In 2005, Gerard Craft opened
Niche at 1831 Sidney Street in the Benton Park neighborhood.
Craft's nascent venture into restauranteuring was an immediate
success, ascending him to the summit of the St. Louis dining scene.
He was voted one of Food & Wine’s Ten Best New Chefs in
America and nominated for the prestigious James Beard Award as Best
Chef in the Midwest.
In December of 2007, Craft opened
Veruca Bakeshop & Cafe in a small space next door to Niche. The
bakeshop showcased the talents of Mathew
Rice, Niche's inventive pastry chef.
Veruca Bakeshop & Cafe, 1831 Sidney Street
But on February 9, 2009, little more than a
year after Veruca had opened, Craft announced the bakeshop would be
shuttered.
Just because Niche
was successful and Mathew Rice was the best pastry guy in town
didn’t guarantee Veruca’s success. There was no foot traffic. I
did a lot of things wrong. It was a humbling experience.
In the spring of 2009, Craft opened a new
restaurant in Verucca's space, featuring cocktails and a menu of
small plates. Craft called his new venture Taste by Niche.
Taste
by Niche,
1831 Sidney Street,
2010
Taste was roughly the size of a walk-in closet,
seating 18 at the bar and one wooden communal table. Old fashioned
Edison light
bulbs hung down over the bar and white tile lined the back wall. A chalkboard wall, with the prominent outline of a hog,
listed the day’s specials. A smaller chalkboard waitlist hung near
the door; there were no reservations.
Taste's
intimate dining space
At one end of the bar, cocktails were mixed. At the other end, two cooks, James Peisker and
Nick Blue, prepared the food. Some dishes required only slicing and
plating. For the hot dishes, there were two freestanding induction
burners and an immersion circulator for sous vide
preparations.
Gerard
Craft (left) with sous chef James Peisker
Gerard
Craft (left) and Nick Blue
Immersion circulator
Both at the bar and the communal table, there
was an intimacy between chef and diner, much like at a sushi bar,
with ongoing chatter. And like at a sushi bar, it was easy to keep ordering
one dish after another.
Taste's menu was divided into snacks,
small plates and sweets. One could choose any 3 of the 4
snacks offered — almonds coated with French pepper, cured olives,
housemade pickles or a deconstructed egg with green sauce.
Egg,
Almonds & Pickles
Small plates came and went depending on
availability and whim. Vegetable forward dishes included ricotta and
pickled beets — a combination of sweet, tangy beets, softened by
house-made creamy ricotta — and roasted radish bruschetta — thickly
sliced toasted bread, rubbed with garlic and topped with roasted
radishes.
Ricotta
& Pickled Beets
Roasted
Radish Bruschetta
The charcuterie small plate offered heart
salami, Hungarian salami, saddle ham and
saucisson sec, all housemade. They were arranged five slices each on
a large cutting board, with mustard and pickles.
Housemade Charcuterie
Octopus tentacles, roasted with onion and olive
oil, came chilled in a light red-pepper oil. They were served with
slices of potato confit and garnished with pea shoots in
preserved lemon sauce.
Octopus
with Potato & Chile
Pine nuts permeated spicy pork meatballs. They
were served in a tomato sauce, enriched with bacon fat and jalapeños
for heat.
Spicy
Pork Meatballs
Mathew Rice provided the small selection of
sweets, including his whimsical
pigwiches – bacon
buttercream filled cookies, shaped like pigs, with pink icing curls
for tails.
While cocktails played a supporting role at
Niche, they were the costar at Taste. Mixologist Ted Kilgore
playing the lead.
In my twenties I was
in a different career, and was a cocktail enthusiast mixing
things at home and learning what I could about the craft of
bartending. The job I was in had come to an end; so when I was
31, I decided to make my bartending "hobby" my career.
Kilgore attended a small bartending school in
Springfield, Missouri. He worked various jobs there, and started
getting into the craft cocktail movement. After a trip to New York,
he was hooked.
In 2004, Kilgore decided Springfield had gotten
too small. He moved to St. Louis and took a position at Monarch, but
was disappointed in the St. Louis bar scene. After three-and-a-half
years at Monarch, he was considering relocating to a different
market. Then he heard Craft was opening a cocktail bar in
Benton Park. He contacted Craft, liked what he heard and was
onboard.
It was Gerard's plan for Taste to be
a cocktail bar first and have snacks to go with them. When we
first met, he basically let me come up with the direction of the
cocktails. I wanted to do something similar to Milk and Honey,
with little to no menu, and do cocktails on the fly with what we
had on hand on a day to day basis.
It was definitely way different than
anything in town. It was the first actual cocktail-driven
establishment in the city, based solely on crafted cocktails. It
was a very tiny bar, too. We didn't have room for a lot, so I
only had about 100 spirits.
The first week I just asked folks
what they felt like drinking and created cocktails as we went,
and some of those went on our first menu. While our menu did
grow, the basics of the first Taste did not change much.
Ted
Kilgore at Taste, 2010
In his first year at Taste, Kilgore garnered an
international buzz. His unique cocktails were published everywhere.
One of his creations, In A Pickle, was published in
Kindred Cocktails on November 18, 2010.
Made this at the
request of a girl who said she liked pickles. Created in one
shot. This is hands down the most popular drink of my 14 years
behind the bar.
In A
Pickle
Taste had been open for less than a year when,
in March of 2010, Craft hinted he might move his restaurant from its
Benton Park space.
One of the goals for
this year is to find a place that’s a little larger, with at
least a small kitchen. Taste has no oven, no salamander . . .
everything comes off of 2 induction burners, a meat slicer, and
an immersion circulator.
On October 1, 2010, Craft announced that Taste
would move to the former Moxy space at 4583 Laclede in
the Central West End, next door to Craft's French bistro, Brasserie
by Niche. Adam Altnether, the executive chef at Brasserie, would
become Taste's executive chef and majority owner, although the
financial arrangement would eventually change, with Altnether
becoming a partner in Craft's restaurant group.
Adam Altnether grew up in St. Louis. He
graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in New York. During his final semester, Altnether took a summer
staging position at Niche and convinced Craft to hire him full time
upon completing his studies.
In August of 2007, Altnether officially joined
Craft's team as a prep cook. One night, a line cook got sick and Altnether
took over his station. After that, he kept moving up.
Within a year, Altnether became Niche's sous chef, and eventually the chef de cuisine. When Brasserie opened
at the end of 2009, Altnether became its executive chef.
Adam Altnether oversees
construction at Taste, Feb 11, 2011
Taste opened in the Central West End on March
11, 2011. From its unmarked wooden door, to the dark curtains in the
windows, it looked like a speakeasy from the street.
Taste,
4583 Laclede, April 2011
Inside, the space was dark and cozy, but
significantly larger than the Benton Park restaurant; it seated 54.
The entrance opened into the main dining area, which was long and
narrow. An elegant bar was located along the wall to the right and a
line of tables and chairs to the left, with old-school Edison bulbs
hanging above. At the far end was an open kitchen, just large enough
for two cooks to work side by side. To the left of the kitchen,
stairs led down to a larger prep kitchen and up to a small loft area,
with a long table and leather armchairs for overflow seating and
private parties.
Taste's
main dining area, bar & open kitchen
Taste's
main dining area
Taste's
upstairs loft
Taste's
open kitchen, Merritt Duncan & Adam Altnether, June 2011
Much like Niche, the new
Taste's menu was very pig-centric. It included pig fries, pig
popcorn, candied bacon, bacon deviled eggs, pork belly, a pork
burger and Mathew Rice's pigwiches for dessert.
Altnether's pig fries, which looked like cheese
sticks, were battered and deep-fried, then presented with a mint
sauce and curry aioli for dipping.
We had always had
different versions and techniques of making pig cracklins at
Niche. When we opened Taste, we wanted to make a version of the
pork-centric dish as a snack to accompany an awesome cocktail.
In testing, we realized that when the
pork skin was chopped really small it almost had a popcorn-like
result. Topped with the salty-sweet seasoning, it’s addictive
and one of the most popular items on the Taste menu.
Pig
Skin
Popcorn
Altnether's braised pork belly was a play on
pork and beans. The fatty pork was placed atop chilled white beans.
Pork
Belly
The pork burger appeared in a new large
plates section of the menu. A slice of melted cheese was
optional. The sandwich was served with fries and a garlicky aioli
for dipping. Craft disclosed that the fries were frozen; housemade
would have been too labor intensive.
The pork burger would become a fixture on
Taste's large plate menu, along with a brick chicken with greens.
Pork Burger with Bacon, Fries
Brick
Chicken with Greens, Pan Jus
The move to the Central West End was not as
smooth for Kilgore and his cocktail program.
It changed our
audience. We had more folks that did not want a cocktail, they
wanted a Dewers and water. It was a tough sell. Our menu was
more like a Death and Company. Longer and more ingredients that
were esoteric. Every customer had to be given an education.
We also had a door person to keep
from being too crowded. People hated it. We would have problems
at the door every night. It was a different vibe completely.
About 7 or 8 months in we decided to
do our happy hour with the classic cocktails being 6 dollars
every Sunday and Monday all night. My thinking was maybe no one
knows what a Ramos Gin Fizz is, but for 6 bucks they would try
it. The first day we had happy hour I was in KC and I remember
checking in and they were slammed.
I think that was the turning point
for getting a ton of younger guests in there. We would have
twenty something’s in med school bringing in their father or
grandfather and saying to them, "you have to have an Old
Fashioned." It was a real trip to see.
Ted
Kilgore, June 2011
In his first year in the new space, Kilgore
created his Industry Sour. The recipe was published in
Esquire on September 24, 2012.
This was a cocktail
that I created on a Sunday night for an industry person. I
basically thought to myself, what if I put all of my favorite
things into a glass and just give it to him? And that just
happened in an equal-parts sort of scenario.
Green Chartreuse is kind of a
mixologist's favorite, as well as Fernet. Both of those
ingredients have so much intense flavor that people often shy
away from them, but bartenders definitely drink them. They each
have unique flavor profiles, and with sours, people in the
industry really look for a challenge to a palate and intense
reactions. It's comforting at first, and then all of a sudden it
hits your palate with a bomb of flavor.
Industry Sour
Jan 2012 Taste Cocktail
Menu
(click image to enlarge)
Craft's talented staff were like pieces of an
every-changing puzzle. He never hesitated to move them around
if he thought it a better fit for his restaurants.
In January of 2012, Craft announced that Niche
would move to the Centene Building in Clayton and a new restaurant,
Pasteria by Niche, would open next door. Adam Altnether would leave
Taste to shepherd these projects. Matthew Daughaday was
appointed Taste's new executive chef.
Matthew Daughaday grew up in University City.
He received a degree from the California Culinary Academy in 2008.
After working at restaurants in San Francisco, he returned St. Louis and was accepted
as an extern at Niche. He was invited to stay on as a line cook,
then promoted to sous chef and then to executive chef at Taste.
Matthew
Daughaday, September 2012
My goal when I got to
Taste was to make menus that matched the quality of the cocktails
Ted Kilgore was making, but also food that could stand on its
own. We wanted it to be a place to not just get a drink, but a
place that people would go to for dinner. We didn’t want to
abandon the snack concept, but had to find a way to make them be
filling on their own. Those snack size dishes grew into small
plates. The small plates were slightly more complex and filling.
Early on, Daughaday had regular
conversations with Kilgore. Kilgore's philosophies on creating
cocktails and building menus helped him better understand how
flavors interacted in the food dishes he created.
From the beginning,
Gerard allowed me to be playful and creative with the menu at
Taste. It wasn’t without issues. The first menus had the concept
that I was going for, but featured a lot of ingredients such as
scallops, that caused food cost to be too high. So Gerard pushed
to either simplify the dishes or find a way to make them more
affordable.
I
really wanted to keep the style of dishes we were creating. so I
started looking for affordable replacements for main
ingredients. We started playing around with proteins that were
less common and at lower price points. Ingredients like beef
cheeks, lamb necks or beef tongue became staples. We were also
playing around with a lot of veg centric plates. This compromise
between ingredients and affordability led to some of the most
popular dishes I came up with at Taste.
Daughaday's early menus were influenced by his
time at Niche. The first dish he created which drew inspiration from
elsewhere was his
lamb neck sugo. It appeared on Taste's menu in
October of 2012.
This was one of the
first dishes I put on the menu that was written about and a dish
that I felt exemplified the style of dish that Taste became
known for during my time there. When preparing myself to take on
my first executive chef role, I went to Chicago to eat and find
inspiration for creating my menu. One of the most memorable
meals was at the Purple Pig where I ate pork neck gravy served
with toast. The lamb sugo dish was directly influenced by that
meal. Lamb necks braised with tomato, mire poix, white wine and
herbs, picked down and cooked into a thick meaty sauce and
served with grilled bread.
Lamb
Sugo with Lamb Fat Toast
In September of 2012, Daughaday put
bacon fat-fried cornbread on the menu, taking a homey dish and refining it.
This was a dish that
was put on originally for selfish reasons, as it was a played
off something I ate as a kid. My dad made cornbread anytime he
made chili. We would take the leftover cornbread the next day,
that was always a little dried out, and put it on the griddle
with a little butter, fry it to bring it back to life and cover
it with honey. With our affinity for all things pork at Niche
and Taste, we replaced the butter with bacon-fat and topped it
with honey-thyme butter and honey. I didn’t think it was really
going to be a big seller, and it ended up being the top selling
item I made at Taste.
Bacon Fat-Fried Cornbread
An important addition to
Daughaday's menu was his beet salad. It led the way to other
vegetable forward dishes.
The beet salad
was a dish put on as a way to have a cheaper vegetable dish
— a salad that functioned more as a small plate. This became
an important dish because it showed me that people would buy
a vegetable based dish as much as a dish with a protein in
it. We played off a smoked salmon/gravlax dish. We smoked
the beets, served it over whipped ricotta, pickled shallots,
pumpernickel crotons, dill and cured artic char.
Beet Salad
Daughaday's barbacoa
was one of the most popular dishes at Taste during his time
there.
It was a play
off a traditional taco. I went to culinary school in San
Francisco and tacos were a cheap way to eat and
plentiful. When looking for a cheap cut of meat to use,
our purveyor at Arrowhead meats suggested trying out
beef cheeks. Not ever using them before, barbacoa tacos
was one of the recipes that popped up. It seemed like a
perfect fit for Taste.
We started
making traditional tacos, but realized that keeping up
with making tortillas everyday was more labor intensive
than we wanted to take on. Instead, we took the masa
used in making tortillas and made a polenta style cake.
We could make big batches, punch out rounds, emulating
the tortilla shape, and fry them, creating the base used
for the dish. We topped them with the barbacoa braised
beef cheeks, pickled red onion, tomatillo salsa,
cilantro and cotija cheese.
Barbacoa
Scrapple was used
in a tasty dish at Niche when Daughaday was there, and he
repurposed it for Taste.
This was
a dish we put on the menu because again it fit the
bill of a dish made with cheaper ingredients. Made
with roasted and pulled pork shoulder, ground pork,
pork liver and polenta and herbs, it was fairly
inexpensive to make. Trying to keep the traditional
Pennsylvania-Dutch side of the dish being a
breakfast item, we topped it with a fried egg, then
added a sage brown butter to finish it off.
Pork Scrapple
No catalogue of
Matthew Daughaday's contributions to Taste would be
complete without his fried pickles. Served as a
snack, with dill aioli, they were a fixture on his
menus.
In December of 2012, Ted Kilgore announced he
would be leaving Taste to open a cocktail bar in Lafayette Square.
Taking over as bar manager was Kyle Mathis, who had worked at Taste
since February. Other young managers would follow — Drew Lucido,
Nick Digiovanni, Meredith Barry — all in Kilgore's mold.
One of the things I
was most proud of and made Taste so unique was that we had such
a young staff. There were other bartenders out there that we
could have hired, but I wanted a crew that would work as a unit.
I had some that worked under me in the past that only wanted to
make their drinks and wanted to make the customer drink what
they wanted to drink. When we expanded most of the opening bar
crew were former Niche server assistants. They soaked up info
and were some of the hardest working folks I have worked with.
Kyle Mathis, 2013
In December of 2014, Matthew Daughaday
announced he was leaving Taste to open his own restaurant.
I felt I had
accomplished all I could while there. I didn’t know where else I
could take it at the time and I needed to step down so I could
give myself more opportunity to grow. I had a great sous chef in
Heather Stone, who was hungry for more opportunity, so the time
felt right to walk away. I don’t regret leaving; things like
that aren’t meant to last forever. I felt I took it as far as I
was meant to.
Matthew
Daughaday and Heather Stone, October 2014
Heather
Stone was a native of Clinton, Iowa. She
attended culinary school in Minneapolis-St. Paul and then worked in
Chicago before moving to St. Louis in 2012 to become Daughaday's
sous chef at Taste.
When Matt and I
worked together, we melded really well . . . we had such similar
but yet beautifully opposite palates and skills that we worked
together like water, eggs and acid do to create aioli. With that
being said, the transition to my own menu was a challenge
because we had worked together so well for so long. Matt was a
great help, working with me to help create my own way.
I wanted to bring all the dishes I
loved growing up here in the Midwest to dance on the taste buds
of the Taste patrons and make them dive back into those
childhood memories. Pairing those nostalgic feelings with the
intoxicatingly smooth potions Kyle was shaking up behind Taste's
bar, one could experience that same special feeling I had when
first stepping foot into such a magical place.
Stone's most indelible contribution to Taste's
menu were her fried cheese curds. Served with a jalapeño aioli, once
they appeared as a snack, they were there to stay.
I grew up on these in
Iowa and while I enjoyed other versions, I NEEDED to create a
recipe that truly felt like home. After many cheese fryer
explosions, we nailed the breading process and created the
standing curd dish that lasted well beyond my time.
Fried
Cheese Curds with Jalapeño Aioli
Stone's ricotta gnudi, with oyster mushroom,
pickled currents, arugula and brown butter, was inspired by British
chef April Bloomfield, who made a splash at The Spotted Pig in New
York City.
This dish was
inspired by April Bloomfield — she had a recipe similar to this
that I was playing with for a while and it never flourished. I
combined two dishes and created this mouthwatering love. The
sweet, the salty, the sour and earthy — I strive to create
dishes that take you on a taste bud journey and this one did it.
Ricotta
Gnudi with Oyster Mushrooms
Stone's menus featured a number of vegetarian
ravioli, including squash and beet. The beet variety first debuted
at Slow Food's Feast in the Field in 2015.
Beet "ravioli" with
fresh local asparagus, whipped homemade ricotta, pistachios and
that mouthwatering gastrique! An ode to my gluten free comrades.
This dish debuted at a Such and Such farm dinner. After plating
100 plates, I fell in love with the dish even more, and couldn’t
let it go until it spent time on the Taste menu. (Needless to
say, it was a winner at the dinner, as well.)
Beet
Ravioli
Buffalo sweet breads with celery root puree was
one of Stone's more addictive dishes on the Taste menu.
I love, love buffalo,
and while chicken wings can never get old, buffalo sweet breads
hit all the right taste buds that kept you coming back for more!
Buffalo
Sweet Breads
Stone's Rhubarb Fool dessert, with pound cake,
cardamom cream and pistachios, was inspired by her memories of
eating fresh rhubarb as a child.
Growing up, dancing
down the rows of homegrown vegetables, while gnawing on a stalk
of freshly plucked rhubarb at my grandparents’ house, are some
of my fondest memories. Oh, to look back and see how lucky we
were then — to grow up with such a bounty of tasty, fresh food,
right at our fingertips — and that flavor would grow with you to
be a tantalizing dessert! Slightly sweet, savory and floral.
Yum!
Rhubarb
Fool
Stone left Taste in the summer of 2016.
I am grateful for
every person I was lucky enough to encounter. From my
endeared co-workers and employees to the unforgettable, most
amazingly kind guests who turned into friends, these
memories are etched into our minds and the crimsons walls of
4584 Laclede.
Taste was a go hard or go home type of place. The staff, we
knew this and lived off that energy. When 5pm hit and the
doors opened, magic happened. And for 5 or 6 hours of
service, we were members of this beautiful orchestra, hoping
to bring that same magical feeling to you all.
Heather
Stone
May 2015
April 2016
Taste Menu
(click image to enlarge)
Gerard Craft continued to shuffle Taste's
executive chefs. Russ Bodner, Stone's sous chef, took over in the
summer of 2016. By the beginning of 2018, Adam Guess was at the
helm. Guess had been sous chef at Brasserie in 2013. Matt Wynn, who had worked in the kitchens at
Niche and Sardella, replaced Guess in November of 2018, with Guess
heading south to assume the executive chef position at Pastaria
Nashville.
Russ
Bodner, 2017
Adam
Guess (left) and Matt Wynn, 2018
As Covid erupted in the first quarter of 2020,
Gerard Craft was one of the first St. Louis restaurateurs to react.
On March 16, 2020, he delivered a video message on Taste's Facebook
page.
After seeing nights
of very crowded dining rooms, I found myself more terrified than
relieved. While we want to be open for you as a place to
restore, we know that we are putting you and our employees in
harm’s way. All of the smartest people I know are saying that
the only way to slow or stop this pandemic is extreme social
distancing, and more importantly, self-quarantine. Effective
immediately, we will be closing all our restaurants until
further notice. This is extremely painful, but we know we’re
doing the right thing.
Taste did not reopen until June of 2021, with
limited hours and scaled back menus. The restaurant was closed on
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Signature plates, including the pork
burger, bacon fat cornbread and cheese curds, were still on the
menu, but there were fewer offerings to choose from. Elliott Brown
was appointed executive chef.
Summer
2021
Taste Menu
(click image to enlarge)
Things seemed relatively normal at Taste throughout the
summer and into the fall. Then, on October 27, Craft posted another
message on Facebook.
In 2009, with the
help of legendary bartender Ted Kilgore, Taste by Niche opened
and was quickly named one of the 10 Best New Bars in the country
by Bon Appétit magazine. These days, a Negroni is commonplace on
any restaurant’s drink menu, but in 2009 when Taste opened,
classic cocktails were rare. Late night food was also scarce,
and Taste was one of the few spots that offered refuge for the
post-11 pm diners seeking great food. It was the perfect era for
such a special place to thrive.
Now in 2021, after 12 years of
service, we are sad to announce that Taste by Niche has closed
its doors for good. Like so many others in our industry, the
past two years have led to countless pivots, and changes, and
while we were hopeful to usher in a new era of Taste when we
reopened in June, bouncing back was harder than we anticipated.
It may have been the pandemic which led to
Taste's demise. Or it may have been Craft's desire to move on from
the concept. The space would be reopened as Brass Bar, an extension
of the neighboring Brasserie by Niche.
Taste was a proving ground for countless
talented chefs and mixologists. It redefined "fine" dining in St.
Louis at a time when wine ruled the menus and fancy plated dishes
were the norm. If Taste is defined as its people and ethos, then it
didn’t really close — it merely got absorbed into the city’s
bloodstream.
