America, the land of the Great Open Road, has just about left behind the idea of a pleasant drive in the country to achieve destination dining. Maybe it was all a figment of Hollywood's imagination, back when movies were the drivers of our fantasies. Those couples in convertibles gaily heading off to some quaint inn out of The City all seemed to be having such a lighthearted time.
Some of those drives, at least in times past, were necessity. I grew up less than thirty miles from The Grapevine Grill at Chaumette Vineyards & Winery. If the grownups wanted a really nice dinner out and didn't want to make the then-almost-two-hour drive into St. Louis, the place to go was the hotel in Ste. Genevieve for prime rib. No longer. When owner Hank Johnson brought Adam Lambay to the kitchen, things got cranked up a notch. Or ten. Lambay, who's worked at a number of notable St. Louis restaurants, is not only running the kitchen, he's running the garden that produces much of what's on the Grill's tables, and is using lots of local suppliers for his meat, eggs, cheese and additional vegetables and fruits.
So what's to eat? A number of the first course are sharing-sized, like cheese plates, meant to go with a bottle of Chaumette wine, of course. But others lure in a more complex direction, like grilled asparagus with house-smoked pork jowl. Smoked jowl, for those not familiar with it, is essentially bacon, just from a different part of the hog. It's dressed with a sauce that's onion and bacon and lemon, slightly warm to go with the vegetable. Absolutely killer, very sophisticated - and then a taste memory may hit some of us. It's much like the warm dressing some families dressed a spring or summer lettuce salad with, and no less tasty for that.
Then there's the chicken and the egg. Well, that's not actually what it's called. It's the Flieg and Ladd, but that's because it's a devilled Flieg Farm egg and roasted Ladd Family Farm chicken, over some arugula and garnished with crisp chicken cracklings and diced pickled radish or beet. My only quibble might be a little more vinaigrette over the moist chunks of thigh meat.
And speaking of poultry, consider the quail, a perfect entree for this rural auberge. Lightly breaded and panfried, it appears in a mound of mashed potatoes that are as buttery as any ever found in a restaurant kitchen. "Skillet gravy" is the descriptor for the sauce, light years away from the gluey white stuff of some skillets of yore that traumatized fledgling Eaters. No, barely thickened, tasting of browned bits and meat juices, it was succulent lily gilding. More tiny asparagus, roasted, rode shotgun on the plate.
A shoulder of Berkshire pork from Meyer Farm was cured in-house and roasted along with the last of winter's root vegetables - carrots, potatoes, some onion. Very tender, as shoulders should be, and very flavorful, it suffered, alas, from too much saltiness, the only major misstep we came across.
It's a relief to some of us to see biryani on the menu. Adam, whose father is Indian, cooked for a while at Rasoi in the Central West End when its menu was a mixture of classical chef's training and the Indian dishes that result. It's great that he hasn't left that food by the wayside - in fact, he's catered Indian weddings at Chaumette. He did a pop-up restaurant a few months ago at the winery that served nothing but Indian food, and it sold out for the length of its run. There's always at least one Indian dish on the menu here, more on Saturday nights. The biryani's rice was markedly fluffy, with more pieces of vegetable in it than average, and the accompanying chicken kebab had been rubbed with tandoori seasoning to give it a nice lift. The cooling yogurt sauce, raita, went beyond the expected cumin/onion/cucumber riffs with a little hit of mint and perhaps some black pepper. And speaking of seasoning, they're asking "How hot?" Asking for "somewhere between medium and hot" brought just that, pretty spicy but no flames on exhaling.
Like the rest of the menu, things range from the classics like carrot cake and a brownie (topped by a reduction of Norton wine) to a pear shortcake with a goat cheese mousse. Restricted diets can find a gluten-free cherry crisp or a sugar free cheesecake, all this made in-house, of course. What called, however, was a blackberry buckle. Here, too, the old and the new - this is serious blackberry country (although blueberries are now cultivated in nearby St. Francois County), but they're traditionally for cobblers. A buckle, using cake batter, is innovative. But the rich and moist with the juices from the berries, the whipped cream really superfluous, it was a winner.
This is a casual restaurant, not a formal one, but service was attentive and knowledgeable. Various nights of the week, they may serve family style meals, but details for that are on their website.
The Grapevine Grill
Chaumette Vineyards and Winery
24345 Route WW, Ste. Genevieve
573-747-1000
Lunch & Dinner Wed.-Sun, Brunch Sun.
Credit cards: Yes
Wheelchair access: Good
Smoking: No
Entrees: $20-$24
Ha! I always find that I’m about six months behind you! But at least I know for sure it’s worth liking as much as I like it!
Posted by: Alanna Kellogg | September 09, 2014 at 12:50 PM