The big box store-sized Pan-Asian Supermarket, right next to the Bob’s Discount Furniture, is the largest international grocery store in Missouri. You might assume the crown jewel of the market is the impressive fish department or the shiny new bubble tea bar, but it’s actually the small dining area labeled China Bistro. The business looks similar to a Singaporean hawker stall, but the utilitarian kitchen cranks out an astounding amount of regional Chinese dishes, as well as Vietnamese pho. The smoky, charred edges of chow fun noodles indicate a masterful control of the blistering hot wok. You can smell the crimson-hued mapo tofu two tables away, its sauce aromatic with floral and citrus notes. And the tender dan dan egg noodles satisfy with a low, humming heat and perfect springy texture.

St. Louis is home to a multitude of stellar Mexican restaurants serving tacos and freshly fried chicharrones, but for truly beautiful and monstrous tortas, head to El Toluco. Situated in a nondescript strip mall in the West County suburb of Manchester, facing away from the street and attached to a small tienda, the restaurant has become a destination dining spot. Tortas are made with football-sized freshly baked loaves of bread and filled with meat, queso fresco, Oaxacan cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and jalapeños, all punctuated by a smoky chipotle sauce. If that’s not enough justification to make the lengthy drive to West County, the pollo con nopales and lengua tacos are also exceptional.

At Mai Lee, the beloved Vietnamese institution, Qui Tran makes pho so stunning it landed on the cover of Food and Wine. So what happens when a master of pho wants to open a ramen restaurant to rival the best in the world? He gets help. Tran and executive chef/partner Marie-Anne Velasco hired Shigetoshi Nakamura, one of the world’s four “ramen gods,” as a consultant and worked with the legendary Sun Noodle to develop their noodle recipe. After years of R&D and planning, Nudo opened its doors in Creve Coeur in 2017 with a menu of seven different ramen styles, along with a small sampling of pho. Start with the Classic Nudo, a traditional tonkotsu ramen. The broth is clabbered and rich, the color of the inside of a cloud, while the noodles are cooked to retain their firm center, a key to traditional tonkotsu. Beyond ramen, the diverse menu includes a selection of cold Asian salads, including a lotus root and shrimp salad, and a Vietnamese shredded chicken number. Fresh spring rolls and the city’s most delicious crab rangoon are made daily, and there are four different banh mis that are great for dunking into Nudo’s broths — as long as you don’t mind stinkeye from fussbudget foodies. Like elements coming together in a good bowl of soup, the immense work, collaboration, and study that went into opening Nudo make it all that more delicious.

If you drive by Olive & Oak at night, the first thing you’ll see is the amber glow emanating from the windows. And then you’ll see the people. People laughing, eating, sharing bottles of wine, and having the loveliest night out. Odds are, if you are at Olive & Oak, you are having a splendid time too. Owners Mark Hinkle and Greg Ortyl created something special with their first restaurant, and chef Jesse Mendica packs the menu with so many dishes that shine and satisfy, you could eat there multiple times in a week and then return the next week to do it again. The charred octopus with smoked paprika aioli is a dish of opposite elements that improve each other, while an entree of pork cheeks with hominy, collards, rhubarb, and Dr. Pepper barbecue sauce leaves no space for timid flavors. Make sure to visit with someone you’re happy to share your meal with, and order the massive cowboy ribeye with cracked pepper butter or the Dover sole with ramp vinaigrette and white bean puree. Only Mendica could make the old-school flatfish suddenly seem novel, exciting, and delicious.

St. Louis has enjoyed a long love affair with Thai cooking, but most local Thai restaurants focus on dishes common to central Thailand. At Chiang Mai, one of a number of new restaurants to hone in on a specific geographical region, chef Su Hill shares the culinary traditions and techniques distinctive to Northern Thailand, especially the city of Chiang Mai, known for specialties like khao munn gai. Diners will also find dishes familiar across Thailand, like som tum (green papaya salad) and sai qua, glorious bronzed pork sausages. Observing the three aunties in the open kitchen, deftly preparing dishes with a cool ease only feasible through years of experience and mastery, it is easy to understand why the restaurant has quickly gained a devoted following.

To garner some understanding of Akar, located at the end of a residential street flanked by large trees and impressive homes in the central suburb of Clayton, you need to garner some understanding of Bernie Lee. The winsome, cosmopolitan, always finely dressed chef and owner of the small restaurant enjoys little luxuries and fine details. At Akar he serves food firmly rooted in the tradition of Malaysian cuisine, combining flavors, ingredients, and culinary techniques to create dynamic dishes that conservative diners might find incoherent. Don’t miss the soy-braised short rib with sambal demi-glace, Chilean sea bass bathed in a bonito curry shrimp bouillon, and vegan sweet potato gnocchi with Malaysian curry.

When beloved French bistro Bar Les Freres shuttered, the loss to the local dining community felt palpable. Last spring, Michael and Tara Gallina, along with their Take Root Hospitality business partner Aaron Martinez, swooped in to announce that they would open their fourth restaurant, Bistro La Floraison, in the old bistro’s place. The space, which seats 40, is soft and elegant, with floor-to-ceiling persimmon-hued velvet curtains and a soft pink banquette. Like all of the Gallinas’ projects, every aspect of the restaurant is seamless and polished. The succinct menu highlights the essential gustatory joys of casual French dining: small plates (served on bone china) like gougeres, savory financiers, country pate en croute, followed by a handful of entrees, including a glorious French fried chicken cordon bleu that’s a clever olive branch to the Midwestern clientele. While Bistro la Floraison is refined and taut, the small, gracious touches in homage to Bar Les Freres — like choosing a name that retains the same initials — provide a sense of continuity while inviting guests to see what has blossomed in its place.

For over 20 years, the Grill at the Ritz-Carlton St. Louis created a rather sober atmosphere with dark, walnut-paneled walls, austere oil paintings, and tuxedo-decked servers. After a massive renovation in 2021, the Grill was replaced by the new, light-filled restaurant, Casa Don Alfonso, the (highly anticipated) first U.S. restaurant from Italian Michelin-starred restaurateur Mario Iaccarino. The menu is a romantic homage to family and the culinary traditions of Italy’s Campania region. The tagliatelle with shrimp is sauced in a creamless bisque made from slow-cooking the shells and heads, while zuppe is seasoned and served tableside. Entrees, like the cod with potatoes and fennel salad and the Berkshire pork braciola stuffed with raisins, pine nuts, and herbs, are uncluttered, highlighting the flavors coaxed from ingredients flown in from every corner of the globe. If you want to pair your dinner with the perfect wine, the sommelier will help you navigate the restaurant’s curated list of 3,000 bottles. While the servers have retired their tuxedos, the Ritz-Carlton still shines when it comes to service, thanks to the attentive staff and the endearing general manager, Alen Tanovic, who quietly checks on every table.

Nick Colombo, Sarah Miller, and Pat Grosch want to (and can) do it all. The founding members of Switchgrass Spirits almost exclusively use local ingredients at their distillery, including Missouri white oak barrels produced from a family-owned cooperage outside the city; Jonathan apples grown by St. Louis’s favorite caramel apple producer; and locally harvested grain and corn. They also never compromise on flavor despite the laborious, expensive, precise process behind their whiskeys and fruit brandies. Oh, and they’ve built a company that respects labor and distributes wealth to its workers. This might overextend any other group, but at Switchgrass, these principles result in delicious spirits that taste of the place and the people who crafted them.

In 2017, Gioia’s Deli, an unassuming sandwich shop in St. Louis’ historic Italian-American neighborhood, was honored by James Beard with the foundation’s esteemed America’s Classics award. While the dining community was thrilled, locals tended to smile and shake their heads at the fanfare suddenly heaped on the casual spot that had served their families for a hundred years. Gioia’s serves exceptional deli sandwiches, but it’s most famous for the iconic hot salami sandwich, known to everyone in St. Louis simply as “the hot salami,” which is still made with a recipe crafted by founder Charlie Gioia. You can order the hot salami on any type of bread and dress it with any of Gioia’s cheeses and condiments, but the star is the sausage (beef, pig’s head, spices) sliced in front of you. The sandwich has a transformative wizardry that can heal even the worst days, when the drizzle won’t end and Mike Shannon calls a three-run homer by the Cubs on KMOX with news that Yadi is on the IL. When you unwrap that parcel of hot salami and cheese on fresh bread daubed with mustard, all you feel is deep satisfaction, from your first bite to your last. 

A punk rock pinball bar located in a historically Bosnian neighborhood may not seem a likely place for a great bowl of bibimbap, but that’s exactly what you’ll find at Tiny Chef, the small, window-service restaurant established, owned, and operated by chef Melanie Meyer in the back of the Silver Ballroom. Thursday to Sunday evenings, Meyer offers Korean food that pops with the vibrant flavors of gochujang, gochugaru, and fermented soy, all rooted in tradition without being bound by it. There’s a regular menu of bibimbap, tacos, kimchi fried rice, and jjigae, along with specials like homemade tteokbokki, nuclear fire noodles, and a popular Korean crab boil, all available for pickup and takeout. Or you can drop a couple quarters into the Ballroom’s juke box and play a few Devo tunes while you dine in the bar area. While some chefs draw inspiration from cookbooks or Instagram, Meyer produces food that feels sincere, deeply personal, and flavored with great care. 

In 2015, Gerard Craft received the James Beard Best Chef Midwest award in recognition of his debut St. Louis restaurant, Niche. Food and Wine named him “Best New Chef” as well as “Innovator of the Year,” recognizing the tidal change that Niche brought to the local restaurant scene. Though Niche has since closed (you could hear the sound of hearts breaking across St. Louis that day), Craft has opened a handful of diverse new restaurants, all forward-thinking, all reflective of the quality staff that his establishments attract and employ. His third restaurant, Brasserie by Niche, a French bistro in the Central West End, has maintained its shine and devotion from diners since it first opened in 2009. It is always buzzing with hungry guests enjoying flawless, pillowy gougères, garlicky wild Burgundy escargot, a deeply satisfying, slow-cooked cassoulet, or duck confit with tender green lentils. It continues to be one of the city’s most highly regarded restaurants, capturing an elusive and seemingly immutable appeal.

The Classic breakfast sandwich at Songbird is composed of aged white cheddar, applewood smoked bacon, a sunny fried farm egg, and a mizzle of local honey. The sandwich is finished with sea salt on the exterior, which gets caught in the crags of griddled sourdough, creating distinct flavors of salty on the outside and sweet on the inside, rather than allowing them to emulsify together. This may seem like a superfluous nuance for a breakfast sandwich, but it’s the difference between tasty and out-of-this-world delicious, and the kind of mindful detail that Chris Meyer and Mike Miller figured out after serving thousands of breakfast sandwiches for seven years at the Tower Grove Farmers market before opening their permanent breakfast and lunch spot. The rest of Songbird’s menu is equally thoughtful, especially the sprouted-grain English muffins and bialys that baker Bryan Russo makes in-house. It’s all evidence of what a team of curious cooks can produce when given the freedom to hone their skills through experimentation.

When chef Nick Bognar opened his 40-seat restaurant, Indo, in Botanical Heights in 2019, first the local, then the national food media absolutely lost their minds. Bognar soon received a lifetime’s worth of accolades and critical praise for the profoundly flavorful Southeast Asian dishes he offered, but it was his masterful and deft sashimi preparations that initiated the tidal wave of national attention, making it nearly impossible to snag a reservation. Those who did get in watched Bognar slice and torch rare fish like striped horse mackerel, young sea bream, and fatty tuna belly, all served with nikiri rather than soy, and fresh-ground wasabi root. During the pandemic, Indo pivoted to a more casual Thai street food takeout menu, but the reopened dining room provides Bognar a chance to flex a little of his culinary muscle again.

With its cracker crust and provel topping, St. Louis-style pizza is an essential part of the diet of anyone born in the 314. But some of the best slices in town don’t adhere to the local style. Union Loafers in Botanical Heights is a bakery at heart, crafting old-world, naturally leavened loaves, but they are also a full-service restaurant making pizzas in a sort of gray area between the chew and pull of New York and the bubbly, blistered char of a Neapolitan. The pepperoni with Calabrian chilis features perfect little cups of pepperoni, and the mushroom pizza with pickled shallots and foxglove will convert mushroom haters. During the day, a selection of sandwiches on Loafers’ bread are available along with soups and salads, including the little gem with fine herbs and shallots, which could smack down every other salad you’ve eaten in the past.

Tara and Michael Gallina, veterans of Dan Barber’s Blue Hill at Stone Barns, came to St. Louis with a staggering amount of dining and hospitality experience. At its most basic, their restaurant Vicia celebrates vegetables, the land they’re grown in, and the farmers who grow them, in a space that’s like a freshly pressed white linen shirt — cool, timeless, clean, and welcoming. Pre-COVID, the restaurant was known for casual lunches (tartines, soups, charcuterie, and salads with midday wine), but the restaurant truly bloomed in the evening, with 15-course tasting menus that astounded diners. The Gallinas are willing to put avant-garde preparations of vegetables center stage, like carrots cooked in beef fat, while using meat dishes cooked on the open wood-fired grill as supporting acts. The restaurant currently invites guests to celebrate the bounty of the Midwest through the humbler three-course farmer’s feast, a chef’s selection of dishes served family style. The menu changes daily, but previous offerings have included starter snacks like turnip-shell tacos with black beans, shiitakes, kale, yogurt, and carrot hot sauce, or a delicate dish of juniper-cured scallop with sorrel. A main might feature Berkshire pig with grilled strawberry mostarda or barbequed hen-of-the-woods mushrooms, served with sweet potato with fresh cream, preserved citrus, and toasted seed cracklings. Whether the menu is long or short, Vicia serves food that is more precise than seasonal, anchoring each meal to a specific time and place.

If you want to learn about, discuss, and enjoy world-class gins, make your way to the Gin Room on South Grand, owned and operated by Natasha Bahrami, aka “the gin girl.” Bahrami has collected and curated the most comprehensive collection of the spirit in the country, becoming one of the world’s most influential experts on gin in the process. Try one of the customized gin flights, a selection of five curated gins tailored to your particular palate. If you’re more of a martini type, one of the Gin Room’s 10 variations is sure to speak to your taste.

City Foundry is a gathering place St. Louis can be proud of. Along with shops, the complex boasts stellar bars, a winery, a virtual reality experience, a high tech Putt-Putt course, and soon, a 10-screen movie theater. But most people come for the food hall, home to 17 stalls, most of them entirely new businesses. The hall’s culinary director, James Beard winner Gerard Craft, can often be found cooking off wood-fired pizzas at his own Fordo’s Killer Pizza. Another to look out for, Alloun Thiam is a self-trained chef and owner of Chez Ali, which serves a constantly changing menu of delicious African Caribbean dishes, including thieboudienne, Senegal’s national dish of rice and fish. At Sur Este, chef Alex Henry is crafting Yucatán cuisine utilizing local Missouri ingredients and heirloom varieties of corn; his cochinita pibil (citrus roasted pork) and chicharrones tacos will make you lose thought mid-sentence, and the bright, juicy octopus ceviche tastes like a day on the beach. Other highlights include toasted ravioli, Belgian waffles, chef Nate Hereford’s perfect rotisserie chicken, and chef Brandi Artis’s po’ boys and shrimp and grits seasoned with her signature blend.

Pushing through the glass doors into Diana’s Bakery feels like entering a magical corner of the world that smells of sugary glaze, vanilla cake, thick condensed milk, smoky mole, and steamed masa. The walls of the Mexican bakery are lined with large glass cases filled with pleasantly overwhelming rows upon rows of panes dulces. Iced cookies, lengths of churros with ruffled edges, sweet and savory empanadas, and filled donuts are stacked on trays in neat rows. Diana’s also always offers a variety of whole and sliced cakes, some iced, some layered with fruit, and some left unadorned. There are also flaky laminated pastries whose buttery layers fall like flower petals as you bite into them, clunky coconut macaroons, and custards that wobble when you lift them into your bakery box. No one visits Diana’s Bakery only once. After stepping into that pastry wonderland, there is no forgetting it.

St. Louis barbecue enthusiasts settle into two categories: There are those that prefer an old-school pitmaster whose caliber is measured by pork ribs, brisket, and pit beans; then there are those that veer away from orthodoxy for pastrami, turkey, tri-tip, and roasted Brussels sprouts as a side. Those that want the tried-and-true STL experience should visit Pappy’s Smokehouse in midtown, which has garnered more awards and accolades than can be counted on fingers and toes. The restaurant’s crowning achievement is pork ribs, dry-rubbed, smoked for 14 hours over fruitwood, and quickly basted with glaze to finish (never hiding under a drippy sauce). Traditional sides — fried corn on the cob, applesauce, and of course, baked beans — keep very good company with all that meaty glory.

Luckily for the rest of the city, residents of the Fox Park neighborhood could not keep one of their very best restaurants a secret to hoard for themselves. Shortly after business partners Brian Schuman and chef Logan Ely opened the Lucky Accomplice, word began to spread that diners should seek out the warehouse storefront with a neon sign of a bounding rabbit glowing in the front window. Ely’s first restaurant, Shift, established him as an adroit and sometimes cerebral chef. For his sophomore outing, he’s serving dishes that are beautiful, dynamic, and a bit sly. Take the everything tater tot, an aesthetic combination of cured salmon, cream cheese, fresh dill, and assorted seeds sitting on a little stage of shredded potatoes that’s tender on the inside and unduly crunchy on the outside. The playful feeling is echoed in the clever, eclectic space and the relaxed, gracious service. Lucky recently began offering a wildly popular weekend brunch which, like their dinner service, is not to be missed.

At Peacemaker, 2017 James Beard Best Chef Midwest winner Kevin Nashan serves food he likes to eat. The restaurant mostly centers on New England-style seafood, but there’s also Frito pie, which Nashan grew to love growing up in New Mexico, where he would ride his BMX to the iconic Santa Fe Woolworth’s for the store’s version. You’ll also find a daily crudo and peel-and-eat shrimp in the 150-year-old stone trough anchored in the middle of the restaurant — it’s been turned into a raw bar, where a selection of East Coast oysters are also shucked. The oyster po’ boy and clam roll are both reason enough to visit, and the lobster boil always feels like a special feast, but the Peacemaker corndog and the sweet potato sandwich served with arugula, confit tomato, corn nuts, sour cabbage, and aioli are also menu stars. Pair anything with a slushy Sazerac.

Affable chef/owner Kurt Bellon putters about town in a little Japanese firetruck, inspiring smiles and rumbling tummies wherever he goes. The truck introduced St. Louis to the culture of konbini (abbreviated from konbiniensu sutoru), Japan’s ubiquitous convenience stores that sell prepared and packaged food. Bellon crafts sweet sandos of fruit and cream along with savory katsu options, all served on ethereal slices of milk bread. The mobile shop also carries other popular Japanese drinks and snacks, like triangles of onigiri folded into cellophane wrappers with nori just dry enough to maintain a tense snap with each bite of rice. It’s the kind of operation that’s only possible in St. Louis. “I just wouldn’t have the same opportunity to open my business in a city like San Francisco, where you have to know a highborn or kill a duke or something to open a restaurant,” Bellon says.

Every time chef Chris Bork, bartender Caitlin Franz, and wine consultant Joe Mooney found themselves working together, they noticed they organically synced up immediately. That easy collaborative spirit infuses their monthly thematic dining series, Place and Time, which has garnered so much praise. Each dinner draws inspiration from a particular moment in gastronomic history — from 19th-century New Orleans to Anthony Bourdain’s 2014 Parts Unknown episode on northern Thailand — which the kitchen evokes through beautifully executed food, original cocktails, and creative wine pairings.