In the early days of Shameless Grounds, there was confusion. Michelle Mueller, who co-founded the business with her husband Andrew in 2011, recalls that people were often puzzled over what exactly makes a café sex-positive. “I think some people expected we were going to make them eat on the floor, or wear a collar or…
Flavors
He Can Really Cook: Bringing Recipes to Life is a Family Tradition for Curtis McCann
It doesn’t take long for a conversation with Curtis McCann to become a conversation about entrepreneurship. Striking out on his own was an important step for McCann, 27, who launched Catered by Curtis LLC a little more than a year ago. But it’s also a big part of how he helps others. He defines the…
Our House: Bay Tran’s vegetarian restaurant Tree House is a welcoming spot for the LGBTQ community
Years ago, dining out as a vegetarian meant lots of limp pasta topped by wan microwaved mixed vegetables. Questions about ingredients yielded a rolled eye or a too hastily supplied answer. The bad old days are over, and leading the charge locally is Tree House (3177 South Grand Boulevard, 314-696-2100), the South Grand mainstay that…
Burger Queens and Deep Fried Twinks
Pretty much everyone likes burgers, right? Even vegetarians have great options in the burger department these days. So it stands to reason that a campy, friendly burger spot with a drag theme, a menu full of puns and a philanthropic mission would be a big draw. Enter Hamburger Mary’s (400 Washington Avenue, 314-833-4000). The restaurant’s…
Bernie Lee Makes Poké OK
Restaurateur Bernie Lee now owns two of downtown’s hottest dining concepts. Hiro Asian Kitchen, which has been successfully promoting hyper-local ingredients and Southeast Asian cuisine on Washington Avenue for more than five years, is now joined by Hiro Poké Co., the ultimate build-your-own bowl addition to the downtown business lunch scene. An outsider who’s made…
Spark Something Great Over Dinner Saturday Night
Eat, vote, and change our world on Saturday by funding someone’s great idea. Each month, FoodSpark St. Louis hosts potluck style dinner parties that serve as micro-incubators, with informal but focused conversations on art, politics, identity and more. For the past four months, events have been centered on the LGBT community, in partnership with QTPOC:…
For Crafted’s Dianna Watson, 2018 Is Off to a Lucky Start
There’s a superstition, particularly in the South, that eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Eve will bring good luck. So at the dawning of 2018, Dianna Watson, the head chef at Crafted in Tower Grove East, decided to add her favorite version of them to the menu: black-eyed-pea fritters. Her plan was fairly simple: She…
How a Pastry Chef Used Dessert to Bring Two Loved Ones Together
In September 2016, Tyler Davis decided (as many people do) that a meal would be a good way to introduce his partner to his mom. But for Davis, a pastry chef, the key was not the dinner per se. It was what came right after. “Black forest cake is kind of an amalgam of my…
Chef Rob Connoley Reveals the Love Story Behind His Beet Dish
It’s hard to believe chef Rob Connoley when he says he doesn’t like beets. Consider his “Rolled Roasted Roots” dish. He uses the core of a red beet like the veal shank in ossobuco, then slices the remainder of that beet — plus a golden one — into thin strips, which he wraps around the…