Lost Tables: Chez Leon

Chez Leon

Leon George Bierbaum was born on a poultry farm in Marthasville, Missouri in 1948. Early on, he showed an interest in cooking. A June 28, 1956 article in the Washington Missourian featured a photo of 8-year-old Leon watching as his mother explained his favorite recipe, cherry crunch pie, also a favorite of his 17-year-old brother, Luther.


Leon Bierbaum with parents and brother Luther Marthasville, 1948	Leon Bierbaum with older brother Luther Marthasville, 1956

In 1960, Bierbaum and his parents moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where Leon was a classmate of Steven Spielberg at Arcadia High School in Scottsdale.


Leon Bierbaum Sophomore Class	Steven Spielberg Junior Class
Arcadia High School Year Book, 1964

After graduating Arcadia High in 1966, Bierbaum attended Washington University in St. Louis. As most Wash U students gravitated toward flannel and jeans in the mid-1960s, Bierbaum showed up for class in a camel hair sport coat, neatly pressed slacks, shirt and tie.

Luther Bierbaum related that his brother "always liked to cook. He threw great dinner parties." After an early stint at the Washington University library, that avocation became a vocation.

Leon Bierbaum entertaining brother Luther and family in his CWE apartment, 1976

Leon Bierbaum's early food and wine resume dotted the city. He was director of wines at the Cheshire Inn, manager at the last 9-0-5 liquor store on North Euclid and wine consultant at Manhattan Distributing. He worked at Tony's on North Broadway, at Anthony's, at Café de France and at Cafe Napoli.

In addition to refining his tastes in the workplace, Bierbaum traveled extensively in Europe, particularly in France. He developed a love for French culture and French cuisine. So it wasn't surprising when Jerry Berger announced the opening of a new restaurant in his March 19, 1999 St. Louis Post-Dispatch column.

Peripatetic Francophile Leon Bierbaum and his partner, Eddie Neill (of Cafe Provencal fame), will bow their Chez Leon in May at 4580 Laclede Avenue in the CWE. Bierbaum described the eatery as a "Parisian bistro."

Chez Leon opened on November 4, 1999 in a space that had housed Martin's Variety for fifty years. While Eddie Neill was Bierbaum's partner, Chez Leon was indeed "Leon's House" – Bierbaum would buy out Neill in 2002.

Chez Leon, 4580 Laclede

Chez Leon was very much a true French bistro, starting with the brightly painted red-orange facade and the outdoor seating. On summer evenings, the big French doors were flung open and the sidewalk tables multiplied.

Inside, the dining room’s butter-colored walls displayed French prints and paintings, while high ceilings and floor-to-ceiling front windows lent an airy feel to the room. The dark wood of the floors, Brentwood chairs and mirrored banquettes contrasted with the crisp, white table linens. The handsome bar was in an adjacent room. The décor had the air of understated elegance, right down to the hat racks above the seats.

Chez Leon's Dining Room

Leon Bierbaum, with his silver hair and always impeccable style, was a fixture at the front of the restaurant, taking care to personally greet every newcomer and regular who strolled through the door. It was like walking into his home.

On Sundays, a Washington University medical student could sometimes be heard playing the piano at the front of the restaurant. On other nights, "The Poor People of Paris" were heard singing French songs from overhead speakers.

Leon Bierbaum with his Chez Leon staff, 2001

Chez Leon’s menu emphasized foods from the northern part of France, and changed from night to night, depending on availability, season and desire. The menu covered five areas – appetizers, soups and salads, entrees, a cheese course and dessert.

From day one, Chez Leon received rave reviews. Jill Posey-Smith's glowing prose in the December 15, 1999 Riverfront Times were representative.

It turns out that the much-anticipated Chez Leon, its facade emblazoned with the heart-warming legend "cuisine traditionelle," is the most civilized addition to Euclid's foodie mecca since Bar Italia. You are going to love it.
You'll appreciate the manageable scope of the short menu, in French with English subtitles. You'll either admire or not notice (they amount to the same thing) the velvety, graceful tact of the servers, who have ESP and who pamper you without getting in the way. And best of all, you'll remember why cuisine traditionelle used to be your favorite food.
I know. You have forgotten about real French food. This is because one bleak day back in the '70s (the decade that brought you granola, the Pritikin diet and aerobics) all hell broke loose: A guy named Michel Guérard went on a diet, became deranged and invented cuisine minceur. Guérard, one of only a handful of three-star Michelin chefs then working in Paris, was convinced that cooking with saccharin was a good idea. Against all odds, his lipophobic notions caught on. Unfortunately, an important point eluded his imitators: Few cooks are gifted enough to pull off stunts like that. Be that as it may, butter and cream – mainstays of all right-thinking French chefs since the dawn of cafe society – vanished like dodo birds from chic menus the world over. Roux has been a dirty word ever since. Broth is now a cutting-edge "sauce."
So imagine my happy surprise when a trio of beef medallions arrived with three classic, kick-ass sauces, each richer than the one before. The stuff was actually poured over the meat, rather than squirted on the plate in those pesky, inexplicably fashionable squiggles. Here was a warm, cozy blanket of Madeira sauce with shallots, a deep, seductive brandy reduction with plump morels, and – no way! Was this really a béarnaise, that beef-loving staple of haute cuisine for more than 160 years? Nobody does béarnaise anymore, yet here it was in all its buttery, yolky, artery-clogging glory, a downy pouf atop my perfectly medium-rare chunk of tenderloin. Pinch me! At the center of this homage to Escoffier, an amusing textural foil: three golf-ball-sized pommes dauphine (or mashed-potato fritters, as we South Siders call 'em). The dish was a triumph.


2001 Chez Leon Menu (click image to enlarge)	Les Escargots (snails in garlic and fennel butter)

By now you will have surmised that Chez Leon is hardly the home of the light supper. Owner Leon Bierbaum wants to put some meat on your bones. When a dish is light on the lipids, expect him to make up the difference in volume. From an appetizer list that included foie gras and escargots in garlic butter, I demurely selected oysters on the half-shell, hoping to make it all the way to dessert. No dice; these were some of the bulkiest specimens I've ever seen – brick houses, if you will, and so mighty-mighty with their classic vinegar-shallot dressing that I sucked down every last glistening one. Ditto the plump steamed mussels, which overwhelmed their aromatic, wine-scented broth with sheer numbers. Not that I'm complaining. You can't have too many mussels when they're done right, and that broth was just the thing to dunk bread in.
The soups strutted some major cojones, too. One of these – our server called it "farmer's soup," though this incarnation was of decidedly regal bearing – was a delectable and filling convocation of carrots, celery, chunks of potato. A preponderance of bacon infused its sumptuous broth with an irresistible smokiness. Along the same rich-and-hearty lines, the soupe à l'oignon was a sterling example of the classic preparation: a slew of tender caramelized onions, a chunk of bread, a luxuriant stock, gooey cheese. An especially nice touch was the heavy, oversized soup spoon; too big for the human mouth, it was the perfect excuse to make juvenile slurping noises.
Despite the genteel surroundings, I had the impression that slurping was A-OK around here. I overheard one customer confide to Bierbaum that, were he at home, he would sop up his wonderful sauce with bread. "But you should always sop!" his host entreated. "Sop away! This is a bistro!"


steak frites maître d'hôtel (grilled strip steak with house-made french fries)	2003 Chez Leon Menu (click image to enlarge)

Permission to sop coincided happily with the arrival of a broiled grouper swimming in a lordly garlic cream; I armed myself with bread and dug in. The fish was exactly right: crisped on the edges, succulent in the center and of excellent texture. The sauce, though rich beyond my dreams, was somehow not the least bit heavy, and the garlic quotient was perfectly attuned to the mild flesh of the grouper. Garnished simply with a circle of warm grape tomatoes, the dish was an excellent argument for traditional presentations that do not sacrifice quality for flashy foodie architecture. Who wants to wait while the plater turns your dinner into the Eiffel Tower?
The roasted chicken, fancied up with a light morel sauce, was another success. Surrounded by a passel of expertly cooked vegetables, it was nothing less than the Platonic ideal of roasted chicken. The aroma alone sent me into raptures.
After this luxurious feast, dessert seemed a ludicrous notion, but I had to order the tarte Tatin anyway. You would have done the same thing. Served à la mode, Chez Leon's house-made version of the Loire Valley's famed upside-down apple pie didn't mess around. Apples. Sugar. Butter. Lots of butter. My butter brain wouldn't have had it any other way.


2007 Chez Leon Menu (click image to enlarge)	soufflé au grand marnier

While he may have been a Francophile, Bierbaum was firmly rooted in his hometown of Marthasville. He would proudly bring in tomatoes and peaches from his aunt's Marthasville garden. Marthasville white asparagus and strawberries also found their way onto the Chez Leon menu.

When Chez Leon opened in 1999, Claude Courtoisier, a native of Grenoble, was the chef de cuisine. But after Bierbaum bought out his partner in early 2002, he hired a talented new chef, Eric Brenner, who made his mark on Chez Leon’s frequently changing menu of classic French dishes and provincial specialties.

In early 2004, Brenner opened his own restaurant, Moxy, next door to Chez Leon. With the help of his sous chef, Joe Herbert, Brenner did the prep work for Chez Leon in the morning, then moved to Moxy for lunch and dinner.


Eric Brenner, 2002	Moxy, 4584 Laclede

In the fall of 2009, Bierbaum closed his Central West End restaurant; he sold it to Gerard Craft, who reopened it as Brasserie by Niche. (Soon after, Moxy became the new home of Craft's Taste.) And at the end of 2009, Bierbaum reopened Chez Leon in Clayton at 7927 Forsyth in a space which had previously housed Shiitake, Limoncello and Bistro Alexander.

Chez Leon, 7927 Forsyth

The relocated Chez Leon lacked the whimsy and charm of the original, replacing it with a sleek dining room. Its dark walls were decorated with oil paintings and beveled mirrors. Tasseled drapes, a chandelier and an elaborate china cabinet added ornate flourishes.

Chez Leon's Dining Room

The menu, under the direction of executive chef Colby Erhart, was much the same as it had been in the Central West End, complete with frog’s legs, escargot and steak frites. However, the new location struggled

Bierbaum brought in veterans Marcel and Monique Keraval as chef de cuisine and maître d'; their Café de France had also struggled when it moved to Clayton. Bierbaum also employed Groupon and other discount services in an attempt to prop up business.

This last year was particularly tough. Customer counts were down and what they ate and drank was down. Us trying to stimulate business with Groupon-type offers did not help . . . customers seemed to come all at once, filling the place up, straining the level of service and the pacing of the meals. It was especially unfair to our full paying customers who got caught up in the middle of it.

On May 15, 2012, Chez Leon did not open for business. Although the patio tables and chairs were still in place, the linens were off the tables and the artwork had been taken off the walls and placed on the floor. Bierbaum had closed Chez Leon.

Business here was just never at the level that we thought it would be . . . I probably should have never left the Central West End.


2012 Chez Leon Menu (click image to enlarge)	Leon Bierbaum with Marcel and Monique Keraval Chez Leon, 2011

Bierbaum continued to work in the hospitality industry. He was the concierge at the Gatesworth and worked the front of the house at Tony’s on weekends. But he was slowly succumbing to cancer.

Leon Bierbaum died on May 2, 2016, the day before his 68th birthday. Gaunt with cancer, Bierbaum entertained a host of visitors at a South County hospice care facility during the last weeks of his life. The hospice played beloved big band music and opera for Bierbaum as he gradually slipped away.


Leon Bierbaum, 1948-2016