Other Press

Ten restaurant milestones of the decade

Monarch Restaurant — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:55:00 -0000

#6. 2003 Monarch and Schlafly Bottleworks open. The two restaurants — one also a bottling facility for the Schlafly microbrewery — form bookends on Manchester Road in Maplewood, helping to spur a burst in food-related businesses that had begun, arguably, with the opening of the St. Louis location of Penzeys spices in 2001.

#1. 2001 Death of Tom Flynn. The co-owner of Balaban’s tragically drowns at the age of 44 while on a long-awaited vacation with his wife and six children. Some say that the restaurant never fully recovered from this loss, retooling itself in 2006 before closing for good in 2008. The original space and many of its menu approaches were reconstituted under another set of owners later in 2008 as Herbie’s Vintage 72; Flynn’s partner Steve McIntyre retained rights to the Balaban’s name and opened a new version, featuring many of the old recipes, in Chesterfield in November 2009.

Niche’s Craft and Monarch’s Galliano get Beard nominations

Monarch Restaurant — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:43:00 -0000

Gerard Craft of Niche, Taste by Niche and Brasserie by Niche and Josh Galliano of Monarch have each made the list of 20 semifinalists for the for the 2010 James Beard Foundation Awards for Best Chef Midwest, released this morning by the Foundation. A panel of 400 restaurant experts will choose the five finalists in the category, who will be announced March 22.

The other Missouri finalist in the category was Colby Garrelts of Bluestem in Kansas City. The American Restaurant in Kansas City is a semifinalist for Outstanding Restaurant.

Other St. Louis connections include Frank Stitt of Highlands Bar & Grill in Birmingham, Ala., whose brother David runs Veritas Gateway to Food and Wine in Chesterfield. Frank Stitt, already a James Beard Award-winner, is a semifinalist in the Outstanding Chef category.

A Dining Room of Visual and Culinary Delights

Monarch Restaurant — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:30:00 -0000

12/04/2009
by Joe Bonwich

Diningat Monarch these days is something like visiting the Impressionist galleries atthe St. Louis Art Museum or attending this weekend's Brahms concerts at Powell Hall.You'll do just fine if you just merely sit back and enjoy the experience on abasic sensory level.

But if you make the extra effort to discern the various layers of harmony,contrast, complement and texture, the evening rises above a simple great mealto something more transcendent.

The artist behind it is chef Josh Galliano, a Louisiana native with a culinarypedigree that includes a diploma from Le Cordon Bleu, a European tour withMichelin-starred restaurants and a return to his native state at the renownedCommander's Palace in New Orleans.

Galliano wandered up the river several years ago to take a job as chef decuisine at Larry Forgione's An American Place downtown, moving over to helmMonarch's kitchen last year. Each item on thedinner menu is presented as an ingredient list, the primary element in bold. Itallows Galliano to style the presentations without any preconceived notions.And without exception, the visual appeal is dazzling.

Sometimes it's intricate, as with an appetizer terrine ($11) made up ofcontrasting stripes of foie gras and beef, set at an angle to the grill marksin a piece of brioche and ornamented with dots of fig-flavored balsamicvinegar, a smear of fig preserves and a nest of quick-pickled red cabbage. Thevisual complements are striking, but the various elements also play togethernicely, with the sweet fig flavors enhancing the foie while the beef adds aslightly bigger flavor and the cabbage contributes a hint of tang.

And sometimes it comes from a narrower palette, such as a swirl of deep purplefrom an elderberry coulis set in the golden-orange center of a butternut squashsoup ($8). A touch of maple adds a depth to the sweetness, while crispedchicken cracklins stand in for bacon.

Galliano's nod to the season was an off-menu duo of venison, a perfect loincoupled with a croquette that resembled a ground-venison hash.

He also catered to the old-fashioned meat-and-potatoes crowd with anew-fashioned butcher steak ($30), unexpectedly tender for a shoulder cut.Mushrooms showed up in the steak's crusting, in a side of sautéed mushrooms andin a hearty sauce described as mushroom ketchup. Desserts continued the equal emphasis on visuals and flavors,as with another terrine, this one alternating passion fruit and Camembert insomething of a cheesecake texture.

The PB&J added a touch of whimsy, positioning a log of peanut buttersemifreddo on a bed of crumbled dark-chocolate soil, with Concord grape gelsproviding the J element and pools of bacon-infused honey there if for no otherreason than to prove that bacon improves just about everything.

It's not exactly cheap, but a $40, four-course weeknight tasting menu includesone of two offerings from the cold appetizer, hot appetizer, entree and dessertcourses, knocking about $15 off the list price if they'd been orderedseparately. An additional $20 buys you four generous pours of matched wines.

The quality of service matched that of the food, both on a broad basis and withsubtle touches. I need to point out that my anonymity was compromised on bothvisits, but it appeared that every table in the main dining room was receivingequal attention.

That room, by the way, is my major objection to thecurrent state of Monarch. It's beige and relatively bland. And not all tablesare lighted equally, making it difficult to appreciate the kitchen's visualartistry.

The restaurant's website also needs some updating: It positions the cuisine asfocusing on French, Asian and American Southwest influences, an approach thathas clearly been modified by Galliano's incorporation of his Louisianafavorites.

Galliano is one of a closely knit group of young chefs who, in the past fewyears, either migrated here or came home, in the process changing the face ofthe local food scene. In his case, he married a local girl and has a son, soI'm hoping his wanderings are over and he'll be in St. Louis for the long run.

7401 Manchester Road — 314-644-3995 — monarchrestaurant.com — Menu:Thoughtful flavor combinations and striking presentations from eclecticinfluences, including Louisiana and Mediterranean specialties from the chef'sbackground — Smoking: No — Hours: 5-11:30 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday

Bourbon-inspired twist on a New Orleans classic

Monarch Restaurant — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:19:00 -0000

SFGate - Gary Regan - Sunday, October 4, 2009

Nate Selsor works at Monarch, a joint in St. Louis that's garnered morethan a few awards for its wine list, and the food there has beenacclaimed too. The bartenders at Monarch tend toward some very seriouscocktails - drinks that are usually right up my alley.

Ted Kilgore, a guy whom I've met on quite a few occasions, used towork at Monarch, and I believe that he's the guy who set the standardswhen it came to the lack of froufrou ingredients - I'm thinking lemonjuice, lest you're wondering - in many of the drinks served at Monarch.These days Ted's holding forth from behind the stick at Taste by Nichein St. Louis. A recent missive from my Missourian friend served toinform me that he's currently experimenting with drinks made withduck-fat-infused spirits. He's quite a case, is Ted Kilgore.

Nate Selsor's Delta cocktail is based on a drink called Cocktail Àla Louisiane, a New Orleans potion that hails from a restaurant, LaLouisiane, that traces its roots to 1881. A visit to this place in theearly 1900s prompted Isabel Anderson, a noted travel writer of hertime, to remark, "In New Orleans the mixing of drinks is no commonthing. The barkeeper, an artist in his profession, tells by the soundwhen the drink has been sufficiently shaken."

The old New Orleans drink calls for straight rye whiskey, sweetvermouth, Benedictine, absinthe and Peychaud's bitters. That makes it,to steal the words of Paul Clarke, one of my colleagues here at TheChronicle, a kissing cousin to the Sazerac.

It's the addition of sweet vermouth and Benedictine that sets thisdrink apart from the Sazerac, and oh, what a difference they make, too.Both bring layer upon layer of herbal complexity to the drink, and thehint of honey brought into play by the Benedictine is arguably thegenius factor in the Cocktail À la Louisiane.

Selsor's drink calls for a specific bourbon as a base - Jim BeamDistiller's Series, to be precise. This is a widely hailed 7-year-oldwhiskey that's worth the price of admission at around 40 bucks, but itcan be hard to find, so if you have trouble, I recommend either Baker'sor Maker's Mark in this cocktail - they're very different from eachanother, but both work very well indeed.

The Delta cocktail also calls for dry, rather than sweet, vermouth,and Selsor mandates different ratios of ingredients than the Cocktail Àla Louisiane. The man has done a fine job of balancing this baby, soyou might want to think about taking it out for a stroll sometime inthe near future.

Meanwhile, I plan to start listening closely to my cocktail shakerin order to try to figure out if Isabel Anderson's statement makes anysense or - and I'm betting that this is the case - some cheekybartender in New Orleans was pulling her literary leg.

St. Louis Food Crawl

Emily Mckenna — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 05:00:00 -0000

When I lived in St. Louis 10 years ago, the food scene wasn't inspired.But on a recent visit I ate some seriously tasty new food, includingfrom F&W Best New Chef 2008 Gerard Craft, who's got expansion onhis mind (more on that later). Some highlights:

Pi (6144 Delmar Blvd.; 314-727-6633) and The Good Pie (3137 Olive St.;314-289-9391)Pi serves cheesy deep-dish and thin-crust (my favorite) pizzas oncrunchy cornmeal crusts. The Good Pie's wood-burning oven turns outperfectly bubbly, charred and chewy Neapolitan pizzas.

Bobo Noodle House (278 N. Skinker Blvd.; 314-863-7373)It's best known for wok-fried noodles and pho, but the secret is itsaddictive rolls– crispy pork spring rolls and minty shrimp summerrolls, served with a chile dipping sauce.

Sidney Street Cafe (2000 Sidney St.; 314-771-5777) and Monarch (7401Manchester Rd.; 314-644-3995)These two local favorites have been revitalized, thanks to enthusiasticyoung chefs. At Sidney Street, chef Kevin Nashan (who trained atSpain's Martín Berasategui and NYC's Daniel) serves elevated disheslike five-spice halibut over ramp-and-fiddlehead risotto.

Monarch's Josh Galliano (who most recently worked at An American Place)utilizes local products, like the peas and chanterelles in a richcarbonara.

Stuffed, I couldn't make it to the one last spot I wanted totry–Pappy's Smokehouse (3106 Olive St.; 314-535-4340), which I'm toldhas the best barbecue and is worth the sometimes hour-long wait. Not toworry, I'll be back soon.

Posted June 22, 2009 at 5:01 PM EDT

St. Louis Food Crawl

Emily Mckenna — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 05:00:00 -0000