St. Louis Eats and Drinks

The Lucky Accomplice

Situated on a dazzlingly unremarkable block on South Jefferson, The Lucky Accomplice clearly hasn’t needed Clayton rents or Central West End foot traffic to draw attention. A delicious combination of raw brick, wood tables and retro-style enclosed booths hold a group of diners, mostly young, who understand they’re the lucky ones. They’ve gotten a chance to knock back Logan Ely’s uncommon takes on food.

Amiable employees are happy to discuss the menu or the pacing that customers might prefer. That menu is not divided up into courses, but does go from lighter food to heavier. And everything is sharing-sized, so I was happy to dine with a pal to cover more of the territory.

WARM BREAD $10 reads the first item on the menu. It could be a stopper for some folks. For others, it’s a sign the kitchen thinks this is a worthwhile experience. Yes, it’s something to make money on, but that’s not inherently evil. Food’s gotten more expensive, and money pays cooks and servers and dishwashers. So indulge your curiosity, or at least let us do it for you.

The bread was focaccia, about a 5-inch square, and indeed warm, but not in that hot-inside-dried-outside-on-the-cut-edges way. A generous scoop of cultured butter put this squarely over the top. Cultured butter is made from cream that’s been cultured with yogurt or the like – there are good discussions on the internet – and the butter has a mild tang that makes it stand out. Also on the bread plate was tapenade, made not just with chopped olives but with (presumably pickled) cauliflower, a sharp, salty accent to everything. It’s difficult to hold back, but one dish we had later made us wish we’d resisted the urge to eat all the bread.

Two halves of a split romaine lettuce heart were showered with crunchy bread crumbs after being anointed with what the menu calls romaine cream. It’s a pale green dressing with lemony notes and just a touch of sweetness plus other, more mysterious notes. Obviously a knife-and-fork salad, it’s combines the lightness of the cool lettuce with flavors that demand thought. While it feels like a relatively virtuous dish, gastronomically it’s quite worthwhile.

At this writing, there are two mushroom dishes on the menu, a roasted maitake served over purple polenta (no idea there – blue corn? beet juice?) and black trumpet mushroom malfada, which is a somewhat irregular pasta, resting on a foam of grana padano cheese. The mushrooms are part of the pasta dough as well as a sauce which also incorporates bits of kale. While it’s not a terribly handsome dish, it’s knock-you-out-of-your-chair delicious. This is what we should have saved the bread for, the sauce left after we scooped and scraped the dish almost clean. Between the woodsy mushroom and the cheese, the umami factor was outta sight. The pasta itself, obviously made in-house, kept its al dente very nicely, a little garlic showed up for the party. It all left us shaking our heads in amazement and delight.

Chef Ely seems fond of pork collar, a cut not seen on restaurant menus very often. It is, appropriately enough, between the shoulder and the neck, and has that moist tenderness a pork shoulder offers, along with a certain amount of connective tissue. Currently he’s showing it off as a roast piece, cut into thick fingers with a sauce made with preserved lemons. The salty-sour-slightly bitter notes are very at home with the pork. A broccoli persillade alongside adds a little more acidity, but clearly plays second fiddle to the meat – that is, until the next day, when the remnants were brought out for lunch. Then the cold persillade came into its own as tasting very similar to a finely chopped but very zingy slaw, although with well-cooked broccoli instead of cabbage. It seemingly grew more flavor overnight, the way some dishes can. I hope someone in that kitchen has discovered it would be a valuable component in a sandwich.

One item on the brief dessert menu that seems a staple is what’s called a Lil John. Is this a tip of the toque to the now-gone-but-legendary California Donut further south on Jefferson and its Long John? Next time I’ll investigate the concoction, made with chocolate, cream cheese and pecans. This time, we got distracted by the idea of a beet cake. Please note, this isn’t the chocolate cake with beets that former Kansas City star chef Bradley Ogden brought to eager Californians at his Lark Creek Inn. Instead, what we have is an individual upside-down cake with a slice of beet as the foundation-turned-topping. The beet-ness is pretty much subservient to the flavor of the almond flour used in the cake, but it’s all tender, even gentle, including the oval of sour cream sorbet alongside. And, yes, that red dust is indeed beet dried and ground to a fine powder. (Note streak on plate.)

A fun evening, including a short-but-interesting by the glass list; I knocked back a sparkling Lambrusco from Cleto Chiarli and my pal, being a beer aficionado, went with Side Project’s Coeur de Cuvee No 4. Definitely a place for inquiring minds and palates.

Reservations strongly encouraged – the outside picnic tables are walkup seating, but I daresay that’s gone for the next five or six months.

 

The Lucky Accomplice

2501 S. Jefferson at Victor

314-354-6100

https://www.theluckyaccomplice.com/

Pretty Woman the Musical

Maybe you had to have been there.

The Fox has reopened for the first time since the shutdown last spring. The air on opening night was full of excitement. The Fox is requiring full vaccination or a recent COVID test – the latter can even be done by a nearby testing site, and purchasing tickets leads to a site where one uploads a photo of one’s vaccine card, followed by a text with a link to a website that says in large, easy to read type CONFIRMED, along with more specific details. That gets shown to the folks at the door before proceeding to the ticket-takers. Doors are opening an hour before curtain, to help with the slower entrance process.

People were cranked up to see Pretty Woman the Musical. Some good performances, though, aren’t enough to save this show.

Why base a musical on a film that had a pretty weak script but two big-name stars, Julia Roberts and Richard Gere? Sheer economics. Broadway musicals are where the audiences and thus the money are. Straight plays don’t run as long and draw as well. The tourist crowd gravitates toward musicals, and it’s proven that recognizable names now do better than all-new material, with some Hamiltonian exceptions. So using a movie that people knew, even one from 1990, seemed like a logical idea. The play opened in 2018. Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance wanted the score to riff on late ‘80’s rock.

The basic concept of prettying up a hard, ugly, dangerous, illegal way of life is what the show starts out with. That’s part of the Cinderella/My Fair Lady concept the script is based on, but neither Cinderella nor Eliza Dolittle had to avoid getting beaten up by customers or had pals with track marks. It needs to rise above that. In today’s society, that’s hard to do.

So here we have Vivian (Olivia Valli) from Milledgeville, GA, who is sort of new to this kind of thing meeting Edward, rich, successful, wealthy family, etc., on a park bench. He wants to rent her, for an emotion-free evening, and then decides that this kid from the country, still with lots of raw edges, is just the thing for the week he’s in town doing billion-dollar deals. No, he’s not keeping her in the penthouse – he wants her on his arm, thinking that the right clothes will be enough to turn her into a lovely but otherwise unremarkable companion. Riiight. Director Jerry Mitchell’s concept of her rube-ness is unnervingly broad – she shakes hands like she’s pumping a well, for instance. One wishes there were more chemistry between the two but given the size of the Fox, that may be a function of the sheer size of the venue and how futile subtle onstage gestures can be..

The strength in the production comes from some of the secondary characters. Kyle Taylor Parker first appears as Happy Man, one of the street people, and then reappears as Mr. Thompson, the manager of the ultra-swanky hotel where Edward is ensconced. As the dignified boss, he’s particularly delightful, fixing a knowing eye on Vivian, then befriending her, including a dance lesson that’s one for the ages. Bellman Giulio (Michael Vincent Taylor) does a great job with very broad physical comedy. Between the two of them, they make the hotel Happy Town. When Edward takes Vivian to hear la Traviata, there’s an unexpected treat with part of an aria of Violetta’s coming courtesy of Amma Osei, bringing shrieks and applause from the crowd, well deserved.

David Rockwell’s scenic design was just as fine as he always delivers, of course, but it was handsomely exhibited thanks to Kenneth Posner and Phillip S. Rosenberg’s lighting design, with particularly delicious colors. The score is deeply unremarkable aside from the Verdi insertion and the waited-for appearance of the great Roy Orbison song of the same name. That happens at the end of the show, and, strange to say, was not added until some months after the show opened.

Much work involved in trying to save this show. It has its moments. But on the whole, it’s time to try again.

 

Pretty Woman

through November 28, 2021

Fox Theatre

527 N. Grand Blvd.

314-534-1111

fabulousfox.com

Jake's Women

Moonstone Theatre Company begins its onstage life with Neil Simon’s Jake’s Women at the new Kirkwood Performing Arts Center. Among the amazingly prolific Simon’s plays – almost half his work was screenplays, which we tend to forget – this is one of the lesser-known.

Jake (Jeff Cummings) is a pretty successful writer, complete with a nice apartment in Manhattan and a beach house in the Hamptons. At the moment, he’s going through a rough patch, not quite the classic writer’s block but it’s a struggle to put the right words on the page. Writing, he says rather defensively, is fun. (Well sometimes. What’s really fun is having written. But who am I to argue with someone who made that much money from writing?) Right now, though, not so much.

One of the things he does to prime his intellectual pump is to have imaginary dialogues with the people in his life. His sister Karen (Sharon Hunter), for instance, or his therapist, Edith (Jennie Brick), seem to be the ones he talks to the most. In his head, of course. We, of course, see them.

Jake is married to Maggie (Jennifer Theby Quinn), a Midwesterner who’s seemingly rather younger than he. The marriage is on rocky ground as things crumble before our eyes. What now? Jake’s daughter Molly(Carly Uding as the college senior Molly, Amelie Lock as the 12-year-old Molly) is living with them, which complicates thing. Jake, you see, is a widower. Molly’s mother Julie (Marisa Puller) was killed in an accident, and she, too, is someone that appears in his thoughts.

These appearances are something he evokes deliberately – at first. As his distress at the marital problems increases, they seem increasingly to occur unbidden. Yes, it’s a Simon play, which means there are some funny lines. But there’s also serious distress here, including a scene that Cummings pulls off beautifully with a woman he’s dating (Mindy Shaw) and his estranged wife’s – well, at this point it doesn’t seem to be his imaginary dialogue with her as much as it is her ghost, even though she’s alive. Or perhaps it’s a true psychotic break. It could be seen either way, but it’s very well done on the part of all three.

Some very touching work, too, from Uding and Puller as the now-deceased mother and Jake’s evoked memory of their daughter as they meet in his memory despite his fighting against it.

It’s mostly not difficult to tell if each woman’s appearance on stage is the real person (except obviously for the late wife and the younger version of the daughter) or Memorex, to evoke a very old advertisement, but overall it’s not what one expects from Neil Simon, even under the expert eye of director Edward Coffield, an old hand with Simon scripts. Nevertheless, it’s skillfully acted, Dunsi Dai’s scenic design is nicely minimalist, and Michael Sullivan’s lights play on the memory concept very well. The music, particularly before the play opens, is perfect at evoking the time period.

Moonstone is welcomed to the St. Louis theatre community and long may they give us pleasure.

 

Jake’s Women

through November 21^st

Moonstone Theatre Company

Kirkwood Performing Arts Center

210 E. Monroe, Kirkwood

314-821-9956

moonstonetheatrecompany.com/

Brunch: Juniper

Many years ago, a small theater chain in rural Missouri ran a promotion titled “Beans, Bacon and Biscuits”. Those basic food items turned out to be a promotion of a grocery giveaway. Who would have thought that we’d look at those things in a far different light now? Beans, which were grabbed up in the early days of the pandemic and have now become the focus of serious cookbooks (Hello, Joe Yonan!), are found in heritage varities with wait lists. (Hello, Rancho Gordo!) Have you looked at the price of supermarket bacon lately? (Thank you, pork belly recipes.) And biscuits – whoever thought that canned refrigerator biscuits were the death of the delicate renditions our grandmothers produced (raises hand…) has been proven wrongwrongwrong by the emergence of them as a sought-after delicacy.

Juniper, located in the neighborhood where someone once said St. Louis University meets Washington University – which is to say, Laclede and Sarah – has taken on at least two of those three commodities for its Sunday brunch. Serious biscuits, whether served straightaway or as the base to a Benedict, a sandwich or good old biscuits and gravy, mark the meal. Remarkable bacon, thick cut and deeply, deeply smoky, like first-rate barbecue, beckons seductively.

Reliable coffee, yes. But the notable opening to this morning food is the orange juice, which tastes like it’s squeezed to order. The “freshly squeezed” stuff that you see in stores – all that means is that it was never frozen. Orange juice begins to change right after it’s squeezed, like wine from a just-opened bottle. Unlike wine, however, the changes in OJ are not in a more positive direction. Trust me on this. It’ll be a shock if you’ve only had the commercial stuff, but it’s An Experience.

The biscuits are available a la carte with strawberry jam, but they also pitch in as a base for four sandwiches. During the pandemic, Juniper offered their fried chicken biscuit by pre-order as a carryout item on weekends, where it won friends and influenced people. Here it is, a stack containing their crisp, tasty chicken, pimento cheese, smoked mayonnaise, a little red pepper jelly and an egg. They’re as alluring as ever, and much easier to eat with a knife and fork than using one hand while driving, which was my introduction to them. The fried chicken version is joined by ones with ham and cheese, with bacon and with chicken scrapple. That odd-sounding meat loaf-like dish is often connected with Pennsylvania Dutch cooking, but can be found as far south as Virginia, so it does fall in with Juniper’s kitchen’s Southern leanings. (The variety of meat used can vary from household to household, so chicken, rather than the more common pork scraps, isn’t remarkable.) It’s on my must-try list. The bacon version charmed, yielding easily to knife and fork, and the STL Hot potatoes alongside, seasoned with a variation of the Riplets spicing, were satisfying.

Another set of choices are found under the heading Juniper Hash. The options of beef with chimichuri sauce, STL Hot spiced chorizo, pork with barrel aged hot sauce and mixed mushrooms with brown butter hollandaise make decisions difficult, but our dish of the chunky mushroom hash was a winner, with potatoes, onions and plenty of sweet red peppers and a perfectly cooked egg as a topper. It’s a very vegetarian-friendly menu, certainly. The velvety-smooth quiche of spinach and mushrooms with parmesan cheese charmed with its slightly punchy green sauce and a bit of green salad. Serious French fries for the Potato Queen, hot and crunchy, the kind apt to be snatched up by, uh, other diners at the table.

Very conservative eaters can be of any age, from 3 to 83. They will all be happy with the pancakes. Immense, tender discs perhaps nine inches across come unadorned. Standing guard are a small container of syrup and a scoop of what seems to be honey butter. Very simple, very fluffy, just pancakes, butter and something sweet. Goes perfectly with a couple of pieces of that bacon. Chef Matt Daughaday says he uses Burger’s Smokehouse bacon when it’s available – which isn’t always. That, of course, explains the rich smokiness.

Okay, so biscuits and bacon – what about the beans? Not available at brunch, but, sure enough, at other meals. They’re using Anson Mills red beans in a smoky creamy sauce. It’s vegetarian, surprisingly enough, and so are the collard greens.

Grandma cooking that’s evolved is what we’re dealing with here. Servers know their menu and are patient with people agonizing over their choices. Also lots of sunlight with windows to the east and south. Owner John Perkins has a lot to be pleased about.

 

Juniper

4101 Laclede Ave.

314-329-7696

https://www.junipereats.com/

Brunch 10-2 Sundays

Lunch and Dinner 11-9 Wednesday through Saturday