Stuff to eat. Mostly around St. Louis.
The Elmwood Burger
Ah, Elmwood burger. You are a special burger, indeed. The kind of burger I treat myself with when I’ve been a good boy. Or if I’ve had a bad day. The kind of burger I get when my girlfriend is busy and then when she asks what I ate, I tell her I just had vegetables. Then I text owner Chris Kelling and tell him if he rats me out, I will end him.
To describe it simply, I’d say it’s the half-Korean cousin of classic "Western burger.” You know, onion rings, bacon, BBQ sauce. But not really that stuff. The onion rings have been replaced with crispy fried shallots—if you haven’t done so already, I highly recommend you go to any of the international groceries and buy a container of them and put them on everything you cook. Instead of your typical, cloyingly sweet BBQ sauce, they make a slightly fiery Korean BBQ sauce. I asked chef/owner Adam Altnether to describe it: “It’s a three day process of cooking a beef jus that ends with the addition of apple cider vinegar, Korean soy sauce, and gochujang. Now please leave the kitchen, we’re in the middle of service.” The sauce, as you can tell from the photo above, is much thinner than Sweet Baby Ray’s, so yes, this is a slightly messy burger. If you’re eating with other people, it’s almost certainly a knife-and-fork burger. If you’re dining alone, go wild.
The final toppings are iceberg lettuce and American cheese. Altnether, always innovating, flips the burger so the cheese goes on the bottom. This allows the sauce to really permeate the burger and not just run off. Genius, this boy is.
The real star of the show is Chris Kelling’s suit collection—wait, no. The star of the show is obviously the patty. You can’t make a special burger with garbage meat. The 35-day dry aged beef comes from Flannery Farms’ Holstein cattle, typically used for dairy. Adam tells me, “Holsteins tend to have less exterior fat and much more intramuscular fat.” I wish I was more like a Holstein.
Vying for the title of Burger King, Adam has chosen to flame broil the burgers in their wildly hot Josper grill/oven. The finished product is a slightly smoky, kinda spicy, classic-but-not burger. I recommend you grab a seat at the bar and dig in while drinking a cocktail from Dave Greteman. Oh, and you have to order a side of the super crispy potatoes with harissa.
Elmwood Burger
korean bbq sauce, bacon, fried shallots, american cheese, pickles
Bolyard's Biscuits & Gravy
There is a shortage of good weekend breakfast options in St. Louis.
That’s started to change with restaurants like Vista, Sardella, and Reeds opening for brunch, along with breakfast-specific spots like The Clover and The Bee and Yolklore, but judging by the wait times—and constantly complaining to me, as if I have the power to make places open earlier—more are needed.
Good news for those of you who live close to Bolyard’s Meat and Provisions in Maplewood: starting on January 6th, the shop will be serving biscuits and gravy on Saturdays from 10 AM until noon. (I’m not normally the one to give you the scoop on something new, but I’ve been incessantly nagging them to add breakfast options, so I’m making an exception)
If you haven’t had their biscuits before, you haven’t really lived. We took a family vote this past Thanksgiving and it was unanimous that these are the best in town (don’t @ me), made with house rendered lard and local buttermilk. You can get them hot and ready for dinner every Tuesday night with their roasted chicken or on Thursday evening’s smoke-outs. Shop veterans also know you can buy them frozen (almost) any day.
So, combine these monster, fluffy buttermilk biscuits with a gravy made out of the shop’s moderately famous breakfast sausage, and you have yourself a dish that will warm your bitter, breakfast craving soul. Tell the family that you’re just running out to get gas and eat alone in peace.
Along with the B&G, they’ll also be offering a weekly biscuit sandwich, ranging from your basic egg/ham/cheese to more exotic creations, like a chorizo patty with cheddar and scallions, or BBQ pork with apple butter. With the culinary minds of Chris Bolyard (Sidney Street Cafe), Alex Welsch (Porter Road Butcher), and Bob Komanetsky (Completely Sauced food truck), some special breakfast sammies are inevitable.
Also, while you’re here: if you haven’t made Bolyard’s part of your lunch sandwich rotation, you’re a fool.
Biscuits & gravy
Summer Corn Bruschetta
I've had my share of haute cuisine, dishes with ingredient and instruction lists as long as the Torah, but I'm still more impressed by a simple dish executed perfectly. My first bite of Matt Daughaday's food came during my first meal at Taste when he brought out his sweet corn bruschetta. It sounded like something I'd whip together at home with leftovers. Corn, peaches, bacon, shiitake mushrooms, ricotta, cilantro, chilies—I almost always have these around. Yet, one bite in, I knew I had never made anything so simple and so perfect in my life. I hated it for reminding me that I am just some measly home cook and loved it because it was such an outstanding dish. I needed it again, but alas, it was not to be. A few days after my meal, I found out Matt would be leaving and starting his own restaurant, Reeds American Table.
For a very brief time, a risotto version of this dish popped up at Reeds, and it was glorious, but the Chef Matt giveth and the Chef Matt taketh away. Finally, a few weeks back, I got the text I longed for so badly: "Corn bruschetta is back on the menu. Come get it!"
I've gone three times just to have it, really. Matt was gracious enough to give me the recipe to share with you fine people—if you scroll to the bottom, it also includes his housemade ricotta recipe. It's easy to do, but if you don't feel like it, you can use store-bought stuff. Matt only makes it when corn is in season, but I have no qualms about making the creamed corn ricotta using the frozen stuff during the winter. Add peaches, add bacon, add whatever you'd like: just make sure the corn ricotta is on there.
Yield: 6 portions
Ingredients
CREAMED CORN RICOTTA
1 lb fresh ricotta (about 2 cups)
1 c fresh shucked corn
3 T canola oil
Salt to taste
CORN ‘RAGU’
3 T canola oil
4 c fresh corn kernels
1-2 red thai chili, sliced as thinly as possible
18 cherry tomatoes, halved
3/4 tsp marjoram, chopped
2 T butter
2 limes, zested
4 oz. queso fresco
6-8 sprigs of cilantro, picked
Salt to taste
6 slices fresh country loaf, 1/2” thick
METHOD
CREAMED CORN RICOTTA
Turn on sauté pan over high heat, add the oil and let it come a point where the oil just begins to smoke.
Turn off the flame to avoid a flare up from the moisture in the corn, add the corn to the pan and turn flame back on high. Season with salt and allow to cook till you see the corn begin to caramelize. Toss corn once and cook for an additional 30 seconds. Corn will begin to pop when done. (Not into popcorn, just loud pops, with the occasional kernel flying out of the pan and onto your neck like a tiny missile)
Place cooked corn on a plate to cool.
Once corn is completely cool, place fresh ricotta and corn into your food processor and turn on and let whip till the mix seems smooth and almost shiny. Put into a bowl and leave in the fridge to cool and set up.
CORN ‘RAGU’
Put sauté pan over high heat, add oil to the pan and let it come to a smoke point. Turn off the flame, add your corn, turn the pan back to medium high and let cook until you begin to see the corn caramelize. Add your butter, Thai chili, marjoram, and cherry tomatoes, toss to mix everything and cook an additional minute. Turn off the heat, add lime zest and season with salt.
Plating:
Add a little oil and salt to the bread and grill either on a grill pan or an actual grill if you happen to already be using one for your meal. Don’t be scared to get nice dark char marks.
Once bread is grilled spread a nice layer of the corn creamed ricotta on top of the bread, then top with a couple spoonfuls of the corn ragu and press it into the cheese lightly so it doesn’t fall off on you.
Next, sprinkle with a little of the queso fresco and picked cilantro. Cut the piece of toast into three or four slices and you are ready to serve.
This is what happens when you don't turn your flame off. You don't want this to happen in your house. READ THE INSTRUCTIONS.
ricotta
Yield: 2lbs of Cheese
INGREDIENTS
1 gal. whole milk
2 c heavy cream
2 T salt
1/2 c distilled vinegar
METHOD
Place milk, cream and salt in a heavy bottom pot big enough to leave at least 6” of space from the top of the liquid to the top of the pot. Place on the stove over high heat.
Bring milk up to a boil (this is where you will need to watch it closely because once the milk reaches a boil it will climb quickly in pot and overflow, leaving a big mess on the top of your stove that is not fun to clean)
As the milk comes to a boil it will begin to rise to the top of your pot. As soon as it hit the top of the pot, turn off heat and pour in the vinegar and give it one good stir with either a wooden spoon or rubber spatula.
Pull the pot off the stove and let it rest on your countertop for at least 10-15 minutes before attempting to strain. During this time you should start to see your cheese coagulating on the top of the pot.
After letting the cheese rest and set up for the allotted time, set up a colander lined with cheese cloth over a bucket to catch the whey. Use a mesh skimmer, or slotted spoon if you don’t have a skimmer, and skim off the cheese and place it in the cheese lined colander to drain.
Place cheese in the cooler and let sit to set up for at least 1 hour, up to overnight. The longer you let it sit the drier your cheese will come out.
Schlafly Farmers Market
Too lazy to wake up in time to get to the Tower Grove Farmers Market before everything's been bought? Me too. Lucky for us, there's another option: Schlafly Bottleworks' Wednesday afternoon Farmers Market. With upwards of 40 vendors (some of my favorites include Baetje Farms, Ozark Forest Mushrooms, and Biver Farms), it's a large affair, full of all sorts of goodies. The Schlafly team arranged a special media day visit plus dinner a few weeks back, which also happened to be a day where it was hot as Hades outside. Smart thinking: dehydrate us to make the beer even more delicious.
We all wandered around, taking in the options—fruit (including white raspberries, which I didn't know existed), cheese, beautiful veggies, more cheese—then stopped by The Tamale Man's tent for a glass of Agua Fresca. If you haven't had Tamale Man's tamales or ice cold agua fresca, make sure you remedy that.
Nothing gets the appetite going like shopping. The Tower Grove market has Kitchen Kulture's confusingly amazing egg sandwich, but Schlafly has a whole restaurant. Who doesn't love shopping local then eating and drinking local?
Before heading inside, we took a walk through their enormous garden, helping to supplement the restaurant's local-focus. If you recall my interview with KT Ayers from earlier this year, you'll catch more insight into that.
schlafly farmers market restaurant garden
Another reason to stick around for dinner is Ayers' new Farmers Menu, a set of specials where all ingredients come from a 100-mile radius of the restaurant. On our visit, we got a big ol' tomato caprese plate, lamb kebabs, a veggie sauté, and, my personal favorite, the burger. Any burger topped with local goat cheese and crispy bacon will get a thumbs up from me. The dessert, a goats cheese cheesecake, was a great way to finish out the meal—and that's coming from someone who thinks most cheesecakes are gross.
The most important part of our dinner wasn't the food or farmers though. No, it was the St. Louis-exclusive Expo IPA. Eight hop varieties, three continents. I'm admittedly not a big hop-head, but what brewers have created is well balanced enough that I was able to enjoy a bottle or six. You can get it on draught or in six packs at either of Schlafly's locations.
Summary: you should spend your next free Wednesday afternoon shopping local at the Schlafly Farmers Market, then go inside and fill yourself with their farmers menu (or regular) dishes and beer.
Bolyard's Smoke Out & Roasted Chicken
Think of this less as a "Dish of the Day" and more as a P.S.A. to improve your life. You already know that Bolyard's makes some of my favorite sandwiches in St. Louis. You know they've got some of the best meat in town. But did you know that they have both a weekly Smoke Out and a roasted chicken night?
The Smoke Out takes place every Thursday—early in the morning, they send out the email of what's for sale that day, and then you have approximately 30 seconds to call. Seriously, it's like getting tickets on Ticketmaster. You blink and you're shit out of luck. The meat is just that good. I can't get enough of the chicken rubbed with their bacon cure, but their huge pork steaks and brisket shouldn't be missed.
I've started buying the meat—whatever I can get my hands on—and shredding it, then using it in tacos and rice bowls. Those guys somehow manage to get their meat so much juicier than what I'm able to produce at home. Thanks for making me feel so inadequate, Bolyard's crew.
Just look at that tray of meat and tell me you're not hungry instantly (and if you do go into the shop, make sure to compliment Jon Todd on his fox tattoo and vascular arms. He's been trying to put on mass).
Tuesday nights are oven roasted chicken nights. Don't even go into the shop after 1PM on Tuesdays. It just smells too good, the whole shop perfumed by the wonderful smell of chicken fat.
It's hard to properly express the crispy skin of roasted chicken through photos, but I assure you that if you tapped on the chicken below, the undeniable sound of crackly skin would ring out. Once again, your best bet is to call in the morning and reserve your bird.
Living Room Coffee & Kitchen
For a guy who talks a lot about not going to restaurants for breakfast/brunch, I sure am posting a lot about breakfast these days. I'm in Maplewood regularly these days, and yet, somehow, I hadn't been to Living Room. I met the owner, Nate Larson, a year ago at a Bolyard's Burger Battle, and was all, "Yeah, I'll come in next week!" But I forgot. And I just kept not going—then it got to a point where I felt like I'd not gone for so long that I couldn't go. Like I'd walk in and Nate would ask what took me so long and I'd try to come up with an excuse and it'd just get too weird. Neurotic like Larry David.
Troika Brodsky, my former camp counselor and current head of the St. Louis Brewer's Guild, changed all that when he invited me there for coffee. It's all been downhill since then—in the past 3 weeks, I've basically moved Whiskey & Soba into Living Room.
There are two reasons I've found myself enjoying Living Room more than a lot of the other coffee shops in town:
1. The food & drinks are above average.
2. It's totally unpretentious. Whether I'm working or just meeting someone for coffee, the staff are friendly, it's never overcrowded, the music is at the right volume, and it just feels homey. Like you're in someone's...Living Room?
Let's talk about some of my favorite stuff so far, beginning with the sproda. It's espresso and Fitz's root beer. I posted this on Instagram thinking this was an uncommon sight, but apparently coffee shops across the country make'em. I'm into it. The sweet vanilla flavor of the root beer combined with the slightly chocolatey and bitter espresso ends up tasting like a pretty delicious iced coffee, sans milk.
The Dirty Chai uses locally produced Retrailer Tea chai, and it comes in an almost comically large mug. I also got the chance to try a tester of their upcoming espresso and fermented ginger beer drink (no creative name yet), and that is like drinking a lightning bolt. Seriously, you will wake up once you down this. I shared one with Sherrie from With Food and Love—she agreed.
Food wise, everything is made in house, with a menu ranging from pastries to breakfast plates to sandwiches. Don't get the cheesy scone. You're going to regret it. It's about the size of a baseball and it seems to be made out of flour, butter, cheddar, more butter and parmesan. You will inhale it. It's a gourmet Red Lobster cheddar biscuit. You're going to want more than one.
For the Jews out there, if they have their macaroons (not to be confused with macarons), get one. They're just like the ones you eat around Passover that come in a cardboard tube, except they don't taste like a cardboard tube. They taste like coconut and sweetened condensed milk.
I keep bouncing back and forth between two sandwiches: the Workday sandwich—soft boiled egg topped with some very tasty peppered bacon, white cheddar, and dressed greens, all smushed in a soft baguette, and the smoked egg sandwich. Medium boiled eggs are smoked next door at Bolyard's, then topped with pickled red onion, gruyere, roasted garlic aioli, dijon, and arugula on a slightly sweet focaccia. Maybe one day I'll convince Nate to put the smoked eggs on the Workday sandwich, and then I'll find true inner peace.
The last recommendation I have: get some Bitt's Cold Press bottles to go. I don't know what Nate and his crew do to get such a rich and chocolatey flavor, but it helps get my engine running when I wake up.
Southwest Diner
I am not a patient man. I can wait maybe—maybe—30 minutes at a restaurant, but only if it has a bar I can sit at and bitterly nurse a whiskey while eyeballing every slow eating diner in the place. That is why I haven't posted on Southwest Diner before. Twice I tried to go on the weekend for brunch, and twice I was greeted with a wait of over an hour. Sure, they have a bus outside the restaurant you can wait in, but the last thing I want to do on a Saturday morning is listen to people babble. I just want to shovel food into my face.
Now that I've got some newfound freedom, I can go to lunch whenever and where ever I want! I called up my friend, chef Russ Bodner, and we headed over to Southwest Diner for an early weekday lunch.
There were only two tables open when we got there, the rest filled with people enjoying what looked like large, bountiful plates of Southwestern fare. I don't know the history of the diner, and I'm too lazy to look it up, but I'm going to guess that this once was a typical American diner, which has since been renovated to look like a 1960's diner in Sante Fe. I can be a little indecisive when it comes to ordering, especially when the whole menu sounds so friggin' good. I'm a Southwestern food slut; one of my favorite places to eat in is Phoenix. All those fire roasted meats and veggies, heavy use of chiles and spice, little bits of Mexican influence—what's not to love? As I waffled back and forth (that's a pun, because this is a diner. Get it?), Russ just went ahead and got himself a cup of the pork and hominy red-chile posole.
Selfishly, he offered me none of his posole, but judging by the speed he scarfed it down and by how it smelled, I'd say it was good.
His main course was worthy of a lumberjack: a smattering of crispy homefries, two perfectly cooked eggs (later doused in hot sauce), and a country fried steak topped with a homemade sausage gravy. Once again, no tasting for me—why do I even eat with this guy?—but he assured me that it was really tasty and he'd happily order it again. Even if he won't share, his opinion on food can be trusted.
My original plan was to try the enchilada, and even after all my waffling, that's what I went with: the stacked enchiladas platter, Christmas-style. If Christmas-style New Mexican food sounds familiar to you, you've probably seen Guy Fieri talking about how righteous it is, brotha, at some family-owned diner there. Half the enchilada is topped with the smoky, slightly bitter red chile sauce, while the other half has the cheesier, tangier, mellower green chile.
There's a clear winner here for me: green chile. It's got a little heat to it, but mostly, it just takes you straight to flavortown...er, it's got a great flavor. I went with barbacoa for my meat of the day, which was a solid choice, but next time I'm going with the adovada, a red-chile braised pork. It's a house specialty and quintessentially New Mexican. Both the beans and rice had nice flavor, too. I was quite pleased with my choice and will proudly admit to sharing none of it with Russ.
By the way, we got a buttermilk cornmeal pancake as a side. Don't judge us. It's research.
I totally see why people are so into these—they're like enormous arepas. I saw a tiny woman dominate a stack of these like it was nobody's business.
I have to hand it to you, Southwest Diner: you are truly a wonderful breakfast and lunch spot. Part of me wishes we'd never met, because I fear that my interest in you will soon become an obsession. Jon's fiery scrambled eggs are next.
Bolyard Burger Battle: Poletti vs. McMillen
There are a lot of reasons to hate the onset of winter—the bitter cold, people who can't drive when there's bad weather, shoveling snow—but none of those make me as angry as not being able to go to any more Bolyard's Burger Battles until spring. The first battle pitted Brasserie's Nick Blue against Annie Gunn's Andrew Jennrich; the camaraderie and friendship between these two chefs sickened me. I wanted to see trash-talking and sabotaging. I thought that maybe putting Sidney Street Cafe's Justin McMillen against Pastaria's Josh Poletti would do the trick. As you can see from the picture below, it did not:
bolyard's burger battle chefs poletti mcmillen
Disgusting. These two were even more complimentary and friendly than the last two! I wanted Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Vince McMahon, but alas, we can't always get what we want.
Unlike the previous battle, we got to see two different patties this time around. For McMillen's "Maw and Paw Burger," he had Chris Bolyard grind braunschweiger into the meat, then topped it with a pickled mustard seed and onion slaw, white cheddar, and a pretzel aioli (we'll come back to this). Poletti, a man who embraces fatty foods like few chefs I know, had his "Mississippi Burger" ground with bone marrow, which was finished off with sweet churned pickles, white BBQ sauce, onion rings, and American cheese.
Preparation (click the photos to open a gallery and see them larger): pickle slicing, patty making, butter melting, Busch drinkin'. And the winner's prize: The Golden Pig Skull!
Once the final preparations were complete, everyone moved outside and began setting up the burger and fry cooking stations. Bolyard himself took the reigns of the thick cut French fries, frying them in the sweet, sweet beef tallow that all battle attendees have come to know and love. Even if you're not a burger eater, coming to one of these battles and just drinking beer and eating Bolyard's fries would be a delicious experience.
Bolyard took it upon himself to once again light the enormous grill, and within minutes, it was as hot as the sun. I was sweating because of it and I wasn't even close to it!
The rest of the Bolyard's team finished up the final touches, like setting up the check-in table and grilling the buns, and then the madness began.
Once the horde of people arrived, it was go time. Like a well-oiled machine, burgers were quickly handed off from chef to the team plating up each burgers on the beautiful Refection buns. After the burgers were completed, Bolyard came through with fistfuls of searing hot fries. What a badass.
The Burgers:
Both burgers were excellent, in my opinion—though I won't tell which one I voted for. McMillen's patty was my favorite of the two, thanks to the braunschweiger giving it a slightly livery taste. I know that probably doesn't sound very appealing, but I think it makes for a unique burger eating experience, especially when paired with the pickled mustard seeds and onions. And let's not forget about the pretzel aioli. My god, that was a tasty sauce. I told him that it needs to be used at Sidney Street ASAP. I could dip fries in that all day. I was worried that his heavily German influenced burger would be too fancy for the battle, but it was a huge hit.
Unfortunately for McMillen, it wasn't as big of a hit as Poletti's—though the votes were close. His take on a more classic cheeseburger won the people over. Before the battle even began, I was snacking on those sweet, thick cut pickles with the white BBQ sauce (you may recall that I fell in love with it a year ago) in the back of the Bolyard's shop—once they were both on the burger, along with gooey American cheese and crunchy onion rings, it was pretty much game over. Gluttony and excess won out.
I can't wait for next spring's battles (but my body can).
Bolyard's Burger Throwdown
The skies were more than ominous on August 22nd—there was no denying a storm was coming. I left my house at 5:15 PM, and by 5:17, the skies erupted. Manchester Road became more river than road in spots. My confidence that the Bolyard's Burger Throwdown would be starting at 6 PM was low, even if their Facebook page stated it was happening rain or shine. As I rolled up to Bolyard's, the skies cleared and the rain stopped. The burger gods were watching down upon us.
The battle that was about to take place was sure to be epic. Nick Blue, chef of Brasserie, prepared to battle Andrew Jennrich, butcher extraordinaire at Annie Gunn's.
Blue went with a Bibimbap Burger: a Bolyard's patty topped with pickled vegetables, a fried quail egg, and a piquant gochujang mayo. Jennrich gave his patty a spicy rub, then covered it with heirloom tomatoes, shaved lettuce, bread & butter pickles, remoulade dressing, and a hefty piece of andouille to create his Po Boy Burger.
The winner of the battle would be decided by the people. Each diner would get a ballot when they checked in (along with drink coupons to get Perennial Artisan Ale!). After the burgers were served, the people would decide who should win the Golden Pig Skull and who would have their hand lopped off by the master butcher himself (okay, that part isn't true). The pressure both Blue and Jennrich felt could only be described as immense.
I couldn't wait to get their meat into my mouth.
Let's check out the play-by-play.
The final plating. Two hefty sliders, plus Bolyard's mind-blowing beef tallow fries. Before even discussing the burger, I must explain how good these fries were. Think of the tastiest fries you've ever had. Now make them taste even better. It was sort of like the movie Inglourious Basterds: I went in excited to see Brad Pitt and Melanie Laurent and left talking about Christoph Waltz. So what I'm saying is these french fries were as good as Christoph Waltz, and he won the Oscar that year.
I won't say which way I voted, but both burgers pleased my palate. Even though they were inspired by completely different parts of the world, both had similar elements. They each had some heat (creole seasoning/gochujang mayo), a creamy element (remoulade/quail egg), and a vegetable crunch (pickles & lettuce/pickled vegetables). I would happily eat both burgers again.
In the end, Nick Blue took home the Golden Pig Skull. Will we see a Jennrich v. Blue rematch one day? I think, perhaps, this is the start to a great trilogy.
Be on the look out for more Bolyard's Burger Throwdowns in the near future. Who do you want to see battle it out next?
Local Eats at Larder And Cupboard
After years of ignoring Maplewood, I now find myself there on a weekly basis. I pick up whatever meats I'm feeling like from Bolyard's, maybe a donut or 12 from Strange Donuts, stare longingly at Reed's American Table (open today!), then head into Larder & Cupboard (L&C). You want to eat locally? You need to get over there. Even I didn't know the extent of local goods available. Here's your guide to my 10 favorite locally made products you can find there:
All the Cheeses
Like most trustworthy people, I love cheese. When I was young, it was the fried mozzarella cheese bombs at Seamus McDaniel's. After a trip to France, the obsession became European imports. Then it was California cheeses. Larder & Cupboard has helped me the see the light: Missouri and Illinois have some badass cheeses. My current recommendations: Marcoot Creamery's scamorza, Baetje's Morbier-inspired Amoureux, and the amazing Flory's Truckle from Milton Creamery.
Larder and Cupboard Cheeses
Kuva and Stringbean Coffee
The local coffee scene has shot off like a rocket in recent years, with places like Sump and Blueprint gaining notoriety on a national scale. We have our share of great local roasters who don't have stores, as well. Kuva has been around since the early 2000's, while Stringbean arrived in 2011. I may not know much about coffee, but I know I like Kuva's Peru Chilchos and Stringbean's smooth Sumatra.
Larder and Cupboard St. Louis Coffee
Inappropriate Apiaries' South City Honey
If you live in South City, this honey could have been made because of your garden! Wow! Good for you. Tommy 'Salami' Andrews (of Truffles Butchery) has been producing this honey for years, but this is the first time he's sold it. It is good honey, too. It's been flying off the shelves for a reason (and it's not just the great logo).
Larder and Cupboard St. Louis Honey
Hammons Black Walnut Oil
Trying to be healthy makes salads so boring. You don't get to use any of that creamy stuff, so you're stuck with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Or are you? Open up your wallet, cheapskate, and buy some walnut oil. It's got a delicate, nutty flavor that gives an extra umph to any salad or veggie dish. Drizzling it over a fall-flavored pasta instead of olive oil is sure to impress the ladies, too.
Larder and Cupboard St. Louis Black Walnut Oil
Banner Road Granola
When Anne Croy isn't making her perfect gelato's, donuts, and desserts for Pastaria, she can often be found pumping out tube after tube of granola for her Banner Road Baking Company. You'll be hard-pressed to pick a favorite: is it the pecan heavy Original? The blueberry filled Bye Bye Blues? Or the Sump coffee and Askinosie chocolate KickStart?
The correct answer is the KickStart, but I love all three. She recommends eating them with a spoon, I recommend pouring them directly into your mouth.
Larder and Cupboard Granola St. Louis
Ozark Forest Shiitake Soy Sauce
Bluegrass Soy Sauce, seen on the left side of the photo, has been growing in popularity for years thanks to the likes of Sean Brock and Ed Lee. I prefer Ozark Forest's shiitake mushroom soy sauce, though. It's less acidic and has a nice, subtle mushroom note. That woodsy flavor is the perfect addition to your next stir fry.
Larder and Cupboard St. Louis Shiitake Soy Sauce
Legacy Chutney
Ahh, my first love at L&C. The recipes all come from the owner's Pakistani family, and they are beyond addictive. There are four flavors: Cherry Kiss, Date Night, Mango Mania, and Sweet Fruit. Sweet Fruit & Mango Mania are thinner, and in my opinion, more versatile. I've used both as condiments and for marinades with chicken and fish. Cherry Kiss and Date Night are a little thicker, lending themselves more to desserts and cheeses.
These are my favorite items in the whole store. I've had them stocked in my fridge since Larder & Cupboard opened.
Larder and Cupboard St. Louis Legacy Chutney
Salume Beddu
You know that I loveSalume Beddu. What Marco and his team are creating is nothing short of amazing. Most groceries in St. Louis sell the Veneto, Calabrese, and Finocchiona now, but they don't have the fiery nduja, a spreadable salami fit for kings, nor do they carry a range of Beddu's sausages. If you're ever making a "Best of St. Louis" gift basket, these need to be at the top of the list.
Larder and Cupboard St. Louis Salume Beddu
Mac's Local Buys Sausage
The same sentiment as above goes for Mac's. Chris McKenzie works with a number of local farms to procure great locally sourced meat, which he then turns into great sausages (amongst other things). Keeping a pack or two...or ten...in your freezer is a smart move.
Larder and Cupboard Mac's Local Buys St. Louis
Larder and Cupboard Sweet Olive Spread
So far, Larder and Cupboard has made just one product themselves: a sweet olive spread. They aren't tooting their horn about it too much, and it's almost hidden away in the cheese case, but it is one of the more unique things I've eaten—in a good way. Apparently it's used in Italian bakeries, but I prefer spreading some onto crackers and cheese.
Larder and Cupboard St. Louis Sweet Olive Spread
Bonus Round!
Newberry Cheese Boards
I couldn't keep myself at just 10 items, plus these aren't edible. Newberry Furniture makes these fun Missouri and Illinois shaped cheeseboards out of local wood. They make great gifts—in fact, they're so great that L&C is often sold out of them. Make sure to call ahead if you're looking for these.
Larder and Cupboard St. Louis Cutting Boards