There are stars hiding in this St. Louis Niche

In Europe, it's not unusual to find Michelin-starred restaurants nestled in charming villages off the beaten track.  Not so much so in the States, where fine dining has generally been the preserve of a handful of large cities.  At least that was my perception until last night, when my home town hit a dining ball out of the culinary ballpark.  Just a week ago I ate at the double-Michelin starred Hibiscus in London, and I can assure you that St. Louis' Niche is a superior restaurant.  And half the price.

Let's start with the benchmark.  Claude Bosi's Hibiscus featured in this blog three years ago when the Northwestern girls chose it to cheer up the recession-challenged Lisa, who was at the end of her patience trying to find a new job.  From the depths of that enforced career break she's risen to the heights of partnership at her new firm, and we thought a return to Hibiscus created a fitting full circle.

Bosi's still an assured master of his game, with the evening featuring delicate, French-inspired classics delivered by charming servers, matched with interesting wines.  The weekday dining deals of our early visit are long gone, however.  The six course tasting menu with matching wine flight, plus coffee and the bottle of champagne we started with, rocketed the per-person cost to a stratopheric total not far off what I would have made in a whole fortnight in my first job.  

I wish I could tell you I felt it was great value for money but, even before the St. Louis comparison, I was feeling underwhelmed.  It was an impressive start.   The menu was a bingo-card style listing of ingredients that we were invited to volunteer likes and dislikes against, then the chef crafts your dinner from there.  The amuse bouche of a shot glass of cold cucumber soup topped with elderflower froth was an inspired pairing, and the mackerel two ways draped in strawberry sauce vierge was a brilliant innovation.  After that, however, everything was delicious, but nothing dazzled.  Broad bean and prawn ravioli, turbot with brown butter sauce, duck breast with kumquat and chili sauce.  Wine pairings were good but occasionally off; the red with the duck was far too thin and sharp to carry the rich dish.  I don't question that this is Michelin-starred dining, but of the wealth of starred restaurants in the UK, my return to Hibiscus didn't impress me enough to favour it over many others.

Niche, on the other hand, will be on my list for every future visit to St. Louis.  It delivered, in fact, one of the 10 best fine dining meals I've had since this blog's inception.  Chef/owner Gerard Craft has garnered a fair amount of publicity in national food and wine magazines and has been credited with "turning the St. Louis food scene on its head."  This was certainly a long stretch from the toasted ravioli, BBQ pork and sugar-charged bakery goods that defined the city of my youth.

That was obvious from the first sip:  oak tea flavoured with smoked pork fat and lemon.  And the first bite, the coxinha:  A quail egg-sized cheese croquette of Brazilian cheese, breaded in crispy chicken fat, served with a cocktail of Hendricks, aperol and rose lillet.  A lemon maple egg custard spiked with shitake mushrooms, topped with glistening bonito pearls, served in a perfectly hollowed egg shell followed.  Three courses and my jaw was already dropping in amazement.  Not just that I was getting this kind of fare in St. Louis, but that every course brought innovations I hadn't encountered in any European dining.  

More amazing courses followed thick and fast, every one worthy of note.  Soft and airy balls of cheese bread served with delicate pickles and shavings of country ham.  A chilled pea soup ladled over sour
ed oat granola, delivering a playful contrast of sharp and smooth flavours, liquid and crunchy textures.  Another soup-like dish, this one individual, sweet Brussels sprout leaves arranged like a flower on a pillow of ricotta and caraway, then drizzled with a smoked trout broth that puddled in each leaf.  Next a crayfish roll on griddled rye enlivened with apple, celery, nasturtium leaves and a shard of Old Bay "glass" ... sugar set with the iconic spice.  All those savoury dishes led up to a perfect, simple round of ribeye with a fruity, luscious red wine.  

Following in the footsteps of all fine dining establishments came multiple desserts.  First an alcoholic iced lolly you popped up from its plastic sleeve, dropping us all back to summer circa 1972.  Palate cleansed, on to crunchy honeycomb with lime curd and raspberries, dotted with lemon verbena leaves.  Finally the sweet peas appeared again, this time as ice cream with a tiny financier cake, strawberries and hibiscus.

All of this was served with elegance, precision and presentation worthy of any high end European restaurant.  Sitting at the chef's table ... four counter seats next to the pass, overlooking the open kitchen ... enhanced our experience.  The whole team was happy to chat and able to multi-task, plating up whilst explaining details about preparation and comparing favourite dining experiences.  It was, frankly, the chef's table experience I've always wanted in London, but hadn't yet managed.

In fact, there were only three things that told me I wasn't in a British Michelin-starred establishment.  1. The merry, casual din.  Fine dining at home is rarely this informal and never this loud.  2.  The wine presentation.  All excellent wines, but poured without ceremony and without the detailed explanations that a European sommelier would normally do.  (That, I missed.)  3.  The price.  $95 for a 10 course tasting menu, $55 for wine pairings.

British friends, that is 98GBP all in.  Less than half of what I paid for that much lauded and inferior meal at Hibiscus.  And, frankly, what I bet many of you have paid for a three-course dinner with plenty of wine at your local gastropub.  I keep telling you people you need to visit the Midwest.  Here's another reason why.