We started with the artichoke and blue cheese flatbread pizza, which was gooey and delicious, the crust crispy and golden at the edges. A small salad of greens and a julienne of apple perched on top added color, crunch and freshness.

Creamy or puréed vegetable soups are good wintry starters if their texture is luxe and flavor robust. Big Sky’s soup selection is right-on. A white bean and rosemary soup was bold with rosemary (maybe a little too bold), velvety and smooth, as was the potato bisque. Both soups were specials and both were satisfying, maintaining luscious body without being heavy or gloopy.

The roasted golden and red beet salad, with its mixed greens, toasted hazelnuts and goat cheese in apricot vinaigrette, had all the elements of a great salad but failed to produce. The hazelnuts and beets didn’t appear to be dressed at all, simply strewn atop the too-lightly dressed greens (so lightly dressed, we could barely decipher any apricot). The dish could have been really rich and vibrant with a few enhancements here or there – tossing the hazelnuts in oil, salt and pepper before or after roasting would have at least given them some sheen. Same with the beets – a little dressing or a drizzle of herb oil would have boosted the presentation and flavor.

As far as vegetarian entrées go, pasta and risotto are pretty par for the course. Sure, they’re filling, comforting and, done well, the perfect marriage of cheese and vegetables. But the challenge – both for chefs and vegetarian diners – is making these standards new and enticing; Big Sky scores both hits and misses in this area. A special of black pepper linguini in a citrus and Gouda cream sauce certainly enticed. The Gouda’s nutty and creamy characteristics were central, the citrus a subtle backdrop. The black pepper-laced pasta was tender, but the bite and slight heat of the peppercorn barely registered. Overall, though, this pasta dish was sumptuous and surprising.

Grilled vegetable risotto with mascarpone, crispy artichokes and microgreens featured zucchini and mushrooms alongside a bed of creamy risotto with a hint of lemon. The artichokes were fried crispy golden and were my favorite part of the dish. But the zucchini was lackluster, simply grilled with no embellishment, although the thick and meaty mushrooms had a nicely acidic and sweet balsamic flavor. This dish tasted fine but left me eyeing the lovely char on a juicy hunk of tenderloin nearby.

So on my next visit, I was a little timorous when ordering the other vegetarian dish in the large plates section (like so many St. Louis restaurants, the regular menu’s vegetarian options are limited): linguini with roasted zucchini and eggplant in a fresh herb and tomato sauce. Would my nose start to wander toward the aroma of grilled meats while I poked at another piece of lifeless zucchini?

Fortunately, the dish was excellent. A big serving of al dente linguini towered over hearty chunks of squash and meaty eggplant sitting in a pool of green-flecked tomato sauce. The sauce had a wonderful depth, and it splattered as the strands of pasta whipped my chin on their way up. Grated cheese melted into strings that reached from plate to mouth, enshrouded in steam; it was so satisfying. As I reveled in this dish, it seemed the surrounding meat-eaters were eyeing my plate instead.

Desserts were OK. A big scoop of orange and buttermilk sorbet was reminiscent of the Dreamsicles we enjoyed as kids, but with more tang and fresh orange flavor. What the crème brûlée lacked in texture, it made up for in flavor. The carrot cake was served mini muffin-style with five to a plate and a citrusy schmear of cream cheese frosting. The cake was a little dry and tough.

The service at the whimsical and playfully decorated Big Sky Cafe is among the best I’ve encountered. It’s not often every member of the staff, from the hostess to the servers to the busers and food-runners, looks you in the eye when speaking to you. Or welcomes and goodbyes the guests so graciously, or seems so willing to please. Executive chef Lisa Slay and chef Christine Cradock are out on the floor, making the rounds; their culinary vision and Big Sky’s warm hospitality are clearly what keeps vegetarian and omnivore customers coming back again and again.

BACK FOR SECONDS Don’t-Miss Dish: Blue cheese and artichoke flatbread, linguini with roasted vegetables, great vegetarian specials.
Vibe: Guests young and old are made to feel at home in the cozy, upscale casual atmosphere.
Average entrée prices: $14 to $22
Where: Big Sky Cafe, 47 S. Old Orchard Ave., Webster Groves, 314.962.5757
When: Tue. to Thu. – 5 to 9 p.m., Fri. and Sat. – 5 to
10 p.m., Sun. – 4:30 to 8:30 p.m.

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Also addictive: the flash-fried spinach that arrived in a heap of translucent, dark emerald green. The leaves are so fragile that they shatter when you stab a bite with a fork. Besides the delicate texture of the spinach, the leafy green itself has such a mild flavor that I could almost taste the frying oil more than the spinach; since I love all things deep-fried, I was quite pleased. Rounding out the dish was a grating of Parmesan cheese, adding saltiness, and lemon, adding brightness. Delicious.

The pasta crunchers and fried spinach are house specialties, offered up by owner and restaurant namesake Jimmy Kristo. Jimmy’s on the Park opened in 1994; a more casual adjacent bistro was added in 2002. Executive chef Derek Craig does a fine job of serving crowd-pleasing food with specialty ingredients and surprising elements here and there.
   
Beef dishes at Jimmy’s seem to shine brightest – ridiculously buttery, melt-in-your-mouth tender and cooked perfectly to order. The grilled beef tenderloin was exactly this way; it came with asparagus, but more important, with goat cheese macaroni, which was nicely tangy. It could have been a little creamier and more al dente, but it was, overall, a winner. A mushroom stock reduction rounded out the dish with earthy richness.
   
Another night’s special offered a crab cake-topped steak sitting in a lobster cream sauce. While the beef and lobster sauce were spot-on, the crab cake was left sitting on an otherwise empty plate at the end of the meal, mushy and smelly. If I’d known it would be the same crab used in the crab cake appetizer we started our meal with (and that I refused to touch after one bite), I would have asked them to leave the crab off the dish altogether. Sometimes kitchens create specials to move produce and protein before they turn; this crab-topped dish seemed to fall under this category – a bad judgment call coming from an otherwise competent kitchen.
   
There were, however, many great dishes with lots to keep the diner’s attention. Duck breast with Wehani risotto (a brown rice variety) and a duck confit-potato hash was tasty. The breast arrived perfectly cooked, exactly as I’d requested. Pork tenderloin was tender and juicy with a nice smokiness, and a mini beef Wellington was fun to eat: a buttery, meaty and mushroomy bundle.

Desserts were good, too. The proper texture of bread pudding is an ongoing debate between me and my dining companions: eggy and loose versus dense and dry. Jimmy’s version was dense enough to cut into a square but was at the same time very light and fluffy and steamy, with depth of flavor and chunks of melty chocolate. Speaking of chocolate, the chocolate mousse that was part of the Death by Chocolate dessert was too good to be true.

Servers were informative and friendly despite minor trip-ups. Wine service wasn’t prompt. One night an order for a glass of wine didn’t get put in, and the server only remembered after we’d finished eating the course it was intended to accompany. On another visit, food arrived before we’d even ordered our wine. I’ve said it before, but when you’re shelling out over $100 for dinner for two, you expect things to happen in proper sequence.

The dining room was packed each night I went, with clientele young and old, stylish and staid, parties large and small. The walls are lined with caricature drawings of local celebs and longtime customers of Jimmy’s on the Park, done by local artist Todd Bauman. They’re a treat to look at in an otherwise slightly outdated dining room. Also a little outdated is the plating of many dishes that come out of the kitchen – a layered, cylindrical tower of food made using a ring mold. At one point, every plate on the table had the exact same cylindrical presentation, just with different foods. It may be time for the kitchen to put down the ring molds and try a more updated approach to plating.

But not much needs to change at Jimmy’s on the Park, because it clearly has achieved a winning formula; tender steaks, live music and a friendly staff are just a few of the many elements contributing to its success.

BACK FOR SECONDS Don’t-Miss Dish: Flash-fried spinach, any of the beef dishes, bread pudding.
Vibe: Young and old mesh in casually upscale style.
Entrée Prices: $16.25 to $29.50
Where: Jimmy’s on the Park, 706 DeMun Ave., Clayton, 314.725.8585
When: Mon. – 5:30 to 10 p.m., Tue. to Thu. – 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Fri. and Sat. – 11:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., Sun. – 5 to 9 p.m.; Brunch: Sun. – 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

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Your title is director of farmstead operations and executive chef, but you’re not a farmer. However, I will have a gardener/farmer as a partner, so together we will develop the chefs’ garden. In addition to the chefs’ garden, we’ll have a more detailed raised-bed garden with an Osage Indian garden or an absinthe garden [and] … an old-fashioned, 8-foot-by-8-foot smokehouse with an offset fire pit.

The Overlook Farm project is Nathalie’s brainchild. What is her vision? Picture in your mind The Inn at Little Washington. Blackberry Farm. … Clarksville Station, Overlook Farm, it’s an oasis on Route 79. You’re out for a leisurely drive and then all of a sudden, booya, here’s this spot and you’re like, “What is that?”

So was it the project that brought you back to St. Louis? It was the scope that this project had. A farm-to-table restaurant that’s steeped in tradition. You know, this farm has been in Nathalie Pettus’ family for more than 150 years. I was enticed and fell in love with her vision and passion for what she wants to do. She wants to return that land to its agricultural roots and showcase what [Clarksville] can – and does – produce.

What are some menu highlights? We serve … breakfast, lunch and dinner [daily]. We’re cooking on our toes. Sometimes we know, sometimes we don’t know what the farmer’s going to bring to our back door. … We’re doing all of our own baking – bagels, breakfast breads, English muffins, beignets, doughnuts. Lot of charcuterie – sausages and pâtés and terrines and rillettes. I mentioned earlier the smokehouse we designed. I see lamb prosciutto in our future. I see hanging hams. Dinner is going to be a blast – all the proteins we have at our fingertips. Lamb, pork, chicken, bison. … Venison. So we’re going to keep it simple and let the food speak for itself. One of the challenges that we have is that we are in Clarksville, and we need to appeal to a broad demographic of guest. I don’t care where you come from; big, delicious, bold flavors win every time. Freshness and quality win every time.

Your hotel background helps you understand the need for broad appeal at this particular restaurant. I grew up in this business in my family’s restaurant, and at one point I said, “I will no longer cook a chicken wing!” And then I got into the hotel business, and for the last 10 years, I’ve cooked more chicken wings than anyone could shake a stick at. We will do recognizable, approachable food, but with our own flair and commitment to quality. I am mindful of the fact that we are 40 minutes north [of St. Louis]. When you travel to see us, we’re gonna make the experience well worth your visit.

So what is your cooking style? New World classic. I’ll take a classic dish and put a New World spin on it. I’m not talking fusion. I’m talking a new, brighter approach. … Pork belly over a ragoût of white beans is a classic, classic dish. But we lightened the dish with lots of colorful aromatics. Celery and carrots. We made this incredibly bright green scallion coulis that we streaked the plate with, so the beans just popped behind that beautiful green.

How are you developing the menu at Overlook? There’s not a lot of avant-garde cooking going on. This is an opportunity to get back to technique.

Why do you think chefs are turning toward technique-driven, classic dishes? For me, it’s a personal challenge. Classic is just that. It’s the cornerstone of what we do. Good cooking has legs and will be around for a long, long time. The flavor of the month, the fusion cooking, if we go back into our memories, there may be a dish or two that we really liked here or there, but nothing beats a perfectly cooked short rib over creamy parsnips. There’s something special about looking at a pâté that’s perfectly formed. There’s something righteous about great knife skills. It’s a tip of the toque to those that came before us. That sounds a little cheeseball, but this is a craft that’s gone on for centuries. It hasn’t changed that much if you really think about it. The challenge is excellence.

Overlook Farm
901 S. Highway 79, Clarksville, 573.242.3838

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Give me a snapshot of your career. When [my husband] Kurt moved to St. Louis, I went to Napa Valley and studied culinary arts and wine and afterwards did an externship at Trio in Chicago. They closed their doors shortly after, and I … then moved to Ohio, where I was a pastry chef for a small boutique [bakery] similar to this. Eventually I went up to Chef’s Garden, which is a sustainable farm, and got their kitchen going for the pastry aspect and then moved to St. Louis.

So what is the vision? We just wanted to go back to the basics, back to the technique. Desserts were becoming so architecturally crazy, and people were losing flavor. We were like, “Remember when you used to step into your grandma’s kitchen?” All those things that brought you back; every taste that you took brought a memory along with it. We joke around – we put the door in, the creaky screen door, because it’s just like grandma’s house. You take a bite of a hand pie, and it’s exactly the way that you remember it.

Bittersweet Bakery
2200 Gravois Ave., St. Louis
314.771.3500

Well, it’s one thing to reference nostalgia, and it’s another thing to do classic pastries well. We use really [high] quality ingredients with everything we do. And we bring technique into it, which I think a lot of people are just skipping these days. Technique is almost nonexistent.

When you were studying food, what brought you toward pastries? I actually studied savory; I never studied pastries. When I was doing my externship, the pastry chef asked if I would consider coming over to the pastry side. We called it “the dark side,” and I was like, “Absolutely not. No way. I hate it. It’s never gonna happen.” Chef Dale Levitski cut a deal that I could continue working garde manger if I went over to pastries. I figured, if anything, it would give me the technique that I needed to create savory dishes. Technique is universal. Not a lot of chefs know how important pastry is to their application of savory food.

Can you give me an example? Pâte brisée – a perfect example. It’s a dough, and you make it completely on the dough’s terms. People use it all the time in savory applications like quiches or goat cheese tarts.

What is it that makes savory chefs dislike pastry? It’s the anal things, like hoarding your pastry brushes and not letting anyone use them. Savory side doesn’t see any problem in sharing brushes but pastry absolutely does, because when you’re brushing something and then it smells like garlic, it’s gross. Sheet pans. Oh my gosh, … a straight sheet pan is nonexistent because people are roasting their bones on them, and it’s just like a constant argument. Savory doesn’t see any problem with it at all. They don’t understand that you need a straight sheet pan for a cake. It’s a constant battle.

So where did you get your base recipes? Where, for example, did you learn to make frangipane? I learned to make frangipane with duck eggs, actually. …We grew up baking. Things like that, I remember from when I was a child. And then a lot of it I know from reading books. [Frangipane] was always made using duck eggs. We’d like to try to implement that here if [the eggs] are available in the area. We’re still trying to find out what is available locally.

What can you source locally in pastry? Fruit, obviously, but what else? Everything can be local. People have given us little tips: If you want apple cider, you have to go here, and if you want this, go there. At first it was overwhelming because we found ourselves going different places for specific items, but then it all came together and it was like, OK, it’s not so bad. It’s shopping around. It’s going back to the day, not sacrificing what you want because it’s convenient. A lot of the purveyors in the area, the smaller guys, are amazing. Fox Rivers Dairy – they’re … four brothers that own this little place and you get good cheese, good jams and it’s fun.

And your ice creams … they are so creative. Every ice cream that we make is made with fresh ingredients. We don’t use any bases. We have an amazing ice cream machine. It literally is a dream come true. You make a crème anglaise, flavor it accordingly. Each one has a different tweak. The ice cream batter, we let it rest overnight. The ice cream machine works on viscosity. As it’s cooling, each ice cream has a different viscosity, and [the machine] actually stops itself [when the ice cream reaches it]. In pastries, it’s hard to utilize leftover things. Say we have a bunch of toffee left over. Naturally, [we] do ice cream. It’s a great way to use product that doesn’t look as pretty. [It’s also] where we try flavor combinations.

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How did all of this come about? I’ve known Gerard for five years now; [he] was a line cook for me out in Salt Lake. He left there to open Niche. At the beginning of the summer, I was up here off and on helping Gerard get Taste [by Niche] up and running. I had spare time. The restaurant I was at before actually burned down at the end of March. It was an old, historic inn – Richmond Hill Inn in Asheville, N.C. – that very tragically burned. So being without work except for a little consulting here and piecemeal stuff back in North Carolina, when this came available for Gerard, he gave me a call to see if I would be interested.

What is your culinary style? The food that I’ve done in the past was in line with what Niche is doing now. But over the past couple of years, I’ve been wanting to get more and more rustic. More and more approachable. I don’t like empty restaurants. I wanted to be part of a neighborhood place where, on any given weeknight, I know 60 to 70 percent of the people that walk through the door. Maybe this is the second time this week they’ve come in. That to me would be great success.

A true neighborhood restaurant … what is your price point? The price point is going to be incredible. We’re hoping to keep 99 percent of the entrées under $20. There might be a few steak options – beef is expensive – that creep above $20. We want to offer a three-courses-for-$30 menu.

How do you approach cooking? I have always felt I’ve been a great shopper. Developing relationships with local farms, cheesemakers – local interests me quite a bit. And I like taking one ingredient at the peak of its season and repeating it two or three times on a plate. So you might see a turnip gratin, a turnip purée, a fried turnip. Just to give people an idea of what that ingredient can be. I also like clean purity of flavors. So that’s why I have to be a good shopper. The ingredient has to taste like that ingredient, which has to taste great.

If you’re cooking classic French food but with a local, seasonal angle, what items will always have a place on the menu? With bistro and brasserie cooking, even though they’re set dishes, it’s the accompaniments that change with the season. I’d like to set it up so it is constantly revolving. [And] cassoulet in the middle of summer doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. There’s seasonality that way in how people eat.

What about the pastries? The pastries, again, are going to be traditional French. So you’ll see chocolate mousse and profiteroles.

I know you haven’t fully developed the menu, but what else can you tell me? Duck confit, cassoulet, beef bourguignon. We will have plats du jour that might be mustard-braised rabbit. Eventually we hope to add a raw bar up front so we can offer oysters and the giant seafood plateaus that you see all over France. You’ll see some variety meats, certainly.

How do you interpret traditional, rustic French food? A lot of traditional brasserie and bistro cooking is cooking of economy where you’re not cooking a filet mignon. You’re cooking a flatiron steak, a shoulder cut off the steak that is incredibly delicious, more flavorful than a filet mignon. A little harder to cut through but you make up for it in flavor. The crux of it is full-flavored food [that’s] not afraid of some fat, certainly, but we’ll have some great salads too.

Brasserie by Niche
(An early November opening is anticipated.)
4580 Laclede Ave., St. Louis
314.454.0600

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Why did you decide to go this route? [My wife, Nancy, and I] had searched for a long time for a boutique property, something that we could make fine dining. The stars were aligned and we just happened to drive by 5525 Oak St. It needed a ton of renovation. But we knew, this was it. So as far as the schedule, number one, there’s not much going on out here on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I wanted to use that time to focus on the marketing aspect of the business. But in addition, to be able to make my son’s soccer game on Tuesday afternoon. It’s a balance of business and my personal life, and I think that in the restaurant business, you can have both.

You traveled the world as a corporate chef for a cruise line, so what is it that made you gravitate toward French cuisine? I’m interested, fascinated, by the history of French cuisine. I’ve traveled France extensively. I don’t think I’ve had a bad meal there. There’s just this mystique of romance. It’s classic. It’s the root of what we are all taught in culinary school. It’s the root of modern cooking.

And your menu changes all the time. My menu changes weekly. I’d like to get to the point where I’m issuing menus a month in advance. It’s difficult for me, though, because of my relationship with Norman Weise of Weise Nursery, who is growing most of my produce. He can’t tell me four weeks in advance what’s going to pop up out of the ground, what’s going to be ready to harvest. He can give me an idea … two weeks out. This week he has this beautiful white sweet corn. He has turnips in as well. Sweet potatoes. So I’m utilizing those products. He gives me the incredibly fresh ingredients and I create a menu, I work with it.

How did the partnership spring up? He’s my neighbor. I live in the subdivision next to his farm. I bought landscaping supplies from him over the years and got to know him. It was always our concept to partner with local businesses and organizations, to marry our ingredients together to create something beneficial for both of us. … When [Norman’s] father ran the farm many years ago, he grew produce and he sold it at the family stand. When his father passed, Norman wanted to honor him and he wanted to go back to growing and selling produce, which he started this year. I went up there to buy hydrangeas or something, and he had all these tomatoes laid out. He told me the story and I said, “Well, do you think you could grow produce specifically for my restaurant?” And he handed me a seed catalogue and he said, “Pick out what you want and I’ll put it in the ground.”

You’re also partnered with Cottleville Wine Seller. When we first opened, I had a client ask if they could buy a bottle of wine. I don’t have a retail license to sell, so I went to Don Yarber, the mayor [of Cottleville] and owner of the Wine Seller, and I said, “Don, I have people asking to buy my wines. I can’t sell it to them. Would you exclusively retail my wines?” It works out for the both of us.

So with the menu changing all the time, the wines change too. How do you pick what to pair? A ton of tastings. We have our wine suppliers here every week, sometimes two times a week. I’ll develop the menu, call my wine rep and say, “Here’s what I’m doing, come in. I’ve got a white-corn bisque this week, a smoked-duck cannelloni, a beef tenderloin.” I give them an idea: I want a Chardonnay with this, a Bordeaux with this. They bring me wines to taste.

It’s a constant creative process for you. In my 10-year corporate career, it was Monday to Friday, 8 to 5, pushing pencils, creating schedules. There was no creativity to that job. My passion is food. The reason I became a chef is because I like to cook. Period. I woke up one day and [realized] I’m not home. I miss my family. And I’m not cooking. Even though I’m the corporate executive chef, it has nothing to do with cooking.

You must be immeasurably happier now. I feel like I’ve awakened. I have nobody but myself to blame for anything and I’m my own toughest critic. I’m intellectually challenged by this. It’s constant. It’s a great balance between food and business. I absolutely love it. I’ve never been happier or more passionate in my life than I am right now.

Stone Soup Cottage
5525 Oak St., Cottleville
636.244.2233

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At Pi, the cocktail menu is a collaboration between Sommers and H. Joseph Ehrmann, a renowned mixologist and proprietor of Elixir in San Francisco. Sommers said fresh ingredients are key, regardless of the drink’s style. “We still make Cosmos, but we’ve been able to get people to explore other drinks such as our signature Pi Squared, made with Square One Organic Vodka from California and fresh basil,” he said.

Kilgore, who noted that this trend has been going on for some time now in bigger cities, said, “The first herb I saw being used in St. Louis was mint, then basil. It’s all about using fresher, local ingredients. … The ingredients you see in the kitchen make sense with cocktails, too.” When experimenting with fresh herbs, Kilgore suggested thinking about how to best enhance the flavors of the spirit. As far as how to use them, he said, “It all depends on what role you want the herbs to play. They can be a major or minor player.”

Kilgore shared that he tends to use herbs as accents; therefore, he pairs them with spirits that have a strong flavor profile. “When making a gin cocktail with Campari, grapefruit and Chartreuse, I just rub a sprig of rosemary in it. With cachaça, a white spirit with a big flavor profile, I use sage with pineapple and a bit of lime juice.” To add another dimension to a more neutral drink, like a vodka and soda, he said, “Just throw in a lavender sprig.” And, since most of our tasting experience comes from smell, Kilgore advised: “When you go out for a drink, leave the herb in the drink because it’s supposed to be in there. All garnishes are part of the cocktail.”

When you want the herb to be a part of the drink versus simply an accent to it, go with muddling. “Muddling brings out the herb’s natural oils, which combine with the other ingredients in the drink,” Kilgore explained. “Just muddle it with an ounce of simple syrup and ¾ ounce of fresh fruit juice in a glass. Add 2 ounces of spirit, shake hard and strain over ice.”

Don’t know which herb to muddle in what spirit? “Taste the spirit first and then play off the flavor of the ingredient. Don’t cover up the spirit or overspice it. Enhance it,” Kilgore said. He recommended trying savory herbs such as rosemary with gin, basil with vodka, and brighter herbs like cilantro with tequila.
Sommers suggested muddling the herbs in the glass first without putting any sweetener in the drink. “Before you oversweeten, let the herbs flavor the drink on their own. If after you taste it, you want it a little sweeter, use agave nectar instead of triple sec, which is a little cleaner,” he said.

Another option is infusing spirits with fresh herbs, which, according to Kilgore, is easy, can be done overnight and is great for parties. “With infusions, if it’s fresh, you can pull flavors together a lot quicker. It’s important to taste it after 24 hours, though, in case you need to adjust the amount of herbs or fruits.” One to try, he shared, is cachaça infused with cubed pineapple and sage. “Then, just mix it with a sour part – such as fresh lemon, lime or orange juice – and pour over ice.” Sommers added, “Infusions are quite simple; you don’t even need to put it in the refrigerator. And don’t be afraid to be generous with the herbs.”

While Kilgore favors getting creative when experimenting with fresh herbs in cocktails, he also conceded that it’s possible to take it over the top. “Sometimes it can be overkill. Stay as true to what you’re drinking as possible and accent the flavors of the spirit, no matter how subtle they are,” he said.

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Terrace View’s menu is Mediterranean, but that’s such an overarching culinary designation. For me, what that will mean is my foundation of French and Italian. That’s where the focus of this food will be. But there [are] a few dishes that I love doing that are Moroccan or Spanish or Greek or something like that. I didn’t want to be too restrictive … obviously with my background the bulk of it’s going to be French and Italian. But I didn’t want to be too specific.

So how did you edit the menu? I have just really – in the past couple years – bought into the local farmers much more because they’re so much easier to deal with than they were 10 years ago. And there’s so much more available. It’s almost just as easy calling my farmers as it was calling my purveyors in the past. So what I was thinking was local ingredients, Mediterranean flavors. Which truly is what Mediterranean food is: It’s local food cooked the way they cook it.

Cooked very simply. Quickly. I’m obviously not going to get lamb from Italy. I’m not going to buy my goat from Spain, my lemons from Greece. So as much as possible, I’m thinking, let’s go with local and think like somebody that lives near the Mediterranean. They would get the best possible product and then cook it in a way that’s simple and to the style of where they are.

You have a lot of steaks on the menu. I got to thinking about these businessmen down here and I got these people that are doing organic, grass-fed beef and lamb and pork. So I put a little section on the menu that’s just going to have an emphasis on that. Like, I won’t go to typical chain steakhouses; I won’t eat the meat. I’ve done enough research and study of that kind of processing and so forth that it has turned me off to want[ing] to eat that kind of stuff.

It’s nice that on your menu you follow through with your convictions. This past year I’ve really done that, especially with the $25 menu that we did at [The Crossing, Liluma and Acero]. At first I was like, well, I’ll do organic grass-fed beef and we’ll do that as the higher-end tasting menu. And then for the lower-end tasting menu, we’ll do mass-produced food. And then I was like, that’s the problem with America. The people that don’t want to spend – or can’t spend – the money are the ones being punished ’cause they’re the ones eating the processed foods and all the garbage that’s causing sickness. So why do I want to punish those people? Why don’t I put it upon myself and do, like, the porchetta: Find good pork, find good, inexpensive cuts of meat and prepare them properly so that now I can … have that for the customers.

So what about the wines? All the wines are Mediterranean. I decided [to] … just go [with] European wines. They’re mostly French and Italian with a little bit of Spanish sprinkled in. I think I have one Greek wine.

How have you seen the St. Louis restaurant industry change over the past 11 years? I think that what you find is that not having a global, or at least national, perspective of what food is … makes it a lot harder to impress diners. In the past, … someone might be an average cook and a nice guy, [and] he might make it for 10, 15 years. But nowadays, if you’re not on your game, doing nice food, taking great care of your customers, the competition will eat you alive. I think that’s good. … And now, to get somebody from Kirkwood to come to Clayton, they might drive by three good restaurants on the way. So you have to be enticing enough to get them past those restaurants.

What kind of direction did you get from Citygarden? I would think they want something sophisticated to reflect the setting. That’s what they said they were after. I came in and … they showed me through it and they told me all the trees in the park, all the bushes, all the plants are indigenous to this area. The bluffs are supposed to [mimic] the Mississippi and Missouri River bluffs. The meandering [paths] are supposed to be the rivers and so forth. I was like, well, why don’t we do a menu that pulls from the regional foods and then do it in the way I do, which would be a Mediterranean flavor. So, call it Midwestern flavors, Mediterranean food or Midwestern food, Mediterranean flavors. When I told them that, they were just like, “That’s it. That’s exactly what we want.”

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