St. Louis Eats and Drinks With Joe and Ann Pollack

Tony's

The St. Louis dining institution that is Tony's may or may not still be at home at Broadway and Market in another few years. Plenty of speculation on that, but no firm answers. But what about this restaurant that's become the subject of so much chatter recently? What's going on there?

Tony's key word must be Elegance "Welcome to Tony's," say the parking valets. "Welcome to Tony's," say the men who open the doors. The walk down the carpeted, wood-paneled hall to the maitre d's stand creates a sense of anticipation, and the understated décor reinforces the thought that food and service are the focus of the evening.

There must be folks for whom dining here is a routine event, but for most of us, it's definitely a special occasion, or for a special occasion. For the enthusiastic eater, this means time poring over the menu, more time discussing and considering the specials, described by the captains down to the last grind of the pepper mill. First courses create particularly difficult decisions for us. The soups are always fabulous, Joe's in love with the roasted peppers and anchovies. Then there are the pastas, served as first courses, in the Italian style. However, this being Tony's, a request to have one as a main course will be granted in the blink of an eye. The seared sea scallops with black truffles are a classic, the order bringing forth three immense ones, perfectly seared and carefully positioned on the plate before the dinner. Then, kept hot over a burner on the guerdon, or serving cart, a sauce, creamy, rich and flecked with bits of the black truffle that adds its wondrous, woodsy, delicate flavor, is poured over and around the scallops. It's difficult to keep from licking the dish.

Now that “Mad Men” has brought the mid-20th century back in fashion, we expect more folks are going for beef tartare. A half-century ago, in the '50s, this was considered a manly dish because the beef is raw. Were begirdled women too refined for such a rowdy dish? The hand-chopped tenderloin is tossed at the table with minced onion, capers and anchovies, and presented with slices of housemade melba toast. (Oh, there's another Fifties food!) The toast is a more elegant way of eating it, but we're such carnivores, we use our forks to dig into the juicy meat with the crunch of onion, the tartness of the capers and the salt of the anchovy bits all singing in fine four-part harmony.

Vince Bommarito tells us that 41% of the main courses are seafood these days. That says a lot about St. Louis dining habits, which echo those of most of the nation. And we're sure it's not just because lobster Albanello is probably the house's signature entree and its most popular. Large chunks of lobster are sauced with a reduction of white wine (“About a thousand bottles,” laughs Vince, Jr., the chef and a CIA graduate), butter and shallots, and plenty of mushrooms. The Bommaritos padre and figlio both encourage diners to have a little pasta with it, the better to mop up every drop of the sauce, and it's a good idea. Carb-counters can ask for a sauce spoon, an interesting utensil that allows for politely getting almost the last molecule of yum.

On a recent visit, a nightly special was a fish stew that included with half a lobster, swordfish, another huge scallop and an equally gargantuan shrimp. The broth seemed located on the Italian-French border right where it meets the Mediterranean, since it was full not only of fish stock but notes of fennel, garlic, saffron and maybe just a little hit of orange peel. Definitely a big-flavor dish, the seafood in the stew was perfectly cooked, the lobster generously sized, and alongside, quite properly, were two slices of toasted bread slathered with rouille, the spicy mayonnaise that's traditionally served with such a dish.

Helen Fletcher, one of our town's pastry masters, has closed Truffes, her baking and catering business, and is doing exciting desserts for Tony's. Her splendid chocolate cake is still there, of course, but now there are new goodies like an almond tart with salted caramel ice cream, a dark chocolate and coconut tart with toasted coconut ice cream, absolutely irresistible, and a pumpkin mousse set over a brown sugar-laced graham cracker base, the two separated by a thin layer of cheesecake. The mousse, seen on a number of tables around us, kept drawing us back for just one more bite.

Not surprisingly, the noise levels here are nearly always quiet-to-pleasantly-medium. The staff seem less reserved than they did a decade or two ago, a sign of modernization; the only slip we experienced was not being offered the restaurant's wide-ranging, deep and expensive wine list.

 

Tony's

410 Market St.

314-241-7007

www.tonysstlouis.com

Dinner Mon.-Sat

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Fair (use Broadway lobby)

Smoking: No

Entrees: $21-$43

Black Nativity

There's enough Christmas music to last from now to Valentine's Day, all in a single performance of "Black Nativity," the flashy, tuneful, sparkling St. Louis Black Repertory Company musical revue that opened last night at the Grandel Theatre and will run through Dec. 18.

Conceived and directed by Ron Himes, and first presented a couple of years ago, it's a tuneful blend of the sacred and the profane, the old and the new, the classic and the contemporary with a cast of 22 bright, perky, talented singers and dancers, clad in some spectacular costumes coordinated by Jennifer (J.C.) Krajicek and Robert Van Dillen, and with Kyle Kelley as musical director.

Three talented high schoolers, Dominique Milam and the White sisters, Alexis and Tyler, are the keynote trio, all returning from the earlier production of "Black Nativity," and they're delightful. They sing and dance well, and Tyler, a sophomore, is a gem. All arms and legs, like many 15-year-olds, she often seems to appears awkward or gawky, but she's in complete control, and there's a sly, one-off comic touch to much of her work. The three girls lead the way into many numbers, though they often then stand aside to let others blend into, or finish, a number, but they add a natural feel to the production.

Women dominate the cast, but the men -- Mathew C. Galbreath, Germaine Depry Gbaho, Herman Gordon, Daniel Hodges, Curtis Jefferson and Leslie Johnson-- work and sing as if they were a dozen, offering every possible musical style. Gordon's "What Will You Bring the King?" a Diane White-Clayton composition sung in a manger setting, is rich, and Johnson's duet with Raphaelle P. Darden on "Baby, It's Cold Outside," was delightful.

The show, first produced a few years ago, opens with classic European and African hymns and folk tunes, dealing with the birth of Jesus and the visiting wise men, carrying the traditional frankincense and myrrh, but it does not lack for humor as some wonderful shepherds played by Matthew C. Galbreath and Curtis Jefferson, deal with a flock of funny, charming, noisy "sheep" that includes Kristian Greer, Kenyada Harris, Hodges, Milam and the White sisters.

Evann Jones scores with the Eartha Kitt classic, "Santa Baby," and now that Michael Buble has recorded "Santa Buddy," with the same music, it's probably time for Barbra Streisand or another Yiddish-speaking singer to come up with "Santa Bubbie." Jones also dances up a storm and is a delightful presence.

Himes' direction is focused and economical, with a great deal of song and dance in a show that runs a little more than two hours, and Alicia Gbaho's choreography is athletic and enjoyable. The bare stage is brightened by reflective bits in front of the upstage curtain that add random light notes here and there, and Nathan Schuer's lighting scheme works well. Kelley's quintet, which he leads from the piano, includes drummer Keith Fowler, percussionist James Belk, bassist Jeff Anderson and guitarist Craig Florez, and shows it can easily handle anything from Handel to hip-hop. A fine evening of musical theater.

Black Nativity, produced by the St. Louis Black Rep, will be at the Grandel Theatre through Dec. 18

-- Joe

My Week With Marilyn

Michelle Williams doesn't look like Marilyn Monroe, in my opinion. But she has the walk, the poses, the attitude, the voice, the hair and other things just like her. And, in "My Week With Marilyn," which opens here today, she offers a perfect re-creation in a charming, funny movie, based on a couple of Colin Clark books, themselves based on a summer job with the 1957 movie, "The Prince and the Showgirl."

Clark (the excellent Eddie Redmayne), who was 23 and had just finished college, got the job because his father, a museum director and leading member of the English intellectual community, was a friend of Sir Laurence Olivier, who was directing the movie. Clark had the title of third assistant director, which meant he was a go-fer, driver and errand boy, getting coffee for people and generally keeping out of the way. He has been a successful writer, movie and television producer and writer of "The Prince, the Showgirl and Me," and more recently, "My Week With Marilyn," adapted for the screen by Adrian Hodges, and directed by Simon Curtis.

The original movie was a mess, and a lot of its messiness shows up in the movie from the book about the making of the movie. Olivier, after directing three Shakespeare adaptations, was making his debut as a director of a comic fantasy, with a screenplay by Terence Rattigan. He also was the star, of course. Monroe took advantage of the trip to England to extend her honeymoon with Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott). She was into the Method, and even had Paula Strasberg (Zoe Wanamaker) as her acting coach. Olivier scorned Method actors, and did not hide his feelings.

An aside: Olivier and Dustin Hoffman co-starred in "Marathon Man." One morning, in preparation for a scene, Hoffman was running up and down stairs, punishing himself to near-exhaustion. Olivier was seated, calmly reading a newspaper. Hoffman, panting and sweating, stopped near Olivier, asked him just how he prepared for what would be an arduous scene.

"Nothing, dear boy," said Olivier. "When they tell you, you go up and do it. It's called acting."

Monroe was notoriously undisciplined on the set, careless, usually late, thoughtless about the effect this was having on other actors. It infuriated Olivier, and the more it infuriated Olivier, the less discipline Monroe showed. Although Monroe had a hulking bodyguard (nicely played by Philip Jackson, Clark seemed to understand her, and she liked him, seeing how love-stricken he was, and how young and cute. Williams is perfect as she plays the young man like a saxophone, or like a hungry trout.

Kenneth Branagh is glorious and dead-on as Olivier, though they do not bear much resemblance to one another. Still, he's witty and wonderful. Julia Ormond plays Olivier's wife, Vivien Leigh, who's not at all confident when Monroe is around. But Ormond wears the role like someone donning a coat and unable to find the armhole for the second sleeve, lurching around offering nothing. However, there's splendid work, as always, from Judi Dench, the only cast member to be at all pleasant to Monroe. Dench is portraying the great Dame Sybil Thorndike, who was the dowager queen in the 1957 film.

And another member of the I-Hate-Marilyn club is Emma Watson, who is in the wardrobe department of the movie and Clark's girl friend, perhaps on the rebound from Harry Potter. She resents the time Clark is spending with the American actress.

As usual in English movies, lots of fine actors show up in parts that are little more than walk-on. The English seem to love acting, and if proof is necessary, watch the great Derek Jacobi as the Windsor Court librarian. It's a minuscule part, but Jacobi does it with beautiful style. Michael Kitchen, Simon Russell Beale and Toby Jones are other first-rate actors whose presence gives the film grace and solidity.

It's an enjoyable romp, not to be taken seriously, and Clark, always the proper English gentleman, draws a veil over what might have happened -- or did happen -- during that magical week.

My Week With Marilyn opens today at numerous theaters

-- Joe

This Week's Wine

Happy Thanksgiving!

From our house to your house, we wish you a relaxing day, a tasty turkey, and a pleasing beverage to accompany it.

Now -- Do you have a date at the wine store tomorrow for something to accompany today's leftovers?

Hold on a minute; we have a few ideas and suggestions that will make things very clear -- or else completely confuse you. Through the years, I've found a number of wines that make comfortable companions to turkey, either at Thanksgiving or Christmas. Of course, I'm also the guy who has said, on more than one occasion, "Give me a fine wine and a fine meal -- and I'll figure out a way to make them go together."

Red wine fans will find that Pinot Noir, or Burgundy if you're into French wines, will go nicely, as will some of the brand-new Beaujolais Nouveau or Beaujolais Villages. Georges DuBoeuf's version of the latter is tasty, with plenty of fruit forward and much flavor from the Gamay grape. The DuBoeuf "regular" Nouveau was close to unpleasant on my palate.

Extremely compatible with food and one of my favorite California sites for inexpensive, food-friendly wines is Bogle, and it offers three at $9 each that are fine values. The '09 Riesling is a bit on the sweet side, but a pleasing accompaniment if you make your leftover turkey into a curry. So are the winery's '10 Sauvignon Blanc and '09 Pinot Noir, the latter an exceptional value. Another good accompaniment is from Napa Cellars, with a fruity, delightful '09 Napa Valley Pinot Noir in the $20 range.

Australia chips in with Frisk, which it calls "prickly Riesling." That translates as a wine with a little spritz, a touch of carbonation, like some good Gewurztraminers. The fruity Riesling's flavors are heightened by the bubbles. The 2011 vintage (that would be a 2010 in terms of our growing season in the Northern hemisphere) is 89 percent Riesling and 11 percent Muscat Gordo, vinified in stainless steel. A hint of sweet makes this an excellent companion to that curry. Good citrus notes in the aroma and on the palate.

Another winning Riesling comes from Pacific Rim, in the Columbia River Valley, made from grapes grown organically and without pesticides. The winery also lets its 150 sheep to roam free in the vineyard as weed-killers. The Washington state winery is located in Richland, and the wine has a bit of sweetness to it, call it medium-dry, but it's extremely fresh and tasty, with grapefruit in the aroma and some pineapple on the palate.

* * * *

ZOUNDS AND GADZOOKS, IT'S A ZORK: The search for tight, inexpensive, easy-to-open substitutes for cork continues. Don Sebastiani and Sons, operating out of Sonoma, has an interesting new closure, called a Zork, on wines dubbed Project Paso because they include Paso Robles grapes. Priced at under $15, the new wines include Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Zinfandel and a Red Blend that is made from eight different groups.

The Zork is an artificial cork with a flanged top that is easy to grip and to remove from the bottle. Keeping the wine free from air is a plastic cover that resembles the sealing wax once used to seal letters. It peels off easily and the cork can be reused to keep the wine sufficiently fresh for several days.

The wines are tasty, especially the red blend. It's primarily Grenache (37 percent), but also includes Zinfandel (16), Petite Sirah (14), Mourvedre (11), Barbera (9), Lagrein (8), Tempranillo (3) and Sangiovese (2). Lagrein is a relative of the Petite Sirah first grown in the Italian Tyrol, and also planted in small amounts and used for blending in the U.S. and Australia.

The Sebastianis also have an even less-expensive collection of wines under the Smoking Loon label, ranging from $8-$10. In the same price range, I think the Bogle wines are tastier and show more fruit, but Smoking Loon is passable.

-Joe

Mamma Mia!

"Mamma Mia" is, in many respects, an old-fashioned musical. There's just enough dialogue to keep the songs from running together. Great acting is unnecessary. Bring on the singers and dancers, with a score that is completely familiar as it works on its second generation of excited young people. So what's not to like? Well, maybe the green, seaweed-like or cloud-like thing that floats over the stage from time to time. A punster would note that perhaps it looks like kelp and the theater might have welcomed a visit from a kelptomaniac.

Even maturing (certainly not old) curmudgeons felt cheered and comfortable last night as the show opened at the Fox, where it will entertain through Sunday. The score, by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus of ABBA, is tuneful, easily hummable and well-performed, and Catherine Johnson's book is simple and traditional. She provides a story that will appeal to young people and older ones. She treats love as something we all have to live with, and the young heroine, Sophie (Chloe Tucker) finds one way to deal with it while her Mom, Donna (Kaye Tuckerman) and her buddies, Tanya (Alison Ewing) and Rosie (Mary Callanan) look at it in another, sensible, often bawdy manner.

Donna runs a taverna on a Greek island and has reared Sophie as a single Mom. Sophie, who doesn't know her Dad's identity, is about to get married. She finds Donna's diary, notes her involvement with three men in the same summer that Sophie was conceived, and sends wedding invitations to an American architect, Sam (Christian Whelan); an English banker, Harry (Paul DeBoy, a regular and welcome visitor to the Rep); and an Australian travel writer, Bill (Brian Ray Norris, filling in for John-Michael Zuerlein)

Having seen "Mamma" many times,and realizing that, as the old song goes, "If you don't see Mamma every night, then you can't see Mamma at all," I was impressed by Tuckerman, who delivered one of the angrier portrayals of Donna that I've seen. It was very effective, but it occasionally clashes with the tone of Johnson's writing. Ewing and Callahan are over-the-top funny, and Tucker is cute and earnest. The fathers are solid, fighting hard to keep their characters from becoming trite.

That's not easy, since this company has been on the road for more than a year, visiting more than 100 cities, some of them twice. The Broadway version has been running more than 10 years, the London production more than 12, though it's scheduled to move to a smaller theater after the Olympics next summer. It's an enjoyable evening of musical theater, with plenty of effective song and dance which is, at the end of the day, exactly what musical theater is all about.

Mamma Mia! opened last night at the Fox and will run through Nov. 27

-- Joe

Descendants

George Clooney is a chameleon. A man of many moods, many affects, many styles, he slides from role to role as a chameleon does from color to color. He's Matt King in "The Descendants," which opens today, and he offers a low-key, rich portrayal of a man caught between his ancestors and his relatives.

He's a wealthy Honolulu lawyer. His ancestors are descendants of Hawaiian royalty who owned a huge, beautiful swatch of oceanfront land on Kauai. Many of the large family have vacation homes adjacent to the beach. Developers want to buy the land, a natural site for hotels, condos, casinos and so on. Lawyer King has the final say-so, and he's waffling. He understands why his less-affluent relatives want to sell. He has a conscience that keeps telling him that his family lucked into the property and it should remain pristine and beautiful for people to enjoy, not to be bulldozed and paved for the benefit of a relative few.

But even as the decision crunch nears, he has other problems. His wife, injured in a boating accident, is on life support with no hope of regaining any of her faculties. A decision on taking her off the life-giving machines is imminent.

There are two children, a 10-year-old, Scottie (a solid Amara Miller) and a 17-year-old, Alexandra (a brilliant Shailene Woodley), who has been at boarding school. King has been mostly a semi-absentee father, and he is forced to meet the children while preparing them for the death of their mother. Scottie is confused and distraught; Alex is furious at her mother, and reluctantly tells her father that Mom has been having an affair.

The rest of the bottom of King's world falls out.

He's hurt, and he's angry, feeling betrayed and filled with all the other emotions that a cuckold will feel. Clooney handles it brilliantly, in low-key style, remembering he's trying to protect two children who are almost strangers. But they're children of today, and they both know and understand a lot more than their dad did when he was their age. Both girls are just terrific, and so is Alex's friend, Sid (Nick Krause), a shlub of a teenager who hides a considerable amount of wisdom as he helps Alex keep things together.

Payne, also responsible for "Sideways" and "About Schmidt," has a sterling touch with average people facing sudden upheaval. Nat Faxon and Jim Rash share the screenplay credit with Payne; Kaui Hart Hemmings wrote the original novel.

He also brings out rare bits of ability from the secondary actors in the cast. Krause is a fine example, and so are Matthew Lillard, as a real-estate salesman who was King's wife's lover, and Judy Greer as his wife, who brilliantly illuminates a few things that most directors would ignore, or never think about.

"Descendants" is a gripping, fascinating movie that will be a factor when the awards season begins.

Descendants opens today on numerous screens

-- Joe

Into the Abyss

The German director Werner Herzog is a genius. His films range from the sublime to the ridiculous, and his documentaries are as powerful as his fictional movies. "Into the Abyss," which opens today, is a tale of death row in Texas, and Herzog is interviewing a man who was sentenced to die only eight days after their conversation. And did.

In 2001, in the dusty little town on Conroe, Tex., Michael Perry and Jason Burkett saw a red Camaro they wanted to drive, so they stole it, and while doing so, they killed Sandra Stotler, her son Adam and his friend Jeremy Richardson.

They were caught soon thereafter, tried and convicted as each busily tried to blame the other. Perry was sentenced to death; Burkett to life in prison.

Herzog interviews them, and some others who were linked to the case, and the result is amazing stuff. Speaking plainly and bluntly, waiting patiently for responses, he has come up with a brilliant film, regardless of your stand on capital punishment. This is not a story about the rights and wrongs of the death penalty; it's a series of interviews: With a man who knows his time remaining on earth will be brief, and another who will be spending the rest of his life in prison, and some others affected by the crime, like the sister of the boy who was killed, and the supervisor of the room where another boy will be killed, and another prisoner, who happens to be the father of the boy in prison for life.

The red Camaro? Well, while it's been sitting in a police parking lot in Conroe, a tree has grown up through its floorboards.

The film shows an influence of "In Cold Blood," the Truman Capote masterpiece about senseless killings and their results, but Herzog's style, as an interviewer and as a filmmaker, is different from that of director-screenwriter Richard Brooks.

Herzog does not make a statement on capital punishment, but his feelings show. He is hard and blunt with the killers, gentle in a lengthy interview with Lisa Stotler-Balloun, whose mother and brother died in the shooting, close to that with Burkett's father, who accepts the blame for the fact that his son became a murderer, and when asked what he had accomplished in prison, replies simply, "I learned to read."

Perhaps saddest of all is the interview with Fred Allen, who supervises the excution from ordering the condemned man's last meal to tightening the straps around his legs on the gurney where he will die. Allen notes that he has supervised 125 executions, but not long after the interview, he supervised the execution of a woman, Carla Faye Tucker, then suddenly resigned, giving up part of his pension.

Into the Abyss opens today at the Tivoli

-- Joe

Revenge of The Electric Car

The electric car, once seen as the answer to dependence on foreign oil, air pollution and many other of the world's problems -- perhaps over-population and cancer -- was off to a pretty good start a half-decade ago, but then General Motors recalled all the cars and destroyed them. Writer-director Chris Paine brought out the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" which challenged automakers, oil companies and others

Now, five years later, with electric cars a mini-rage, Paine gives us a sequel, "The Revenge of the Electric Car," traversing the bumpy road that automakers, both large and small, have been on, from the Chevy Volt to the Nissan Leaf, from the still-in-labor Tesla to the semi-pros like Greg (Gadget) Abbott, who convert gas-powered cars to electric ones.

Interestingly, Danny DeVito had an early GM EV-1 that he loved dearly and drove a lot until GM recalled (the cars could be leased but not bought) it and crushed it, as it did with all the others.

Paine seems to be more on the side of the big manufacturers today, with softball interviews of Bob Lutz, GM's decision-maker; Carlos Ghosm, head of Nissan; and Elon Musk, still trying to make the Tesla viable.

It's an interesting story, well-written and professionally produced; we have come a long way in producing relatively inexpensive electric cars, but we obviously have a long way to go before they're in garages all over America.

Revenge of the Electric Car opens today at the Tivoli

-- Joe

The Skin I Live In

Dr. Victor Frankenstein wanted to create life, but he botched the job. Dr. Robert Ledgard, a surgeon, wants to rearrange life, and while his creation looks pretty good, "The Skin I Live In" is more horror story than medical text. The new film from Spanish director Pedro Almodovar opens here today. It's convoluted and sometimes confusing, but it's tightly wound around a core of ego.

The movie reunites Almodovar and Antonio Banderas, who used to be a team, but have not worked together in some 20 years. Banderas is the doctor, handsome, successful and wealthy, who lives in a luxurious home that doubles as an operating room and a small hospital for convalescence. His personal life is a mess. His wife, badly burned in an auto accident, committed suicide because of the way she looks, and their daughter, the lovely Norma (Blanca Suarez) has been in and out of mental hospitals ever since. The house is run by the super-competent servant, Marilia (Marisa Paredes), mother of a ne'er-do-well son, Zeca (Roberto Alamo), and there's Vera (Elena Anaya), a prisoner in the house.

Marilia reveals to Vera that she's the mother of both the doctor and the ne'er-do-well, but with different fathers. Zeca, on the run from some robberies, shows up at the doctor's house seeking a hideout, then attempts to rape Vera, at which point Ledgard shows up and shoots him.

Somewhere around here, we flash back six years and meet Vicente (Jan Cornet), working in his family's dressmaking business. We start digging into other facets of the doctor's life and work, and the plot details revealed above are merely an introduction. Almodovar does not back away from anything, overturning rocks and shining bright lights on what's beneath them. Banderas, cool and cruel, is his usual excellent self, and the others in the cast work extremely well together.

The film's story is based on a novel, "Mygale," or "Tarantula," by Thierry Jonquet, adapted by Almodovar for the screen. The result is a fascinating movie, though certainly not for everyone.

The Skin I Live In opens today at the Plaza Frontenac

-- Joe

Gio's Ristorante & Bar

You say you're looking for a quiet place to have an especially nice meal with your sweetie? You want a place with white tablecloths and maybe a little bit of a view, not real fancy, but certainly a little? Well, bunky, have we got a restaurant for you.

Gio's keeps a low profile with its darkened windows facing Kiener Plaza. On the south side, tables sit on a terrace facing Market Street where the current Busch Stadium is visible beyond a hotel. There's a dining room and a casual bar with tables and televisions, and outdoor seating that faces Market Street so that any fireworks from the ballpark for instance, can be appreciated. We've had acceptable pizza at the bar for lunch, but we're having dinner in the dining room today.

The location, in the heart of downtown, brings plenty of business lunches, and service is zippy. At the dinner hour, though, things calm down. The menu is, in many ways, classic St. Louis Italian, no surprise in this venture by Dominic Galati and John Ruggeri, restaurateurs with excellent credentials from the Hill. And yet there are touches that bring things into the contemporary.

While the excellent mussel appetizer charms with its flavorful olives and a little hit of red pepper, for instance, the Caesar salad is grilled. Yes, grilled. The hearts of romaine lettuce become a little softer and have a wonderful smoky flavor, with a fine, truly Caesarian dressing. This is a knife-and-fork salad, definitely worth the work.

The salume platter brings prosciutto, mortadella and pepperoni, Gorgonzola and two other cheeses we couldn't quite identify, olives and grissini, those extremely slender, crisp and delicious breadsticks. The seafood salad, however, fell short because of a characterless vinaigrette. Such salads are traditionally left to marinate; shrimp and scallops that were limp were not out of line.

This is, perhaps, the time to bring up bread. St. Louis restaurants are serving much better bread in the last couple of decades. The tradition in old-line Italian restaurants was always a soft, close-grained bread sprinkled with sesame seeds and sliced thinly, the kind Joe identifies as "Vienna loaf" from his boyhood. We'd like to see something different on the table, a feeling emphasized by Gio's pour of olive oil, and offer of cheese and black pepper. It's extremely tasty, deserving of a sturdier and more interesting mopper-upper.

At lunch, we've also had meatball sliders, far too large to be diminished by the word “sliders.” Single meatballs, very tender, perch on dollar rolls, with cheese and arugula atop the tomato-sauced meatball. (Very Italian with the red, green and white color scheme.)

Pappardelle with Bolognese sauce, available at lunch and dinner, is splendid encouragement for our campaign to encourage people to try the pasta at our high-end Italian restaurants. The pappardelle, we think, was fresh rather than dried, given its excellent, slightly al dente texture. And the sauce was delectable, plenty of coarsely ground meat, not just beef, we believe, and the tomato's acidity balanced by a little cream, a touch beloved by some grandmas. It was the best Bolognese sauce we've had in a good while.

And then there was the veal chop alla Gio. It's a relatively simple preparation, grilled with a bit of pancetta cut up and a handful of mushrooms sauteed in the pan after the pancetta, all seasoned with just a whisper of thyme. About an inch and a half thick, ordered and delivered medium-rare, it was a first-rate, tender piece of meat with a great, light sauce, a standout dish. Instead of grilled squash varieties, we had a fistful of spinach, sauteed just until the spinach had melted to a buttery softness, topped with a generous sprinkle of finely chopped garlic.

An unexpected option for dessert was strawberry bruschetta. New to us. Way not strawberry season, either, but too intriguing to pass up. What arrived was a fine riff on strawberry shortcake, starting with a piece of grilled pound cake. Fresh, too, and with a tender, fine crumb. A scoop of vanilla ice cream perched on top and a generous pour of strawberry sauce, not the goopy thickened stuff drizzled on plates, but the real thing, came next. Halved fresh strawberries reclined luxuriously on pillows of whipped cream. Actually there weren't very many strawberries, but the sauce and the toasted cake were so good that we didn't miss them.

Our service at dinner was as smooth as anyone could wish; the lunch server was considerably more talkative and casual. Lots of window seats to enjoy the view and noontime sun, and it's easy to step over to the bar area and check the score of whatever game you're following.

 

Gio's Ristorante & Bar

701 Market St.

314-241-2424

www.giosdowntown.com

Lunch Mon.-Fri., Dinner Mon.-Sat.

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Entrees: $24-$28