Restaurants for the NINC St. Louis Conference

Price code *very reasonable  **moderate  ***midrange upscale   ****very upscale

Lunch Friday with hostess:

Dubliner **   www.dublinerstl.com
Washington Loft District
Irish cuisine

El Borracho *  www.elborrachostl.com
Downtown
Mexican cuisine

Jbucks  ***  www.jbucks.com
Downtown
American cuisine
Upscale quiet St. Louis sports bar

BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups  **  www.bbsjazzbluessoups.com
Soulard
Southern comfort food & Cajun
Authentic local color and live music

Dinner Friday evening with hostess:

Broadway Oyster Bar  **  www.broadwayoysterbar.com
Soulard
Cajun, seafood, pasta
Live music
One of the most unique & colorful places in the Lou

Franco’s  ***  www.eatatfranco.com
Soulard
Country French cuisine

1111 Mississippi  ***  www.1111-m.com
Lafayette Square
Tuscan, Northern California cuisines
Live Music

Ricardo’s  **  www.ricardositaliancafe.com
Lafayette Square
Italian cuisine
Small, intimate place for great pastas & more

Lunch Saturday with hostess:

Kitchen K  **  www.kitchen-k.com
Washington Loft District
Locally grown produce
Fancy burgers, small plates, highly varied menu

Hannegan’s  *  www.hannegansrestaurant.com
Laclede’s Landing
American cuisine
Menu filled with amusing Missouri political lore

Hammerstones  *  www.hammerstones.net
Soulard
American cuisine

Charlie Gitto’s  ***  www.charliegittosdowntown.com
Downtown
Italian food, old established place
Walking distance

Now, for those who are making this a vacation, or who have time to spend before or after the conference, here are the local authors’ recommendations for some really fun places to visit:

Four star fine dining:

Tony’s www.tonysstlouis.com
Downtown
One of the Lou’s oldest and most prestigious restaurants
Willard Scott (former weatherman/foodie at NBC) never missed it when he came to town.
Food and atmosphere are outstanding
Continental cuisine with an Italian accent

F15teen  www.15stl.com/dine
Downtown
“Jimmy Baseball” Edmonds’s upscale steakhouse
Not a sports bar, but baseball stars as well as atmosphere abound

Kemolls  www.kemolls.com
Downtown
Upscale Italian in the knock-your-eyes-out Metro Life Building

An American Place  www.aapstl.com
Washington Loft District
American cuisine with locally grown foods

Mosaic  www.mosaicrestaurant.com
Washington Loft District
Spanish tapas, fusion cuisine

Live Music:

McGurks  www.mcgurks.com
Soulard
Irish food & pub atmosphere

St. Louis Jazz Café  www.stlouisjazzcafe.com
Washington Loft District
Eclectic menu  & jazz

BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups  www.bbsjazzbluessoups.com
In case you missed lunch Friday

Hammerstones   www.hammerstones.net
Soulard
American food & eclectic music

Broadway Oyster Bar  www.broadwayoysterbar.com
Soulard
Blues music & all the local color you can absorb!
In case you missed dinner Friday

Jake’s Steaks  www.jakessteaks.com
Laclede’s Landing
Steakhouse & Cajun food
Zydeco music

Really Cool Neighborhoods:

The Hill  www.diningstl.com/thehill.htm

Home of Yogi Berra and too many other sports greats to mention, it’s Italian to the ult—even the fireplugs are painted red, white and green!  Check the pix on their homepage
Lots of great restaurants in every price range.
A few of our favs are Giovanni’s, Rigazzi’s, Cunetto’s, Zia’s and Lorenzo’s Trattoria.

The Delmar Loop   www.ucityloop.com

Great place to sit at a sidewalk café and people watch.  Washington University and St. Louis University students come from all around the globe and they congregate here.  Check out great art galleries, hear live music and most especially visit our “Walk of Fame” to find out how many famous folks have a connection with the Lou.
A few of our restaurant choices are
Blueberry Hill where Chuck Berry still performs  www.blueberryhill.com
Brandts  www.brandtscafe.com  live music
Riddle’s Penultimate   www.riddlescafe.com  live music
Fitz’s where they make their own rootbeer  www.fitzsrootbeer.com

The Central West End   www.diningstl.com/CWEhtm

Another place for sidewalk cafes and people watching, but here the attractions are the ab/fab mansions and architecture around the neighborhood.  Great antique shops, musty bookstores and possibly the best Jewish deli on the planet (Koppermanns’s). 
A few of our favorite restaurants are
Koppermanns’s Deli & Grocery (breakfast/lunch only) generous portions, killer lox, chopped liver and cheesecake.  With a fridge in your room, you can buy and take home.  It’s that good!
Terrene  www.terrene-stlouis.com
Duff’s Irish Pub www.dineatduffs.com
Bar Italia  www.baritaliastl.com

Forest Park  http://stlouis.missouri.org/citygov/parks/forestpark

Five hundred acres larger than Central Park in New York, this is the crown jewel of a city brimming with beautiful places to visit.  Located in the Central West End, this vast green space houses the nation’s #1 rated Zoo, a superb Art Museum (Wolfgang Puck has a restaurant in house), Science Center, Planetarium, the Missouri Historical Society (Merriweather’s Restaurant is super), plus numerous other casual restaurants out in the park.  Also in the park are a newly renovated golf course and a variety of buildings dating from the 1904 World’s Fair including an all glass greenhouse appropriately called the Jewel Box.

St. Charles   www.stcharlescitymo.gov

A historic city just off Highway 70 to the west of St. Louis, it is situated on the hills overlooking the Missouri River.  If you like quaint shops, antiques and good restaurants, this is a fun outing.

Missouri Wine Country   www.missouriwinecountry.com

Go to Augusta or Hermann, historic old Missouri river towns with vines growing over the hillsides.  If you are a wine lover, our wineries have won gold medals in international competitions for many years.  The view from Montelle Winery’s terraced deck overlooking the river is stunningly beautiful…and the wine’s mighty fine, too.  Order a lunch and select a chilled bottle, then lean back and enjoy!

Other unusual experiences:

No way to categorize these, just some oddball, really fun things unique to the Lou:

Baileys Chocolate Bar  www.baileyscholocatebar.com
Lafayette Square
For the chocoholics in the crowd
Noted for desserts and chocolate alcoholic drinks but they also have salads, sandwiches and other food… if anyone cares J

Lumiere Place Casino  www.lumiereplace.com
Downtown
If you gotta gamble, they even have a shuttle from the hotel.
All kinds of restaurants from posh to modest are housed in the new, very flashy (literally) building.

Schlafly’s Tap Room   www.schlafly.com
Good inexpensive food, live music and very fine microbrewery beer in a
unique, historic setting 

Anheuser-Busch Brewery   www.budweisertours.com/home.htm
We know it’s AB-In-Bev now but St. Louisans will never accept that.
Tour the largest brewery on earth, sample free beer and,
best of all, meet the Clydesdales!  They’re even bigger than you think.

The Venice Café  www.thevenicecafe.com
Across from “The Brewery” in South City
With every wall covered by “abstract mosaics, bottle caps, license plates and dolls, it defines excess with a capital E” say various reviewers. 
The food is Jamaican; the music live on an outdoor patio and it’s worth it just to gawk at the incredible décor.