Post-Dispatch file photo
La Vallesana
How do you fall in love again with a restaurant you’ve maybe come to take for granted, to shunt aside for the newer, shinier restaurants on this list? At Cherokee Street anchor La Vallesana, the answer was to ignore my go-to tacos and dig into a menu that has expanded quite a bit since Hilario Vargas opened the restaurant as a much smaller shop selling ice cream and paletas. (La Vallesana still sells both desserts.) This is how I found La Vallesana’s carnitas, crisp and juicy, as well as the pierna enchilada torta with thin slices of fiery pork leg — one of the best tortas I’ve eaten in St. Louis and what a fried-bologna sandwich wishes it were.
Hours: 10 a.m.-10 p.m. daily
Last year's ranking: New this year
Opened: 2003