Ian Froeb’s STL 100: The best St. Louis restaurants of 2025

In 2014, a hare-brained restaurant critic proposed a wild idea to his editors at the Post-Dispatch: an annual list of the best, most exciting restaurants in the St. Louis metro area. Not only would I visit all 100 restaurants (and more) to make this list, but I would return to each of them the next year and the year after that.

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My very patient editors said yes, and in 2015 we launched the STL 100. In 2025, we proudly present the 10th anniversary edition of the list. Much has changed over the past decade, not least the restaurant industry itself, thrown into crisis by the pandemic’s arrival in 2020 and, five years later, still dealing with how the pandemic has changed dining habits.

Of the 100 restaurants on that inaugural STL 100 in 2015, only 14 have remained on the list through all 10 editions. (Completists will note this is technically issue No. 11 of STL 100; the 2021 edition, looking back on the first pandemic year, was a collection of stories instead of a list.

) For 2025, there is a new No. 1 restaurant, following the unexpected closure of last year’s top spot, Bulrush. Coincidentally, I first reviewed a restaurant from the chef of this new No.

1 a decade ago. Here’s toasting 10 years of the STL 100 and the 100 restaurants we are celebrating this year. Thanks for reading, and happy eating.

1. Sado and Pavilion In 2015, the same year the STL 100 debuted, young chef Nick Bognar opened Ramen Tei adjacent to his mother Ann Bognar’s Japanese restaurant Nippon Tei. My review of the ramen restaurant wasn’t a pan, exactly, but it was dismissive.

I certainly wouldn’t have guessed Bognar’s trajectory. A few years later, after a spell outside St. Louis, he returned to take over the sushi program at Nippon Tei.

He transformed the restaurant. His sushi was respectful of tradition, but thoroughly modern. A revelation.

This was merely a prologue for Bognar’s debut restaurant, Indo, which opened in 2019 in Botanical Heights (see No. 10). The menu featured an even more ambitious presentation of nigiri sushi as well as dishes that drew inspiration from his Thai heritage.

Indo drew national acclaim and was poised to become the next great St. Louis restaurant. Then the pandemic arrived.

Indo weathered the worst of it, though Bognar’s multi-course omakase (chef-directed) dinners at its sushi bars didn’t return. In 2023, he and his family opened Sado on the Hill, which brought together his sushi program from Indo and customer favorites from Nippon Tei (now closed). One of that year’s best new restaurants, Sado entered the STL 100 last year at No.

7. Sado would have returned to this year’s Top 10 based solely on its perfect single bites of nigiri sushi and such composed sashimi dishes as the signature Isaan hamachi with a coconut naam pla or the kanpachi cured in black tea. And, yes, also for its crab Rangoon.

Since then, however, Bognar has opened Pavilion, a separate enclosed space at Sado where he hosts omakase dinners for small groups of diners a few times each week. Here Bognar’s full, mature talent is on display with exquisite bites of expertly dry-aged fish. A piece of nodoguro (blackthroat seaperch) cured for six days is as rich as bluefin tuna.

Bognar also serves the expected luxuries at Pavilion: tuna, uni, wagyu beef, even foie gras. He knows when to apply a light touch (i.e.

, that tuna, in three different cuts) and when to return to his roots, seasoning A5 Japanese wagyu in tribute to his grandmother’s nam tok beef. “When it smells like grandma’s kitchen, I know I’m up to something good,” he said during my 18-course dinner at Pavilion. In fact, at Sado and Pavilion, Bognar is up to the best restaurant in St.

Louis. Last year: No. 7 Sado 5201 Shaw Avenue 314-390-2883; sado-stl.

com Dinner Tuesday-Sunday (closed Monday) $$$-$$$$ Pavilion 5201 Shaw Avenue 314-390-2883; sado-stl.com Dinner by prepaid reservation. Check Resy.

com for current availability $$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . 2. Vicia Eight years after Tara and Michael Gallina opened Vicia, the Central West End restaurant continues to compel national accolades.

Most recently, Vicia chef de cuisine Jane Sacro Chatham is a 2025 James Beard Award semifinalist for “Emerging Chef,” a nationwide category. Leading Vicia’s kitchen for the Gallinas and their business partner and culinary director Aaron Martinez, Chatham upholds Vicia’s agenda-setting standard: sometimes hearth-fired, often vegetable-forward, always delicious. A late-winter dish of miso-cured ocean trout transcended modern trends into timeless elegance.

The supple trout practically melted into its pool of shiro-dashi butter, which gave the fish a subtle swagger without obscuring its delicate oceanic sweetness. Vicia can still wow with a plate of vegetables, like a salad of carrots in a carrot vinaigrette with a citrusy bite of coriander. This is the flavor Bugs Bunny chases in his dreams, the carrot all other carrots aspire to be.

Since last year’s STL 100, Vicia has switched to a traditional a-la-carte menu, though the menu retains a family-style “Let us cook for you” option like its retired Farmer’s Feast tasting menu. However you dine at Vicia, it continues to be one of the essential St. Louis restaurant experiences.

Last year: No. 2 4260 Forest Park Avenue 314-553-9239; viciarestaurant.com Dinner Tuesday-Saturday (closed Sunday-Monday) $$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter .

3. Little Fox Consider the arc of Mowgli and Craig Rivard’s Little Fox. It opened in January 2020, certain to be one of that year’s most buzzed about debuts.

That March, of course, the pandemic shut everything down, and the future of all restaurants, let alone those with only a few months in the books, was in doubt. Five years later, you can see the pandemic’s scars across the industry, but Little Fox itself is thriving. This past year, the Fox Park restaurant opened for dinner on Monday, making it one of the few top-tier restaurants open on that typically quiet evening.

That speaks to the demand for the food from Craig Rivard and his kitchen team. I’ve previously described his cooking as a Californian-Italian hybrid, but I think bountiful might be the best description, a menu full of impeccable technique, the season’s best ingredients and generous flavors that work together seamlessly. You can see it in the perfect texture of the bomba rice inside the ‘nduja croquetas, the jolt pickled peppers give to the mussels’ garlic-shallot broth and in the smoky, earthy, tangy accents a giardiniera of grilled hakurei turnips added to the ‘nduja-marinated bone-in pork chop with polenta, a signature dish I didn’t think could be improved further.

Last year: No. 4 2800 Shenandoah Avenue 314-553-9456; littlefoxstl.com Dinner Monday-Saturday, brunch Saturday-Sunday $$$-$$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter .

4. Nobu’s Dinner at Nobu’s is quiet, but not silent. Noboru Kidera, the eponymous 76-year-old chef, might look up from center stage of his extraordinary Delmar Loop sushi restaurant to ask if you liked one of the courses he has selected, painstakingly prepared and artfully plated for your multi-course meal.

George Kidera, Nobu’s son, will describe each dish and make small talk with you and your few fellow diners throughout the meal. Calm is the first descriptor that comes to mind when you step inside Nobu’s, with its blond wood and warm light like an upscale Nordic spa. As dinner begins, reverent better fits the mood.

You can hear the click of spoons seeking the last drop in bowls of red snapper bone broth, the pop of dashi-infused trout roe against your teeth and a sigh of delight when the perfectly tart accent of green tomato seeds hits. Are you embarrassed when your noises turn frankly carnal as dinner moves through bluefin tuna, wagyu beef and uni? Don’t be. The passion on display here is quiet, but undeniable.

Last year: No. 3 6253 Delmar Boulevard, University City 314-323-9147; nobustl.com Dinner by prepaid reservation Wednesday-Saturday (closed Sunday-Tuesday) $$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter .

5. Root Food + Wine The publication schedule of the STL 100 and my desire to bring you the freshest possible reports bring me to the region’s most prominent restaurants in late winter. Obviously, that isn’t the prime season to visit any kitchen that favors local farms and the ingredients of the moment, and it seems especially unfair to drive to Philip Day’s Root Food + Wine in Augusta before the trees along winding Highway 94 have begun to bud.

Yet once again this year Day has floored me with an early March menu, where the mint chimichurri with pink peppercorn that accompanied lamb sausage and a couple of lamb fitters was more electrifying than other restaurants’ most verdant summer fare. Day continues to reinvent his signature winter mushroom appetizer, this time serving a consommé to sip alongside a custardy mushroom riff on Japanese chawanmushi. He coaxed unexpected elegance from the sweet potato: charcoal-grilled, maple-glazed and decorated with apple and mustard seed.

I will return to Root well before 2026. Day has just changed Root’s menu format to highlight more game and vegetable dishes. Last year: No.

12 5525 Walnut Street, Augusta 636-544-1009; rootfoodwine.com Dinner Thursday-Saturday, lunch Saturday (closed Sunday-Wednesday) $$$-$$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . 6.

Mainlander Change has come quickly to Mainlander, St. Louis’ best new restaurant of 2023 and a James Beard Award semifinalist in 2024 for the country’s best new restaurant. Chef Blake Askew and his business and life partner Gordon Chen are moving Mainlander from its cozy original home in the Central West End to bigger digs in the same neighborhood.

When the restaurant reopens in late spring in the former Salt + Smoke space by the intersection of North Euclid and McPherson avenues, it will feature a bar area as well as a dining room. Will this make it any less challenging to score a reservation? Probably not. My return to Mainlander this past fall found Askew and his team confident and playful, exploring Midwest cuisine through that month’s set menu, with inspired touches from various Asian cuisines: a riff on shrimp toast made with rainbow trout, Chinese bing with mushrooms, a main course that set fresh, delicate Minnesota walleye in sizzling sesame oil.

Last year: No. 6 392 North Euclid Avenue mainlanderstl.com Temporarily closed to relocate $$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter .

7. El Molino del Sureste, Sureste Once again I must demand that the national tastemakers of the James Beard Awards, Food & Wine magazine’s Best New Chefs, et al., take seat at Alex Henry’s exceptional Southampton restaurant El Molino del Sureste.

If you are one of these tastemakers, and you’ve already been, go back. Usually, I don’t return to restaurants that debuted on the previous year’s STL 100 until the end of my research for the new edition, but Henry’s exploration of the cuisine of his native Yucatán, Mexico, required a visit in high summer for a cool ceviche percolating with chile heat and a huarache piled with juicy peak-season heirloom tomatoes. El Molino won’t celebrate its second birthday until September, but Henry and his brother Jeff have already transformed Mexican cuisine in St.

Louis with venison tacos, scallops in white chocolate mole and turkey dishes to persuade the Thanksgiving-averse. El Molino is now open for lunch with a more casual menu of tacos, and Henry continues to dazzle at the Food Hall at City Foundry with his signature cochinita pibil and other Yucatecan dishes. Last year: No.

9 El Molino del Sureste 5007 South Kingshighway 314-925-8431; elmolinostl.com Dinner Tuesday-Saturday, lunch Tuesday-Friday (closed Sunday-Monday) $$-$$$ Sureste Food Hall at City Foundry, 3730 Foundry Way surestemexican.com Lunch and dinner daily $-$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter .

8. Louie When did you realize our Jan. 6 snowstorm would be a Big Deal? I knew that very day when the unthinkable happened.

The great Louie closed. Its employees, like the rest of us, were stuck at home. You can usually count on Matt McGuire to keep the wood-fired hearth burning inside his Clayton restaurant.

Why wouldn’t he? Mother Nature would need to pack quite a wallop to keep diners from their coveted reservations here, and if Louie’s hearth can’t entirely vanquish winter’s chill, its unparalleled hospitality can. The appeal of chef Sean Turner’s menu is as consistent as the warmth of the restaurant’s embrace. That menu has hardly changed over Louie’s seven years, and the few additions during that time, like the grilled Spanish octopus with chickpeas, soppressata and Calabrian chiles, fit seamlessly alongside the unaffected pleasures of the roast chicken with rapini, the pork chop with chermoula and shishito peppers and the wood-fired pizza.

Last year: No. 8 706 DeMun Avenue, Clayton 314-300-8188; louiedemun.com Dinner Monday-Saturday (closed Sunday) $$$-$$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter .

9. Balkan Treat Box I bring you good news about the great Balkan Treat Box in Webster Groves. Two pieces of good news, in fact.

As you might already know, last year Loryn and Edo Nalic opened Telva at the Ridge, also in Webster Groves, expanding their Bosnian and more broadly Balkan fare into breakfast. (You can read more about Telva in its entry in this year’s STL 100). Meanwhile, as of this March, Balkan Treat Box is open for dinner Tuesday through Saturday.

Not that the restaurant lacked for crowds before, but first as a food truck and since 2019 as a brick-and-mortar, it has focused on lunch. If your schedule has kept you from Balkan Treat Box’s wood-fired and grilled fare, now is the time to try the plump cevapi (beef sausages) in hearth-baked somun berad or the char-speckled Turkish flatbread pide with tangy kajmak, prickly ajvar and more fresh herbs than a garden shop. It is easy to dwell on the meat options here — those cevapi, the chicken doner, the spicy beef lahmacun — but Balkan Treat Box also offers a terrific wood-fired eggplant dish patlidzan with apricot-pomegranate molasses as well as vegan and vegetarian versions of several signature dishes.

Last year: No. 5 8103 Big Bend Boulevard, Webster Groves 314-733-5700; balkantreatbox.com Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Saturday (closed Sunday-Monday) $-$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter .

10. Indo Nick Bognar continues to make big moves at Sado (see No. 1), opening the exclusive omakase counter Pavilion at his Hill restaurant.

Meanwhile, his original Botanical Heights restaurant Indo hums along. Indo’s nigiri sushi moved to Sado when the latter restaurant opened. For a while, a selection of hand rolls replaced nigiri on Indo’s menu, but these were no longer available when I returned in February — and I didn’t miss them for everything else the restaurant does so well.

The menu abounds with options brilliant in both conception and the colors on the plate. Composed sashimi dishes — silky dry-aged king salmon over the tart pop and dusky spice of a cranberry salsa macha — remain Indo’s signature. But I was just as impressed this year by plump, pan-seared scallops topped with lump crab meat and accented with Cajun-spiced butter and a pea puree, while chile-garlic noodles with mushrooms in an umami-bomb black garlic-soy sauce didn’t need seafood or meat to dazzle.

Last year: No. 10 1641D Tower Grove Avenue 314-899-9333; indo-stl.com Dinner Tuesday-Sunday (closed Monday) $$$-$$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter .

11. Noto Italian Restaurant For proof that Noto Italian Restaurant can do more than the metro area’s best Neapolitan pizza, just head to the lower level of its St. Peters building.

Here Kendele and Wayne Sieve have opened Bormio, exploring the cuisine of Italy’s north, where it mingles with Swiss and German fare (see the Rest of the Best). Or you can stay in Noto itself — you scored that mandatory reservation after all — where executive chef Justin McMillen tempts you away from those wood-fired pies with a quarter of luscious duck confit in a teasingly tangy black-garlic agrodolce served over farro with pickled cherry. Black garlic appeared again this March in the aioli served alongside fried snow-crab claws, a luxury that demands you scrape the last sweet morsel of meat from each shell.

Of course, I won’t blame you if pizza remains your go-to order at Noto, with its ideally charry, airy crust and elegant topping arrangements, like slices of mortadella with both bubbling fresh mozzarella and creamy stracciatella over a pistachio pesto. Last year: No. 17 5105 Westwood Drive, St.

Peters 636-317-1143; notopizza.com Dinner Wednesday-Saturday (closed Sunday-Tuesday) $$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . 12.

The Crossing 🔟 The Crossing is one of only two restaurants to remain in the Top 25 of the STL 100 from its inaugural edition through today. Jim Fiala can add this distinction to the stack his Clayton flagship has earned over the past 27 years. For a practical example of the restaurant’s continued relevance, consider a weekday evening in early March, not exactly a bustling dining time these days.

At the Crossing, though, I felt lucky to snag a table at 8 p.m. — and I made this reservation because I wasn’t confident I would find a free seat at its small bar.

The fare overseen by Fiala and chef Thu Rein Oo redefines timeless. Even in late winter, it felt fresh, even revelatory. The seasonal luxury of shaved Perigord black truffle garnished a simple bed of housemade spaghetti.

Succulent porchetta in its own juices provided a balm against a sudden cold snap, while the pork’s sweet bed of peas and rainbow carrots hinted at spring’s arrival. Last year: No. 11 7823 Forsyth Boulevard, Clayton 314-721-7375; thecrossing-stl.

com Dinner Monday-Saturday, lunch Monday-Friday (closed Sunday) $$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . 13. Sidney Street Cafe 🔟 Did you hear the exciting news? A certain celebrity chef opened a restaurant downtown last year.

He serves beef Wellington there. Has St. Louis heard of the dish? We have, in fact.

When I visited Kevin Nashan’s Sidney Street Cafe for the inaugural STL 100 in 2015, I ate a take on that old-school dish made with lamb instead. The culinary scene in St. Louis is much richer and further advanced than drive-by chefs realize, thanks in no small part to the work the James Beard Award-winning Nashan has done at his Benton Park institution and the talents he has cultivated in its kitchens.

(The latest rising star here is pastry chef Amelia Lytle, whose desserts floored me for the second straight year.) Post-pandemic, and with Nashan also supervising Peacemaker Lobster & Crab Co. and restaurants in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Sidney Street has settled into a groove that smartly mixes classics (veal dumplings, lobster turnovers) with fresh ideas, seasonal ingredients and occasional old friends like that swanky lamb Wellington, amped up with prosciutto inside its pastry shell and an earthy sauce chasseur on the plate.

Last year: No. 14 2000 Sidney Street 314-771-5777; sidneystreetcafestl.com Dinner Tuesday-Saturday (closed Sunday-Monday) $$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter .

14. Wright’s Tavern See how easy this whole restaurant business is? Identify a gap in the market — in the case of Wright’s Tavern in Clayton, a steakhouse that justifies the tremendous cost — design a stylish, glowing dining room appropriate for business deals and fleeting assignations alike, hire top-notch staff for both front and back of house and wait for the accolades to accrue. I kid.

Sort of. At Wright’s and its sibling Louie (see No. 8), owner Matt McGuire crafts memorable dinners that seem, from your seat, effortless.

But if you love steak, you know Wright’s Tavern takes pains few other restaurants do, dispatching your cut not only at your requested temperature, but also properly enrobed in a glistening crust. That care extends to everything else, from the crispest onion rings to the most ethereal pommes puree. With confidence, you can skip steaks entirely for the burger, the crab cake or the potato-encrusted halibut.

For the diner, Wright’s Tavern really is easy. We don’t need to think, just choose. Last year: No.

15 7624 Wydown Boulevard, Clayton 314-390-1466; wrightswydown.com Dinner Monday-Saturday (closed Sunday) $$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . 15.

Esca 🆕 For most chefs, Esca would be the triumph of a career, let alone a single year. For Ben Poremba, it is one part of an audacious reinvention in the flourishing Delmar Maker District. The best debut of 2024, Esca dazzles with coal-powered cooking, brushing brawny steaks and delicate fruits alike with fire, smoke, and embers.

The dishes are elemental, steeped in Mediterranean sun. Crackling-skinned chicken in its silky jus. Branzino with an olive-pistachio tapenade like a briny breeze from the sea.

Esca risks cliché to find new magic in old favorites, revitalizing hamachi crudo with the snap of almonds, beef tartare with lighter, sweeter veal. Remarkably, Poremba followed Esca’s opening with a second new restaurant across the street (the casual Israeli cafe Florentin) and the return of Nixta, the first of three acclaimed restaurants he is relocating to the Delmar Maker District. Even more remarkably, when his flagship duo of Elaia and Olio arrive in this district later this year, they now must measure up to Esca.

Last year: New 5095 Delmar Boulevard 314-365-2686; bengelina.com/esca Dinner Tuesday-Sunday (closed Monday) $$$-$$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . 16.

Taberu If Taberu were a restaurant, it would rival Pavilion (see No. 1) or Wright’s Tavern (see No. 14) as the toughest reservation in town.

As it is, a delivery of Heidi Hamamura’s sushi is even more difficult to score. The platter is worth setting your alarm — Hamamura opens her books at 6 a.m.

on the first of each month for the next month’s orders, which she takes via Instagram — and risking the frustration of a missed chance. Hamamura understands that sushi should be a luxury, not a commodity. She gilds luscious bluefin tuna with gold leaf, and she reimagines the spicy-tuna roll so that it leads with the fish’s sweetness before it wallops you with heat.

Her accents can be as subtle as the sake-kelp marinade for red snapper or as equally obvious and welcome as the smoke that touches octopus, salmon and even a piece of duck breast with black-cherry sauce. Whatever the arrangement inside, Taberu’s plastic tray turns your dining room into St. Louis’ most exclusive table.

Last year: No. 22 Sushi delivery and catering service instagram.com/taberu_stl Order for delivery via Instagram $$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter .

17. Olive + Oak You can measure the impact of Olive + Oak without setting foot in the restaurant. The glimmering heart of the Old Orchard district of Webster Groves — and the thriving dining scene throughout the entire municipality — Olive + Oak has led to direct, beloved sequels in O+O Pizza and the Clover and the Bee as well as the restaurant’s collaboration with Perennial Artisan Ales, Perennial on Lockwood.

Through Olive + Oak’s nine years, owners Mark and Jenn Hinkle have raised awareness and funds for pediatric health care and the families it has impacted, theirs included, through the Ollie Hinkle Heart Foundation. Once you do step inside Olive + Oak, you place yourself in the care of chef Jesse Mendica and her team. Mendica’s ever-changing menu is as likely to grab your attention with goat as with its 32-ounce cowboy ribeye.

Here in flyover country, I’ve always appreciated her deft touch with seafood, from menu mainstays (oysters, blue-crab gratin, baked clams) to more recent dishes both elegant (monkfish) and rustic (cornmeal-crusted hake). Last year: No. 20 216 West Lockwood Avenue, Webster Groves 314-736-1370; oliveandoak.

oohosp.com Dinner daily $$$-$$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . 18.

Akar Bernie Lee opened Akar in 2019, so his Clayton restaurant isn’t among those honored in every edition of the STL 100. Lee himself, though, has been a constant presence on this list. His prior restaurant, Hiro Asian Kitchen in Downtown West, was an honoree from 2015-2019.

Akar, which opened only a month after Hiro closed, has carried the torch since then. Lee has showcased an incredible range over the past decade. At Hiro, he ladled out several different varieties of ramen, each excellent, while other local spots were still perfecting their tonkotsu style.

At Akar, Lee has eschewed trends for a far more personal cuisine. This can be as simple as his favorite dish from childhood, a refreshing salad of pickled Taiwanese cabbage. Or maybe not so simple: the sweet, tangy crunch hides a sharp and surprisingly juicy chile bite.

Lee also encourages diners to indulge themselves: tea-brined duck breast, sambal-glazed beef short rib, a recent take on Thai drunken noodles with plump, buttery lobster. Last year: No. 19 7641 Wydown Boulevard, Clayton 314-553-9914; akarstl.

com Dinner Tuesday-Sunday $$$-$$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . 19. Jalea Andrew Cisneros has expanded his reach from St.

Charles to the Delmar Loop. Brasas, which opened last year on the Loop’s east side, features pollo a la brasa, Peruvian-style rotisserie chicken. Cisneros introduced his take on this chicken as an early-pandemic pop-up, and it has proven popular enough not only to earn its own restaurant, but also to feature on the menu of his debut restaurant, Jalea.

That chicken and a couple of other charcoal-grilled meats are reason enough to visit Jalea, but the menu here showcases the remarkable range of Cisneros’ modern Peruvian cooking. His take on classic lomo saltado is equally assertive and elegant, with hunks of medium-rare beef strip loin in a swanky sauce of veal stock, soy sauce and vinegar. Jalea puts Cisneros on the map for its seafood alone: from the mix of fried fish, shrimp and calamari that gives the restaurant its name to ceviche in an eye-popping leche de tigre you want to sip directly from the dish.

Last year: No. 16 323 North Main Street, St. Charles 314-303-0144; jaleaperuvianbistro.

com Dinner Wednesday-Saturday (closed Sunday-Tuesday) $$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . 20. Bar Moro Who is the most overlooked chef in St.

Louis? Consider Anthony Hillis, who moves nimbly across the narrow open kitchen of Bar Moro, Ben Poremba’s Spanish restaurant in Clayton. While Poremba has been hustling to open two restaurants, including Esca (see No. 15), and relocate three others, Hillis has kept Bar Moro’s classic tapas (albondigas, bacon-wrapped dates, pan con tomate with or without anchovies) as sharp as when the restaurant opened in 2022.

Hillis has also juiced Bar Moro’s menu of large plates, adding an extraordinary dish of roasted rabbit leg paired with chistorra sausage in a spiced tomato sauce. On a recent visit, he swayed me with a special: crackling-skinned duck breast with chestnuts, grapes and kale in a summery burnt-orange reduction. The flavors here are brilliant enough to speak for themselves.

You still need to learn the chef’s name. Last year: No. 23 7610 Wydown Boulevard, Clayton 314-932-1088; bengelina.

com/bar-moro Dinner daily $$$-$$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . 21. Black Salt Black Salt was one of the best new restaurants of 2023 and is the foremost example of the past few years’ boom in Indian dining in Chesterfield and beyond, but all of that might prove a mere prologue to its story.

Owners Raj Pandey and Sanjiv Shekhar have already opened a second Black Salt in Creve Coeur, and they recently debuted a new concept called Oh London, featuring British and American fare, also in Creve Coeur. Back at the original Chesterfield storefront, I’m still working my way through Madan Chhetri’s elegant menu of familiar favorites (butter chicken, rogan josh) and the chef’s own specialties (biryani, grilled Chilean sea bass in a silky coconut-coriander sauce). I somehow didn’t try Chhetri’s most exquisite dish until recently, grilled lamb chops poised in a bowl of sweet, amber saffron sauce.

As camera-ready as these Zafrani lamb chops are, you will find yourself plucking the charry, juicy, sauce-slathered meat from the bones with your fingers and teeth. Last year: Unranked 1709 Clarkson Road, Chesterfield 636-204-6441; blacksaltchesterfield.com Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Sunday (closed Monday) $$-$$$ 11429 Olive Boulevard, Creve Coeur 314-884-2201; blacksaltcrevecoeur.

com Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Sunday (closed Monday) $$-$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . 22. Farmhaus I’ve previously called red snapper Kevin Willmann’s signature ingredient, and among St.

Louis’ great chef-driven restaurants of the past two decades, Farmhaus has delivered both the best and the most varied seafood dishes. This is no surprise. Willmann is as passionate a fisherman as he is a talented chef.

This year, though, I need to declare Willmann’s spoonbread his essential dish — or maybe his secret weapon instead. The supple spoonbread, not exactly cornbread and not exactly a soufflé, has anchored hit after hit at Farmhaus. Most recently, spoonbread was the centerpiece for plump golden-brown scallops with ham over creamy corn in a peppery sauce anglaise.

The dishes at Farmhaus can change week to week or day to day, let alone year to year, but 15 years in, Willman and his longtime lieutenant Dillon Witte (longtime, but still young enough to qualify as a rising star in his own right) are mining a fresh vein of seasonal ingredients, playful plates like local beef-neck meat in a light, crisp empanada shell and, always, the catch of the day. Last year: Unranked 3257 Ivanhoe Avenue 314-647-3800; farmhausrestaurant.com Dinner Monday and Wednesday-Saturday, takeout lunch Monday (closed Tuesday and Sunday) $$$-$$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter .

23. Beast Craft BBQ Co. The inaugural edition of the STL 100 in 2015 featured nine barbecue restaurants.

When Beast Craft BBQ Co. debuted on the list the following year, there were 10. This year, there are only five.

Meggan and David Sandusky’s Beast itself has contracted in recent years from three locations back to the original Belleville location, which debuted in late 2014. I don’t need to belabor the obvious. The great St.

Louis barbecue boom of the Aughts and Teens inevitably ebbed. The pandemic visited hell upon the restaurant industry. Beast has emerged on the other side of this disruption bruised but proud — and still the metro area’s premier barbecue restaurant.

You know Beast for such signature cuts as the whopping pork steak or the beef brisket simply seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic, but you know pitmaster David Sandusky also doesn’t take standards like turkey breast, pulled pork or ribs for granted. I certainly didn’t enjoy how we arrived at this point, but for now the reality is bracing: You aren’t guaranteed great barbecue convenient to your home. You need to seek it out.

Last year: No. 18 20 South Belt West, Belleville 618-257-9000; beastcraftbbq.com Lunch and dinner daily $-$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter .

24. Menya Rui “Slurp up!” Menya Rui’s website reminds guests that there is a one-hour limit to dining inside the tiny Lindenwood Park ramen shop. The average person in Japan, the site notes, “eats ramen in 5-10 minutes.

” Anyone who has waited in line for a bowl of Steven Pursley’s ramen — which is to say, just about anyone who has eaten at Menya Rui over the past three years — will appreciate the notice. This time limit promotes efficiency, of course, but that suggested experience of just 5-10 minutes really is the best way to enjoy Menya Rui. whether you opt for the thin, springy noodles of the pork or chicken shoyu ramen or the thicker noodles of the tsukemen (dipped) or mazemen (brothless) ramen.

Pursley and his team craft communal moments. Even when you visit with a friend, Menya Rui is essentially you and your dish of painstakingly prepared and composed ingredients brought together for a few slurping minutes. Last year: No.

21 3453 Hampton Avenue 314-601-3524; menyarui.com Dinner Wednesday-Sunday (closed Monday-Tuesday) $-$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . 25.

Katie’s Pizza & Pasta Osteria Katie Lee has gathered a formidable array of talent at Katie’s Pizza & Pasta Osteria. Last year, the acclaimed chef Cary McDowell (the Crossing, Pi Pizzeria and most recently Wright’s Tavern) joined Lee and Katie’s culinary director Jake Sanderson in the “collective” overseeing the menu. Now, Lee has named front-of-house ace Chris Kelling (Niche Food Group and his own Elmwood, Pizza Champ, Burger Champ) director of operations across Katie’s locations in Rock Hill, Town and Country and Ballpark Village downtown.

Katie’s could have rested on the laurels its pasta, pizza and other luxe Italian fare has already won, and Lee could have focused only on growing the national reach of Katie’s frozen pizzas. Instead, this restaurant is chasing still greater ambitions. A recent visit needed neither pizza nor pasta to improve delicata squash in a light tempura batter or a crackling piece of chicken Parmigiano stuffed with fontina and prosciutto di Parma, jolted with Calabrian chiles and kissed by wildflower honey.

Last year: Unranked Multiple area locations, including 751 Clark Avenue 314-942-2416; katies.com Lunch and dinner daily, brunch Saturday-Sunday (all locations) $$$-$$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . 1929 Pizza & Wine and Patisserie 29 Amy and Matt Herren have relocated 1929 Pizza & Wine from Wood River to Edwardsville, a culinary homecoming for the couple.

Amy ran the late downtown restaurant Fond; Matt was the founder of both 222 Artisan Bakery and Goshen Coffee Co. At 1929, they have crafted their own take on wood-fired pizza, tangy, char-freckled and compelling even in St. Louis’ crowded field of hearth-baked pies.

The signature pizzas from Wood River remain on the menu, including the region’s best take on the classic duo of sausage and peppers and the one-of-a-kind Greens, with a walnut-basil pesto, roasted walnuts and kale. A new offering reimagines the Italian beef sandwich as a pizza, with tender beef, a Parmesan cream sauce and, yes, jus on the side for dipping. The Herrens have also opened a second concept inside their Edwardsville storefront, Patisserie 29, with French pastries both savory (a ham and cheese croissant) and sweet (an outrageously oversized cinnamon roll, a croissant-muffin hybrid with pistachio cream) that are worth a visit themselves.

1929 Pizza & Wine 921 Arbor Vitae, Edwardsville 618-307-5196; 1929pizzaandwine.com Dinner Monday-Saturday (closed Sunday) $$ Patisserie 29 921 Arbor Vitae Edwardsville 618-307-5196; patisserie29com.wordpress.

com 7:30-11 a.m. Tuesday-Saturday (closed Sunday-Monday) $ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter .

Acero 🔟 Jim Fiala’s the Crossing has ranked in every Top 25 of the STL 100, one of only two restaurants to do so (see No. 12). With Acero in Maplewood, Fiala joins Gerard Craft as the only two restaurateurs to land multiple establishments on all 10 editions of this list.

Consistent excellence is a given at a Fiala restaurant, but the highest praise Acero has received over its 18 years is its lack of imitators. For all of St. Louis’ Italian restaurants, no one has even tried to copy Acero’s rustic luxury, from such signature dishes as the ethereal gnocco fritto with prosciutto di Parma (a.

k.a. the meat doughnuts) and the now iconic raviolo cradling a fresh, golden egg yolk to hearty, but precisely composed seasonal dishes like halibut and mussels in a tomato-Calabrian chile fumet.

For reasons that have always escaped me, few upscale restaurants have learned from Acero’s four-course dinner, still a goodwill-generating deal beginning at $58 per person. 7266 Manchester Road, Maplewood 314-644-1790; acero-stl.com Dinner Tuesday-Saturday (closed Sunday-Monday) $$$-$$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter .

Afandi Kitchen 🆕 A decade of the STL 100 has witnessed the remarkable growth of the region’s Chinese restaurants, both in the regional cuisines represented (Sichuan, Dongbei and Shanghai among them) and in the singular visions of such chefs as Lawrence Chen of Private Kitchen and the late Ying Jing Ma of Chef Ma’s Chinese Gourmet. The latest addition is one of the most exciting. Afandi Kitchen, which opened in October 2024 in Chesterfield, is the metro area’s first restaurant to feature the cuisine of the Uyghurs, the Turkic, predominantly Muslim people of northwest China.

Chef Abulaiti Abuliz surveys Uyghur fare with an emphasis on lamb: skewers of grilled lamb; cumin lamb, maybe the best-known Uyghur dish, here stir-fried with leeks; a heady lamb broth with beef meatballs, glass noodles and supple tofu. Abuliz’s other signature dish is laghman, delightfully chewy hand-pulled noodles served with beef or, yes, more lamb. 17409 Chesterfield Airport Road, Suite C, Chesterfield 636-778-0178; afandikitchen.

com Lunch and dinner daily (closed Tuesday) $$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . Annie Gunn’s and the Smokehouse Market 🔟 Annie Gunn’s and its adjacent gourmet grocery and sandwich shop the Smokehouse Market have undergone the most obvious physical transformation of the 14 restaurants honored in every year of the STL 100. The Sehnert family has expanded Annie Gunn’s with the Fáilte Room, an imposing, barn-inspired event space.

At the restaurant itself, though, under the longtime stewardship of chef Lou Rook III, I wouldn’t change my description from 2015 of “an upscale dining destination, a clubby steakhouse and the Chesterfield Valley’s living room.” What has changed in the intervening decade is the rarity of Rook’s approach, an unabashedly American, unabashedly carnivorous luxury that has largely vanished since the Great Recession — and that might seem entirely foreign to younger diners raised on pop-ups and counter-service. Here amid the more obvious pleasures of steaks and chops you might begin your meal with foie gras or sweetbreads before preceding to quail or calves’ liver.

As ever, Glenn Bardgett oversees Annie Gunn’s acclaimed wine program. Annie Gunn’s 16806 Chesterfield Airport Road, Chesterfield 636-532-7684; anniegunns.com Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Sunday (closed Monday) $$$-$$$$ Smokehouse Market 16806 Chesterfield Airport Road, Chesterfield 636-532-3314; smokehousemarket.

com 9 a.m.-6 p.

m. Tuesday-Sunday (closed Monday) $ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . August the Mansion 🆕 The O’Fallon, Illinois, mansion built in 1857 by August Wastfield is almost too picturesque for fine dining.

What else could fill its tree-framed, red-brick façade but a safe, fusty menu of steaks, chops and potatoes? At August the Mansion, first-time restaurateurs Candice and Justin Mills don’t avoid familiar pleasures, but chef Jessica Hickman distinguishes the restaurant’s upscale fare with her fresh, seasonal approach. Her touch can be as slight as the local smoked gouda gilding the burger, as electric as the Peruvian chicken thighs’ aji verde, as sweet as last summer’s peach-Champagne glaze on the whopping pork rib chop. Amid these heartier dishes, Hickman’s signature might be an appetizer of Brussels sprouts with accents both expected (bacon) and wonderfully surprising (cranberry, pistachio and feta).

1680 Mansion Way, O’Fallon, Illinois 618-607-8040; augustthemansion.com Dinner Wednesday-Saturday (closed Sunday-Tuesday) $$$-$$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . Bagel Union and Union Loafers When Bagel Union debuted on last year’s STL 100, I listed the Webster Groves restaurant separately from its older sibling, Union Loafers in Botanical Heights.

After visiting both restaurants for this year’s list, I knew each again deserved its own spot — but believed they were still more impressive together. Since Sean Netzer and Ted Wilson opened Union Loafers in 2015, they have built a modern empire of dough. It began and continues to revolve around Wilson’s exemplary Light & Mild sourdough bread and other loaves, which are available for retail sale and anchor Union Loafer’s sandwich menu.

When Union Loafers expanded its menu to include pizza for dinner, the restaurant developed its own style, evoking the char of Neapolitan style without the wood-fired oven. For Bagel Union, Wilson and Netzer studied up on a different baking process altogether and nailed the glossy, chewy target in styles both traditional (salt, everything) and not (cherry crunch, a recent schmear of cream cheese flavored like cacio e pepe sauce). Bagel Union 8705 Big Bend Boulevard, Webster Groves 314-320-7556; bagel-union.

com 7 a.m.-2 p.

m. Wednesday-Sunday (closed Monday-Tuesday) $ Union Loafers 1629 Tower Grove Avenue 314-833-6111; unionloafers.com Dinner Tuesday-Saturday, lunch Tuesday-Sunday (closed Monday) $$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter .

The Biscuit Joint Truth when the STL 100 launched in 2015, truth 10 years later: St. Louis needs more hyper-focused restaurants. Cut those menus down to the bone — to the marrow.

The Biscuit Joint is exactly what the name claims, a counter-service Midtown restaurant based around a biscuit recipe Elliott Brown learned from a former boss. These, Brown believed, are “the best biscuits ever.” He’s not wrong.

The buttermilk biscuits are flaky, buttery, golden-brown and (again) buttery. Hyper-focused doesn’t mean singular, though. Brown, a veteran of Niche Food Group, Vicia and Winslow’s Table, pairs those biscuits with gravies as thoughtfully composed as haute-cuisine sauces, from classic sausage to schmaltz-rich roast chicken with paprika oil to a mushroom-sage option no less flavorful than the meat options.

He builds biscuit sandwiches with fried chicken and sausage patties smashed on the griddle like skinny burger. That doesn’t mean your order can’t be singular: one Biscuit Joint biscuit with a side of sorghum butter makes for a lovely breakfast. 2649 Washington Avenue 314-769-9434; thebiscuitjoint.

toast.site 8 a.m.

-1 p.m. daily $ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter .

Blues City Deli There are exactly two St. Louis restaurant lines in which I not only expect to wait to order but will also do so happily: Blues City Deli and Pappy’s Smokehouse. At Vinnie Valenza’s Benton Park institution, when the weather is pleasant and the blues are cranked up, I can think of few better ways to while away a lunch hour.

In a town with no shortage of great sandwiches, Blues City Deli is a destination for multiple styles and often multiple choices within those styles: a classic Italian beef and versions with capicola and pepper jack (the Knuckle sandwich) or roast pork, provolone and pepperoncini (the Creole Deluxe). The pastrami smoked in house with cherry wood makes an ideal Reuben but needs nothing more than mustard and Swiss (the Old School). Following last year’s closure of pastrami destination Nomad in Dogtown, Blues City Deli is as essential as ever.

2438 McNair Avenue 314-773-8225; bluescitydeli.com 10:30 a.m.

-3 p.m. Monday-Saturday (closed Sunday) $ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter .

Bolyard’s Meat & Provisions Back in the day — say, 2015, when the STL 100 debuted — I might have imagined a future dining scene full of restaurants like Bolyard’s Meat & Provisions. Not literally copies of Chris and Abbie Bolyard’s Maplewood restaurant and retail butchery, but with the same commitment to top-notch ingredients and transparency. At Bolyard’s, you can look through a window and watch butchers break down animals while you eat.

(Note: you don’t have to look through this window.) The intervening decade, with the pandemic rearranging restaurants’ ambitions and diners’ priorities, dashed my imaginings. Also, to follow Bolyard’s example would be difficult in ideal circumstances.

The food is both impeccably sourced and invariably delicious. The menu draws on Chris Bolyard’s fine-dining background for grace notes like the black garlic aioli on the mushroom-Swiss smash burger or that aioli and duxelles on the Fiesty Bull pulled beef sandwich. It also embodies the butchery’s whole-animal ethos with fries cooked in tallow, pork rinds as a side and broths for sipping.

2733 Sutton Boulevard, Maplewood 314-647-2567; bolyardsmeat.com 11 a.m.

-6 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 9 a.

m.-5 p.m.

Saturday, 9 a.m.-2 p.

m. Sunday (closed Monday) $ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . Bormio 🆕 In March 2024, Kendele and Wayne Sieve introduced the space below their acclaimed Noto Italian Restaurant in St.

Peters (see No. 11) as the Venetian-inspired Bacaro, featuring cocktails and small bites. The couple was already tweaking Bacaro’s menu from customer feedback when a trademark claim led them to scrap the concept entirely and replace it with the Alpine-influenced Bormio.

Call it kismet. Better yet, grab your alpenhorn and blast a song of tribute through the mountains. Bormio delivers a thrillingly different take on Italian cuisine.

Pork glazed in Ricola — yes, as in that Ricola — lends Wayne Sieve’s elegant, herbaceous cooking a Swiss accent, while he puts an Italian spin on sauerbraten with a bed of creamy polenta. Bormio retains some of the Sieves' original vision for its space, with cocktails and smaller (though not small) bites like baked oysters with ‘nduja and plump, gooey spinach-cheese dumplings. 5105 Westwood Drive, Suite A, St.

Peters 636-244-0874; bormiostl.com Dinner Wednesday-Saturday (closed Sunday-Tuesday) $$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . Bowood by Niche Last fall, when I put together my picks for St.

Louis’ best breakfast dishes, Bowood by Niche stumped me. The menu at Gerard Craft’s Central West End cafe includes no fewer than five dishes that would be any other breakfast restaurant’s signature: blueberry pancakes, a hybrid of French toast and bread pudding, a waffle with Vermont cheddar, cacio e pepe scrambled eggs and eggs benedict. Settling on eggs benedict didn’t help because Bowood offers it two ways: a swanky take on the classic form, with prosciutto playing the role of Canadian bacon, and a version with Maryland-style crab cakes (close to the real deal, says this Baltimore native) and Cajun-spiced hollandaise.

I took the easy way out and picked both benedicts. Go with a large enough group, and you can try the whole breakfast slate and a couple of the can’t-miss lunch dishes, too, like the smash burger and the Reuben with peppery, sumptuous housemade pastrami. 4605 Olive Street 314-454-6868; bowoodbyniche.

com 9 a.m.-3 p.

m. daily $$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . Brasas 🆕 Chef Andrew Cisneros continues his dazzling exploration of Peruvian cuisine at the small, sleek Brasas on the east side of the Delmar Loop.

A sequel to his debut restaurant Jalea in St. Charles (see No. 19), Brasas is named for the dish that kickstarted Cisneros career in an early-pandemic pop-up: charry, juicy rotisserie chicken marinated in an elixir of beer, citrus, herbs, oyster sauce, more herbs and pepper paste.

Available as a quarter, half or whole bird with your choice of sides (fries, garlic rice, Peruvian bean stew), pollo a la brasa alone justifies Brasas’ presence on this list. Yet the restaurant’s narrow storefront can’t contain Cisneros’ talents. He grills tender beef heart over embers for his take on Peruvian anticuchos and explores the influence of Chinese cuisine on Peru with chaufa aeropuerto, fried rice with beef, pork belly and shrimp topped by a light omelet.

6138 Delmar Boulevard 314-256-1937; brasas-stl.com Dinner Wednesday-Sunday (closed Monday-Tuesday) $$-$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . Brasserie by Niche 🔟 French restaurants claim meager territory in the STL 100, reflecting their relative scarcity in St.

Louis. The few this list has loved and lost over the past decade — Franco’s cosmopolitan charm, Bar Les Frères’ snug, sexy brio — have left an outsized absence. Through it all, Gerard Craft’s Brasserie by Niche has been glowing in the Central West End, beckoning diners for cocktails and gougères on warm patio evenings and red wine and cassoulet on cold winter nights.

In the inaugural STL 100 a decade ago, I described that cassoulet as “peerless,” and I stand by this judgment after my latest visit. Each component is prepared to exacting standards, and the pork belly, Toulouse sausage, duck confit and navy beans harmonize deliciously. After 16 years, Brasserie’s menu of classics can still surprise, like a newer dessert of refreshingly tart passionfruit mousse folded inside an airy crepe.

4580 Laclede Avenue 314-454-0600; brasseriebyniche.com Dinner daily, brunch Sunday $$$-$$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . Byrd & Barrel 🆕 Few restaurants return from a five-year hiatus.

Fewer still come back exactly as you want them to be. Bob Brazell has relocated Byrd & Barrel to the restaurant space in his Tamm Avenue Bar in Dogtown, but this is essentially the same Byrd & Barrel fans have been mourning since the original Marine Villa location closed in 2020. Byrd & Barrel is one of the pioneers of local, chef-driven fast-casual dining.

Crunchy, juicy Nugz anchor the menu, the nuggets’ breading seasoned so well that you don’t need a dipping sauce. (You should still get the Byrd sauce and the homemade ranch.) The Mother Clucker ranks as one of St.

Louis’ best fried chicken sandwiches with its garnishes of Red Hot Riplets, red-pepper jelly and a bechamel sauce made with Provel. Brazell’s fine-dining background — he cooked at Monarch and Niche — reveals itself in the bechamel and a roast-cauliflower appetizer with cashews, a peppadew aioli and a jalapeño hot sauce. 1221 Tamm Avenue 314-261-4901; byrdandbarrelstl.

com Lunch and dinner daily (closed Tuesday) $ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . Charlie Gitto’s The Hill is changing, with new housing and a small, but growing new generation of leading restaurants like Sado and Pizzeria da Gloria. Old-school fine dining is changing, too — dwindling.

When 2025 ends, the year’s biggest restaurant news will likely be February’s closure of Tony’s after 79 years downtown and in Clayton. For those of us who love the Hill and a classic fine-dining meal, Charlie Gitto’s is an ideal keeper of tradition. Crucially, Charlie Gitto Jr.

and his team have kept the restaurant a buzzing operation, crammed at prime times, merely packed on “quiet” evenings. Gitto’s appeals to those seeking homey lasagna or housemade fettucine in an alfredo sauce creamier than egg nog and those dreaming of rustic bucatini all’Amatriciana that could have been delivered directly from Italy. And with toasted ravioli that claim a direct line to the reputed original of the species, Gitto’s is a beacon not only for the Hill, but for all of St.

Louis. Charlie Gitto’s on the Hill 5226 Shaw Avenue 314-772-8898; charliegittos.com Dinner daily $$$-$$$$ Charlie Gitto’s at Hollywood Casino 777 Casino Center, Maryland Heights 314-770-7663; charliegittos.

com Dinner daily $$$-$$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . Chez Ali Now in its fourth year, the Food Hall at City Foundry in Midtown has evolved from a delay-plagued project to a blockbuster debut to an essential part of St. Louis’ dining landscape.

Its vendors have launched a brick-and-mortar satellite (Chicken Scratch) and a terrific standalone restaurant (Alex Henry’s El Molino del Sureste, born from his Food Hall stand Sureste, see No. 7). But if I had to pick a single vendor to represent the Food Hall’s success, it would be Alioun “Ali” Thiam’s Chez Ali.

Here was an unheralded (to my chagrin as a food writer) talent ready for the spotlight to shine on his Afro-Caribbean and West African cooking. Chez Ali’s core menu is as indispensable as it is brief: smoky jerk chicken with a fiery boost from scotch bonnet chiles, warmly spiced curry chicken and the citrus-vinegar jolt of Senegalese yassa chicken. Food Hall at City Foundry, 3730 Foundry Way cityfoundrystl.

com/directory/chez-ali Lunch and dinner daily $-$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . Chiang Mai This year’s STL 100 finds Thai cuisine in St. Louis in a hesitant place.

On the one hand, the restaurant at the summit of the list and its Top 10 sibling — Nick Bognar’s Sado and Pavilion on the Hill and Indo in Botanical Heights — showcase a significant Thai influence, as does 10-time STL 100 honoree Lona’s Lil Eats. Still, right before the pandemic and even into its first year, the metro area seemed on the cusp of an evolution in its Thai restaurants that has since stalled. Chiang Mai, which Su Hill founded in the COVID fall of 2020 in Webster Groves, remans a fount of possibility.

The menu has adapted to diners’ apparent preferences over the past four years, but at its heart is the fare of the city that gives the restaurant its name and Thailand’s north more broadly: the rippling layers of pickled greens and coconut-red curry broth in the signature khao soi noodle soup; the subtle, rustic sweetness of the hung lay curry; the touch of honey in meaty roasted pork ribs. 8158 Big Bend Boulevard, Webster Groves 314-961-8889; chiangmaistl.com Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Saturday (closed Sunday-Monday) $$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter .

ChiliSpot I should dedicate a year to making my way through ChiliSpot’s expansive menu. In multiple visits to the University City Sichuan restaurant over the years, I somehow hadn’t tried its version of one my favorite Sichuan dishes until now: dandan noodles, noodles and ground pork buzzing with the mala combination of chile heat and numbing Sichuan peppercorn. I’m adding it to my ChiliSpot favorites alongside Chongqing chicken, homemade tofu and braised greens with black mushrooms.

Don’t just listen to me, though. Rob Connoley, whose Bulrush ranked No. 1 on the 2024 STL 100, is the biggest fan of ChiliSpot I know.

In an interview last year before Connoley announced Bulrush’s closure and his eventual departure from St. Louis, he told me he at ate ChiliSpot at least once a week. His dinner there might feature dry-pot chicken and the appetizer Mr.

& Mrs. Smith with cold beef tendon and tripe. At ChiliSpot, he said, “(the) menu is so large, and the quality is so good across the menu, that you really can’t go wrong.

” 7930 Olive Boulevard, University City 314-925-8711; chilispotusa.com Lunch and dinner daily (closed Wednesday) $$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . Clara B’s Kitchen Table The breakfast burrito at Clara B’s Kitchen Table wraps up everything I love about Jodie Ferguson’s food truck and Belleville restaurant in a dish you can hold in your hand — until the overstuffed package inevitably falls apart.

The burrito was a no-question inclusion in my 2024 survey of the metro area’s best breakfast dishes. Well, I did have one question. Which version of the burrito would be available on my most recent visit: with brisket or with a combination of bacon and chorizo? I was lucky that day.

The chorizo-bacon duo is great. The brisket burrito is otherworldly. Ferguson grew up in Lockwood, Texas, the heart of brisket-crazed central Texas, so she knows how to smoke the tricky cut to render tender, smoky beef beneath a gnarly crust.

This is a chef’s burrito, with delicate eggs and precisely cooked potatoes. Ferguson brings this level of attention to her full spread of breakfast fare (especially the buttery, cheesy grits) and sandwiches. 720 South Illinois Street, Belleville 618-416-1812; clarabs.

com 7 a.m.-1 p.

m. Monday and Thursday-Friday, 8 a.m.

-2 p.m. Saturday-Sunday (closed Tuesday-Wednesday) $ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter .

Clementine’s Naughty & Nice Creamery In a review column last year, I wrote about my decision to quit drinking. I mention it again here only to provide context for my love of Clementine’s Naughty & Nice Creamery. First, gratefully embracing one of the clichés of sobriety, I now eat a lot more ice cream than I used to.

And I have always loved ice cream — especially Clementine’s high-butterfat variety. Second, ruling out the Naughty side of Clementine’s menu has hardly limited my choices at Tamara Keefe’s chain of parlors, which boasts eight locations as well as local delivery and nationwide shipping through Goldbelly. If anything, her vegan options are at least as intriguing as the boozy ones, with sophisticated flavors like coconut fudge and tahini chocolate chip as nearly as creamy as the real thing.

The classic ice cream ranges from childlike joy (Gooey Butter Cake, Blue Moon) to grownup elegance (Espresso Royale, Truffled Manchego Honey) to better than the beloved original (strawberry, but with balsamic and white pepper). Multiple area locations, including 730 DeMun Avenue, Clayton clementinescreamery.com Noon-10 p.

m. Sunday-Thursday, noon-11 p.m.

Friday-Saturday (all locations) $ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . Cleveland-Heath 🔟 Cleveland-Heath is singular among the 14 restaurants that have been honored in every edition of the STL 100. Its upscale comfort fare has succeeded across three owners: founders Jenny Cleveland and Ed Heath, successors Kari McGinness and the late Keith McGinness, and current operators Evan and Gina Buchholz.

That includes dishes dating back to Cleveland-Heath’s 2011 debut, and for one meal here, you still can’t top the signature pork chop with a sunny-side-up egg and cheddar-jalapeño bread pudding followed by cherry pie for dessert. As chef, Evan Buchholz has honored the restaurant’s spirits while investing it with his own voice, from confident global touches throughout the menu to clever new dishes like a recent sandwich that pairs the sophistication of shaved ribeye in a peppercorn bechamel with the wondrous mess of a cheesesteak. 106 North Main Street, Edwardsville 618-307-4830; clevelandheath.

com Dinner and lunch Monday-Saturday, brunch Saturday (closed Sunday) $$-$$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . The Curry Club Since opening in late 2018, the Curry Club has been a forerunner of nearly every trend that has swept across St. Louis’ Indian restaurants in recent years, not least in its location in Chesterfield.

Hardly a month passes without word of a new Indian restaurant in that city. (Though this is the place to mourn 2022-2024 STL 100 honoree Khanna’s Desi Vibes, which closed last year in Chesterfield; yes, another Indian spot, Bayleaf, has replaced it.) The Curry Club’s menu focuses on India’s south, and its format breaks from what is typical of Indian restaurants here.

Rather than an expansive lunch buffet followed by a more formal dinner service, the Curry Club is counter-service with a curated cafeteria-style lunch buffet featuring rotating chicken curries and vegetable dishes as well as made-to-order dosas. That lunch menu is so appealing in flavor and value that not only do many of those new Indian restaurants struggle to compare, I’m also overdue to visit Curry Club for its weekend or dinner specials. 1635 Clarkson Road, Chesterfield 636-778-7777; stlcurryclub.

com Lunch and dinner daily $ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . Damn Fine Hand Pies 🆕 “Nothing in the world makes me feel like pie,” says Madeline Hissong, co-owner of the new Shaw bakery Damn Fine Hand Pies. “And I just wanted to share that with people.

” Hissong traces her love of baking back to her great-grandmother, who sold pies out of her house in Indiana. Hissong herself launched Damn Fine Hand Pies in 2021 as a cottage-law bakery based in her south city home. After building a following at the Tower Grove Farmers Market, she and employee-turned-business-partner Gene Bailey opened a cozy brick-and-mortar location in June 2024.

Naturally, hand pies savory and sweet lead the menu with their crackling laminated crust, but these are just one reason Damn Fine is St. Louis’ best new bakery in years. Doughnuts both simple and elaborate distinguish themselves in our doughnut-mad town, and the apple fritter might sway your fierce loyalty elsewhere.

You will leave feeling exactly as Hissong intended: damn fine. 4000 Shaw Boulevard damnfinehandpies.com 8 a.

m.-2 p.m.

Monday and Thursday-Sunday (closed Tuesday-Wednesday) $ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . DD Mau Vietnamese Eatery Since 2018, Julie Truong has delivered her Vietnamese fare through the unforgiving efficiency of the counter-service format without losing any of the food’s freshness, vibrancy or personality. This was impressive when Truong operated only the Maryland Heights location of DD Mau Vietnamese Eatery.

Given the degree of difficulty in expanding an independent restaurant without sacrificing its charms, it has been more than doubly impressive at the original DD Mau and, since 2021, its Webster Groves spinoff. DD Mau can sate your lunchtime craving for a quick, fun mashup snack like roti tacos, bao sliders or crisp, juicy, feisty Thai chile wings. It can also patiently coax more soulful flavor into a bowl of pho than most fast-casual restaurants can manage in a lifetime.

Though not a vegan or vegetarian restaurant, DD Mau doesn’t condescend to those diners. Truong has fashioned a verdant vegan pho to soothe any appetite. 11982 Dorsett Road, Maryland Heights 314-942-2300; ddmaustl.

com Lunch and dinner Monday-Saturday (closed Sunday) $ 20 Allen Avenue, Suite 120, Webster Groves 314-926-0900; ddmaustl.com Lunch and dinner Monday-Saturday (closed Sunday) $ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . Dressel’s Public House When Dressel’s Public House appeared on the inaugural STL 100 in 2015, it was different from the cozy Central West End pub Jon Dressel had founded in 1980.

You could still order chips and rarebit and other signature dishes, but Benjamin Dressel, Jon’s son, had remade the menu for that era of the gastropub. (Remember those?) The Dressel’s on this year’s list is different from both the original and the 2015 model, though no less appealing. The pandemic prompted Dressel to close the pub for three years for a thorough renovation.

The menu applies the best lessons of those gastropub years —quality ingredients, a chef’s touches — to classic dishes like fish and chips, a burger (beef or lamb) and the Porchetta Louie roast-pork sandwich featured on a 2012 episode of Guy Fieri’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.” The Dressel’s of 2025 is also different from last year’s pub. The brewhouse Dressel added during the renovation is now up and running as Rock & Horse Brewing Co.

419 North Euclid Avenue 314-361-1060; dresselspublichouse.com Dinner Tuesday-Sunday, lunch Wednesday-Sunday (closes at 6 p.m.

Sunday, closed Monday) $$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter . Ed’s Delicatessen 🆕 When chef Ed Heath moved from the metro area to Salt Lake City a few years ago, he left his name behind as his legacy. Cleveland-Heath, which he and former partner Jenny Cleveland founded in 2011, continues an anchor of downtown Edwardsville under its current owners — and one of the few restaurants to make every edition of the STL 100.

Now Heath has returned with a name to spare and a new legacy for Edwardsville’s Main Street. Heath opened Ed’s Delicatessen in September 2024 with business partners Tim Foley and married couple Samm McCulloch and Rick Kazmer, and the sandwiches here showcase the same creativity and attention to detail that distinguished Heath’s upscale comfort food at Cleveland-Heath. Appealing takes on classic styles abound, from a roast beef with jus to a Vietnamese banh mi.

Ed’s also rewards indulgence with its buttered ham-and-cheese sandwich and a luscious crab roll with zippy chili crisp. 222 North Main Street, Edwardsville 618-560-5213; edsdelicatessen.com Lunch Monday-Saturday, dinner Tuesday-Saturday (closed Sunday) $-$$ Share this post to BlueSky , Threads , Facebook or Twitter .

Farmtruk 🆕 The Cardinals suffered a lackluster season in 2024, but the organization did get one thing.