Photo by Laurie Skrivan (Post-Dispatch)
Cate Zone Chinese Cafe
The small dining room of Daniel Ma and Quincy Lin’s Cate Zone Chinese Café is perpetually packed and buzzing with conversation and the clatter of more plates being set down on already crowded tables. You can’t help but order too much here. The house specialty is the Dongbei cuisine of China’s northeast, and if you can somehow restrain yourself to only one dish, it should be the traditional sweet-and-sour pork as an introduction to that fare. But Cate Zone also excels at dishes from outside this region, including cumin lamb and fiery Chengdu spicy chicken. Cate Zone was impressive from the outset. Now into its third year and still growing its menu, it’s even more so.
Hours: Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Sunday (closed Monday)
Last year's ranking: Rest of the Best
Opened: 2016