Modesto

Some of these days we're going to go to Modesto and try the paella – but we haven't yet, despite quite a few visits. The tapas menu just lures us, time after time. Chef Grace Dinsmoor is back in the kitchen and things, both in the dining room, and the bar, rock on, especially on weekends; one Friday night, we saw folks sitting down for dinner at 10:30 p.m. Ten years ago, Modesto began shaking things up on The Hill, Legend has it that when the founders toured the neighborhood for the required liquor-license signatures, some of the older residents heard "topless" instead of "tapas". Angry was the response before louder, slower repetition brought understanding.

Late at night, it's a younger crowd, mostly groups, and it gets a little noisier in the terra cotta colored dining room with its big south-facing windows. We order tapas about four at a time for the two of us, six at a time if there are two couples, and the servers here are accustomed to that rhythm. Empties were promptly removed, fresh plates supplied intermittently, and drinks refreshed.

And speaking of drinks, while we like Spanish wine just fine, this is the place to explore sangria. If you've had it once and thought “Nope,” remember that it, like turkey dressing, has a thousand recipes and more variations. The red sangria, smoothed out with a little brandy, just like they do in Spain, manages to be lightly fruity without being sweet. The white version cries out for a terrace overlooking the sea, just a little bitter, seemingly starting with a light hit of grapefruit and ending up with a note of pineapple at the bottom of the glass. There's always a sangria del dia, which was hibiscus that night, its flowery notes making it very sippable without being cloying.

Cheese and sausage to start out with for those a little hesitant about things. That great Spanish chorizo, rather like a coarse and very spicy salami, sliced wafer-thin kicked things off. (It also works well with beer.) Arriving hot from the oil were salt cod fritters, light and moist, with a marvelous garlic aioli for a dipping sauce. More of the aioli was drizzled over flatbread topped with smoked salmon and Serrano ham with a few threads of red onions and some capers, a dish particularly well-received by our hungry table.

Dinsmoor says she's getting ready to change the meatballs on the menu to a lamb version that she's used for catering. The current ones, veal and pork, were surprisingly tough to cut with a fork. But, goodness, were they tasty, and we wondered if the fork resistance was from being grilled. Besides the tomato sauce and a little manchego cheese, the meaty flavor seemed to have considerable push from being well-browned, and there's nothing wrong with that. Mussels steamed in hard cider were as fat as we've ever seen, their juices mingling with some chorizo sausage and sweet red pepper strips. Garlic cloves were lightly breaded, threaded on skewers, and quickly fried, the outside crunchy and the inside creamy and sweet.

We're suckers for those marinated white anchovies known as boquerones. Modesto offered them with see-through-thin slices of Iberico ham and piquillo peppers in a vinaigrette. Goat cheese baked in a little cazuela, or earthenware pan, was topped with sauteed mushrooms and some spicy tomato sauce, lush and endearing. Skewers of tender lamb were grilled with a tomato salsa alongside, tomato being a first-rate go-along with lamb.

Grilled octopus, we fear, isn't for everyone. But if you've tried calamari, the texture won't be unfamiliar, and the grilling adds another note to its mild flavor. Dressed with olive oil and a little lemon, as it is across much of the Mediterranean, it arrived atop thin slices of freshly fried potato. Dinsmoor's version of piperade adds roasted and shredded pork to the sweet peppers, as well as some white beans and a fried egg, meant to have the yolk broken and the whole stirred together, the egg acting as an enriching sauce.

In Spain churros and chocolate are a tradition, churros being those long, narrow doughnut sticks and the chocolate there being a drinking chocolate that's very thick. Modesto's chocolate is a dense, warm fudge sauce made with good chocolate, the drill being to dip the churros in the chocolate. Good stuff. Almost as good as their killer bread pudding, dark and white chocolate with a caramel sauce flavored with Licor 43, a vanilla-and-citrus flavored rum-like alcohol. Served warm, of course, and big enough to carry home, trophy-like, for breakfast the next morning.

Paella in four variations is the only entree served. We love rice dishes, so eventually, we're determined to tell you about those, too.

 

Modesto Tapas Bar and Restaurant

5257 Shaw Ave.

314-772-TAPA

www.modestotapas.com

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Poor

Smoking: No

Tapas: $5-$14

Comments

[Bob Koogler]

Joe & Ann:

Modesto is one of our favorite restaurants in St Louis. The crowd is lively, the ambiance unique and the food -- great! I agree that Chef Dinsmoor is a creative chef and that Marsha (GM) is attentive to the flow of orders and customers needs. They also hire great servers, many of whom have been there for several years.

We will be there again this Saturday night (3/12)!