Review: Sanctuaria in St. Louis

Let’s get this out of the way right up front: Sanctuaria, while it has a bar and serves tapas, is not a tapas bar; that concept that still eludes St. Louis. Further, the “wild tapas” tagline is a hollow, albeit attractive, phrase that conjures up images of either feral small plates running amok or crazy interpretations of the traditional tapas concept. Let’s assume the latter.

If a sanctuary is a place to worship, then Sanctuaria is a place to revere the craft of mixing drinks and dishing out creative finger foods. Matthew Seiter is behind the bar and exhibits a talent beyond mere bartending, using small-batch spirits in cocktails like Ramos Gin Fizz, Pisco Sour and a stupendous Manhattan with bacon fat-infused bourbon (I’ll have mine with a side of Lipitor, please). He’s put together a tidy wine list, heavy on South American, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese reds, which is just fine. Christopher Lee (of the erstwhile, and missed, Melange) is behind the menu, just as he is at Café Ventana and the new Chuy Arzola’s. The restaurant itself, built around a motif of Día de los Muertos – skeletons, masks, leather wall coverings and other eerie artifacts – is much different, and more interesting, than the previous occupant, Agave. Be sure to look up in the restrooms.

It’s also a place where those small plates of – let’s call them fusion tapas – can rapidly get out of hand. Over two visits, a group of us plowed through 18 of the 24 items; that’s three-quarters of the menu at an average of $8 a pop. But the grilled lamb chop was certainly worth the $10.95 price tag: two smoked paprika-rubbed, charred-rare Colorado chops, their long, skinny rib bones dramatically sitting atop a salsa of warm Bosc pear and pine nuts. While sherry, the traditional beverage with tapas, is nowhere to be found in the glass (and that is odd), it does richen the raisin dipping sauce for the Cabrales Cigars, stuffed phyllo dough tubes turned “wild” with the stuffing’s piquant Spanish blue cheese and leeks.

The menu is categorized into cheese, soup, meat, vegetable and seafood, the last with only two offerings, neither of which is squid or octopus. But then again, this isn’t a real tapas bar, remember? There is shrimp – big tiger prawns sautéed in a spicy sauce living up to the plate’s Wicked Good moniker – and a plump crab cake accented with a spicy chipotle beurre blanc. It’s worth mentioning spiciness right about now because everything on the menu (well, 75 percent anyway) has a pleasant, consistent heat – not a blaring trumpet of fire, more like a subdued flügelhorn – showing an experienced, deft hand in the kitchen.

A trio of baked, pillowy Peruvian-inspired empanadas proved popular, the aji amarillo dipping sauce, made with a hotter-than-jalapeño­ yellow chile pepper paste used in Bolivian and Peruvian cooking, providing the proper contrast to the mild, creamy Chihuahua cheese and sweet, jammy guava filling. One, two, three, gone. The posole stew, thick with braised pork and hominy and more tomatoey than the traditional Mexican version, satisfied. The smoked St. Louis ribs with guava barbecue sauce failed to impress, mostly because ribs should be eaten right out of the smoker and the meat should not slide off the bone. Nor should the bone be chewy and pliable. The spicy, not-so-crispy garlic chicken suffered from too much time soaking in the bracing garlic-tomato sauce.

One of the more interesting items was Quinoa a la Doc’s Mom, a homey dish presumably referring to Dr. Gurpreet Padda’s mother. (Padda, along with Ami Grimes, owns Sanctuaria, Chuy’s and Café Ventana.) Roasted piquillo red peppers are stuffed with a heady mixture of quinoa, raisins and saffron and then baked in an equally heady sofrito, the Spanish version of tomatoes, garlic and onions slow-cooked in olive oil. In keeping with the locavore trend, there’s a weekly tapa using locally sourced vegetables; local turnips in a brown-butter macadamia sauce were a special treat one evening.

You don’t see a lot of desserts in tapas bars, but Lee churns out four nice ones. After stuffing ourselves on nearly the entire menu, there was only room for the three tiny chocolate cups filled with flourless walnut cake, chocolate ganache and cinnamon mousse, a combination that really doesn’t need any superlatives.

Observant readers will notice I’ve covered a mere 45 percent of the menu; there is so much more to explore (the vaca frita with chimichurri, with its simmered, shredded and flash-fried beef should be one). But don’t get too caught up in analyzing the food because you’re really there to drink and nibble, just like at a real tapas bar.

NEW AND NOTABLE

Don’t-Miss Dish: Grilled lamb chop with pear salsa, Quinoa a la Doc’s Mom
Vibe: Lively Day of the Dead-Gothic motif and live music geared toward hipster urbanites trolling The Grove.
Entrée Prices: $6.95 to $10.95
Where: Sanctuaria, 4198 Manchester Ave., St. Louis, 314.535.9700
When: Tue. to Fri. – 4 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., Sat. – 5 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., Sun. – 5 to 10 p.m.