’s station, and the seating is in two large areas, along with several, slightly more private niches off to one side or another.

 

The price of $16.95 for an adult brunch includes all non-alcoholic beverages. Large thermal carafes of reasonably good coffee are on each table of coffee drinkers, and the half-and-half is in a small pitcher, rather than little plastic cups, an extremely pleasant and civilized touch. The buffet fare is relatively straightforward, no chafing dishes whose contents make diners ask, "What is that?" upon lifting the lid. Nevertheless, every dish is labeled, just in case. Yes, the scrambled eggs are unremarkable, but the fat link sausages remain moist, and the bacon–oh, goodness, the bacon! Thick slices of high-quality meat are cooked to crisp, greaseless perfection. And somehow they stay crisp in the covered chafing dish. Quartered red potatoes, described as "breakfast potatoes," look unexciting, but are buttery-onionesque-peppery.

Yes, there’s an omelet station, with plenty of potential combinations. But less expected is a crepe station, with light, paper-thin crepes cooked to order and served with either sweet or savory fillings. We tried one filled with lemon curd and topped with fresh strawberries. (In an orgy of self-control, we skipped the whipped cream.) In contrast to pancakes, crepes should be slightly chewy, and that contrast to the creamy lemon curd was just the thing. An eminently satisfactory dish for lemon lovers. Yes, there are pancakes, too, just fine despite their stay in a chafing dish, except for  a few abrasions from the serving tongs. Great idea: Syrup in a warming urn.

All this, plus fresh fruit, is along a single serving line. Across the room, a set of cabinets hold more, like refrigerators with single servings of beverages and yogurts. Grits on a buffet line? Not common, but here they are. And real oatmeal, not the instant stuff, with lots of toppings, including dried blueberries.

For those who have suffered through weekends of stale pastry, there’s extremely good news. The small Danish pastries, cinnamon rolls and a streusel-topped coffee cake all are so fresh they must have been made the same morning we ate them. Hard to avoid making a meal solely of them.

Not quite an amuse-bouche but reminiscent of one, about 15 minutes after we sat down, our waiter came by with small glasses of an orange-mango smoothie that he was offering all the tables. That’s a lovely touch.

All in all, a good spot for the basics, lots of room for larger groups, and care taken with details.

Capri

Renaissance Grand Suites & Hotel

800 Washington Ave.

314-418-5900

Credit cards: All major

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Brunch buffet: $16.95

Katie's Pizzeria Cafe

Lots of new restaurants appear to be popping up around town, and Katie’s Pizzeria Café, which we tried recently for an after-theater supper, came as a serendipitous choice -- welcoming, tasty and modestly priced. It opens at 6:30 a.m. for coffee, begins food service at 11 and serves until 1 a.m., something only a young restaurateur would be strong enough to attempt, but we hope she can continue.

Across the street from the Esquire Theater, the interior has been redecorated after some other restaurant tenants and feels new-school Italian minimalist but with a few pieces that could easily have belonged to Nonna. On a wall at the end of the bar, black and white Italian films run silently; they’re subtitled, so if they’re in your line of sight, a talent for lip-reading Italian isn’t necessary. During our visit, "8 ½" was on screen, so we played name-that-performer while we waited. (Anouk Aimee, Marcello Mastroianni and Claudia Cardinale, for starters.) Avid theater-goers will realize that it reminds them of the musical "Nine," the play based on the Federico Fellini film.

Katie’s has been open only a couple of weeks, making this an extremely early review in light of our usual policy. So be warned things change in restaurants this early in their lives, but we were happy with what we found and thought we’d share the meal with you.

The menu is shorter than the movie. Katie Lee, operating her first restaurant, comes to the business with good blood lines; she’s the niece of Zoe Houk, who’s operated restaurants around town for more than 30 years. Katie’s pizza is not St. Louis traditional style. It has the pre-requisite thin crust, but no provel, and we doubt if there’s a spot within 250 miles where you will find a pizza with potatoes, parsnips and pancetta bacon, a combination that will intrigue some and leave others with a funny expression on their faces.

Three first courses (cannelini bean dip, prosciutto spring rolls, and a dish of shrimp, olives and raw fennel), and four salads (mixed, chopped, shrimp Caesar and grilled tuna Nicoise) precede the pizzas. We tried the chopped, properly named the Italian Market Vegetable Chop Salad. At $7.95, it’s a very generous dish, a dinner plate edged with arugula and the center filled with julienned carrots, shaved fresh fennel, a little red onion, some chickpeas and baby tomatoes and a few pine nuts, all marinated in a vinaigrette. It’s definitely entree-sized, and surprisingly good the next day, we discovered.

Pizzas, except for the simple ones listed under the heading "Bambini," are 11 inches across. Out of ten pizze, three are vegetarian. We chose one with Genoa salami, onion, hot chiles, calamata olives and fresh mozzarella, and were delighted with it. First of all, it’s handsome, the thin salami slices cupping up to add a third dimension to a normally flat dish. The chiles seemed to be just a very light sprinkle of dried red pepper flakes, more of which was available if desired. It wasn’t swimming in cheese, and the crust was.... Mmmm, the crust. Very thin, very crisp. That thinness will endear it to locals, and so will the kitchen’s habit of spreading the toppings right to the edge. The occasional bubble here and there, told us it was definitely homemade. Firm enough to easily eat the wedges out of hand, and not very easy to tackle with a knife and fork. Good stuff.

   

Nine wines by the glass from their list, which isn’t all Italian, but leans in that direction.

The Washington University campus already has discovered this place, which may mean that Sunday evenings will be crowded. But you’ll always have a movie to watch.

Katie’s Pizzeria Café

6611 Clayton Rd., Clayton

314-727-8585

Coffee, Lunch and Dinner Daily

Credit cards: All major

Wheelchair access: Poor

Smoking: After 9 p.m.

Entrees. $11-$13

Customers Care

1972 was a seminal year in St. Louis restaurant history. Among the palate-changing establishments opened then was The Jefferson Avenue Boarding House, the creation of Richard Perry. Perry, an Illinois native, offered classic, yet updated, American food, with an emphasis on fresh, even local, provisions. This was very early, indeed, in that movement that’s become a significant part of American food culture. Richard Perry’s name was mentioned in the same breath as Bradley Ogden, whose Kansas City restaurant followed the same path before he went west to San Francisco and opened Campton Place and then the Lark Creek Inn, Alice Waters of Chez Panisse fame. He really was one of the pioneers of the American food renaissance.

Unlike them, however, Perry has not created a group of restaurants that he oversees. Instead, he’s pursued other paths, including teaching. Currently, he owns and operates the Farmers Inn & Prairie Kitchen at a crossroads in the midst of the cornfields on the Illinois side of the St. Louis metropolitan area.

At the desk in the front hall, from which Perry presides over the goings-on, there are copies of a leaflet that at first looks like a carry-out menu. But take a closer look. It begins:

WE ARE IN BUSINESS TO SERVE YOU

YOU CAN HELP

And then Perry goes on to write the following tips:

1. RELAX. The whole idea of dining in a restaurant is to restore your well-being. Enjoy the fine things that life has to offer and revel in the diversity of humanity. We confidently expect your food and service to be outstanding!

2. BE KIND. When dealing with someone on our staff, either in person or by phone, assume that he is a human being like yourself. Let him have the pleasure of helping you. If that doesn’t work...

3. DEMAND PROPER SERVICE. There is no excuse for slow service, even when you might want a leisurely meal. We expect your meal to proceed at a smooth, unhurried pace. However, something is wrong if you wait too long for a dish. Thirty minutes from the time you ordered it is enough. If a longer delay happens to you, we will not charge you for the dish.

4. COMPLAIN. If you don’t, who will? It takes only a minute, you will feel better, and we will all benefit.

5. BE PERSISTENT. If necessary, ask for the dining room manager. Ask for the owner. Sometimes, those at the top have no idea what mayhem transpires down below.

6. BE ARTICULATE. You know what you want; we may not. Be as specific as you can, and spell it out–simply and clearly.

7. BE QUICK YOURSELF. If something is wrong, pounce. Don’t wait for months to let us know. Worse, don’t just forget it and never come back.

8. PRAISE. This action is just as important as complaining. It spurs us on, and is our reward for creative and constructive work.

Pretty good basic Restaurant 101. But the next page goes thusly:

WHAT TO EXPECT AT FARMER’S INN & PRAIRIE KITCHEN

A GUIDE FOR OUR GUESTS

1. We will greet you with a sincere smile–everyone on our staff understands that pleased guests are the backbone of our business.

2. We will provide an outstanding ambience:

-A clean, handsome dining room.

-Crisp, clean napkins

-Spotless dishes, glassware and silverware.

-Outstanding music selections.

-Carefully controlled levels of sound, lighting and temperature.

3. We will train our service staff to know our menu in detail, and to make suggestions designed to enhance your meal. Our staff will be friendly, and act professionally, not arrogant or snooty. They will not interrupt your conversation to inquire if everything is all right.,

4. We enjoy helping you celebrate special occasions; merely inform us early. We also find it easy to provide separate checks if you request that service before ordering; it is not so easy if you wait until the end of the meal to let us know.

5. We will greet you at your table within sixty seconds of seating. We will promptly serve your water, and also present our menus. We will carry a small, selected list of fine American wines, and other spirits. We will dispense a large, accurately-prepared drink made from premium spirits.

6. Our soups will be seasonal and tasty, and so will our sweet corn fritters.

7. We will offer a creative, seasonal menu using as many local products as possible.

-All of our fruits, vegetables, meats and fish the freshest available.

-Most everything made from scratch in our own kitchens.

-Menu items listed in writing so that you can see the prices.

-Food presented attractively on the plates.

-No cooking in the dining room.

8. We will give you our full atention regardless of the size of your bill.

9. We will give you the luxury of a leisurely-paced meal, unless you request an earlier deadline. We will gladly seat you up to our closing time, and will provide full service until you are through. We will not rush you in any way, or indicate that we are closing the restaurant by such actions as piling chairs on the table, or turning up the lights.

10. Some of our dishes are designed to be only lightly cooked, and therefore, we cannot serve them piping hot. We will be glad to cook them longer if you wish. Simply tell the staff in advance of your preference.

11. We expect our food to be the highest quality and we will prepare it according to the highest professional standards. Moreover, we expect it to taste wonderful!

12. We will brew fresh coffee from the finest Colombian beans, and also offer full-flavored iced tea and other beverages.

13. We will present a selection of fresh desserts designed to appeal to today’s nutritional concerns–you will feel guilty if you pass them up,.

14. We will present an accurate bill within sixty seconds of your asking for it.

Perry doesn’t press the leaflets on his customers–he’s not pushing it on them. But we think it’s a good read, worth sharing.