Photo by Cristina M. Fletes (Post-Dispatch)
Stone Soup Cottage
Growing up near Boston in the 1970s and ’80s, Carl McConnell fell in love with the cooking shows on his local PBS station. His family didn’t have a lot of money, but every now and then his mother would take him to a nice restaurant, and he’d marvel at the waiters’ smooth, efficient service. After graduating from culinary school, he cooked on cruise ships, on an icebreaker that powered through the Arctic Ocean, on a Boeing 757 that had been retrofitted for luxury around-the-world trips.
By his count, McConnell has visited 125 countries.
Along the way, he met his wife, Nancy, a St. Louis native, and when the couple decided it was time to put down roots and build their dream restaurant, they chose Cottleville. In 2009, Stone Soup Cottage opened, and its dinner service — one seating each night of a seasonal tasting menu — soon became the most sought-after reservation in town.
In 2013, Stone Soup Cottage moved to the nearby farm where most of its produce is grown. It seats a few more diners now, and you can sometimes land a Thursday reservation on relatively short notice, but a weekend visit still requires planning two or more months ahead.
You must plan. You will spend money. (Dinner costs $90 per person before tax, tip and drinks.) But if you live in St. Louis and love restaurants, you owe it to yourself to eat here at least once. The whole experience, from the moment you turn onto the gravel driveway that leads up to the restaurant (built using material from the farm’s original barn) until McConnell himself bids you good night, is magical.
McConnell’s cooking is modern in its farm-to-table method — during winter he maintains five greenhouses on the property — but unapologetic in its deep reverence for Escoffier and classic continental cuisine. Why did Marsala become a grocery-store-wine joke? Roasted poussin with pancetta and porcini mushrooms in a Marsala sauce left me in too prolonged a reverie to worry about the answer. Thinly shaved black truffle transformed an already excellent mushroom crepe with brown butter and a silken velouté into a dish that haunts you like a lost love.
McConnell’s technique dazzles. The smoked beef-rib meat in a winter potage de bouef showed how smoke flavor can be a delicate, teasing accent rather than the usual barbecue hammer. And you can bet the crème brulee at Stone Soup Cottage is actual burnt cream, not the tacky-surfaced pudding you find everywhere else.
The food is terrific, the environment gorgeous. Fireplaces crackle in both of the adjacent dining rooms, and on the walls you’ll find souvenirs from McConnell’s travels. Tibetan ladles. A jug from Persia. Above all else, there is the hospitality, with McConnell himself serving each course to each table and, if you let him, bending your ear about how important service is to him.
McConnell doesn’t need to explain anything. Stone Soup Cottage speaks for itself: It’s the best restaurant in St. Louis.
Hours: Dinner Thursday-Saturday
Last year's ranking: No. 5
Opened: 2009
Must order: Menu changes monthly