Review: SqWires in Lafayette Square

When it comes to decor, SqWires reminds me of "Sweeney Todd," minus the Stephen Sondheim music. The high-ceilinged building on South 16th Street, just off Lafayette Square, is a former wire factory, and giant wooden spools from the old days, along with some super-sized fans, hang from the high ceiling. The original stage set showed the power, and the gloom, of the factory era. Here, we have "industrial chic," but it's effective.

The long, rectangular room runs east and west, with the bar and waiting area on the east side, tables to the west. A variety of music, from the guitar stylings of Leroy Pierson and Ken MacSwan to material at higher amplification, drifts from the east end, which also serves as a grocery store with a handful of tables for breakfast, coffee and snacks.

SqWires is a recent, quite popular addition to the downtown environs, adding a note of gaiety (and some apartments, too) to the Lafayette Square neighborhood, which has been an on-again, off-again food and drink destination since Jill Mead opened the old Park Avenue Café (later the initial Café Zoe) well more than a decade ago.

The menu is American modern, with a strong, tasty emphasis on fresh, well-prepared seafood and some good sides, though the positive effect of red cabbage and fine potatoes is diminished by too much of the same old carrot-zucchini-green bean melange disguised in menu-speak as a "vegetable medley."  As Mrs. Guru and I have noted on many occasions, Cole Porter it ain't. The menu is not all-encompassing, but certainly large enough to provide sufficient variety. It offers short ribs and lamb shanks, which fans of the particular dishes say they never see often enough, and a few specials supplement it. The menu looks as if it may change with the seasons, always a good idea and one that's especially good when real vegetables are ripening.

An entree of oyster stew is dazzling, a perfect dish for a winter evening or a lunch to brighten a gloomy day.  Rich and creamy, though with a permeating lightness, the bowl includes lots of oysters, plus well-cooked potatoes and carrots and a generous sprinkling of chives across the top. It's not quite up to the stew at the New York's Grand Central Oyster Bar, but it's excellent. The only drawback is that it is listed just as an entree and not as a potential soup course.

And speaking of something different on the St. Louis scene, SqWires also offers a "seafood plateau," the spectacular multi-tiered appetizer that the French call "plateau de fruits de mer." With a nod to American palates, Sqwires offers mostly oysters and shrimp, and a few other items like crab legs, mussels, scallops and such, and avoids the snails, periwinkles, cockles and other tiny shelled delicacies that Europeans devour happily. Still, the dish looks elegant, can be ordered for one or more and can be a real taste treat, especially with one of the sauvignon blancs or Sancerres that the wine list has by the glass.

Another high note at SqWires is the presence of clams as well as oysters on the half shell or in appetizer combinations. A variation on the New Orleans "oysters 2-2-2" involves a pair on the shell, a pair broiled under herbs and a pair topped with a rather sweet glaze. The Crescent City version includes two Rockefeller, two Bienville and two under a spicy red sauce, though that topping can vary with the chef's preference.

We prefer shellfish straight from the shell, with a heavy squirt of lemon and perhaps a drop or two of Tabasco or a ginger-influenced vinegar sauce. SqWires offered both Little Neck and cherrystone clams, a real rarity for a St. Louis restaurant. The former are smaller and more tender, but I like the hearty flavor of the latter and will accept the chewier texture. There also was a choice of two types of oysters, and there we went for the smaller Fanny Bay variety from the Pacific Northwest, also very tasty. I think that $9.95 for a half-dozen oysters or clams is outrageous, but my boyhood memory of a dollar a dozen can no longer be depended upon. For a splurge, however, these were welcome and outstanding, the oysters brimming with briny, ocean flavor and the clams, big and juicy and also serving as reminders of the sea.

Sancerre, by the way, from the Loire Valley of France, is the perfect oyster wine, with a crispness and lightness to complement the briny swimmers. Sancerre also dodges the heaviness of too many California chardonnays, which can easily overpower delicate oysters.

Mussels were tasty in a garlic-white wine-mussel broth sauce, but it tasted as though someone had been slightly over-generous with butter and over-economical with garlic. The potato pancake had pleasing crispness, was well-drained and with good potato flavor, and all the add-ons provided extra texture. Crab cakes were as unsatisfactory as far too many local restaurant crab cakes these days, showing little crab and a lot of other things. I think the ratio should be the other way round. However, enough people order them, eat them and like them to obviously place me in the minority.

Main courses were mostly very successful – besides the oyster stew, the eggplant involtini worked well to satisfy a vegetarian urge. Slices of eggplant were rolled around spinach, roasted red bell peppers and fontina cheese, all cooked in a nicely spiced tomato sauce. The result was excellent, and on the light side, with the roasted vegetables, and a handful of fresh green beans, benefitting from the hearty tomato sauce.

Pork tenderloin was properly cooked and quite tender, but short ribs were not as successful, with the rib portion not as carefully trimmed as it might have been, resulting in a texture of more gristle than desirable.

Grilled salmon, in a red wine sauce, was excellent, the fish cooked to the point where a little pink showed inside.  It was just enough to keep the large serving of fish pleasantly crisp, and both it and the yellowtail – a special one night – had seen just enough time over high heat to crisp the edges in delicious fashion.  

The salmon was advertised as being served over simmered leeks, but the only leeks I saw were a few grilled ones – good ones, too – sprinkled on top. The menu also spoke of roasted potatoes, and was right on the money with delicious chunks that were soft and creamy inside, a perfect accompaniment to the salmon. Yellowtail wore an Asian vinaigrette, judiciously applied, and rode on what were described as Asian beans, which turned out to be rather like barbecue-style baked beans with black beans and Asian spicing thrown in for a bonus.

The SqWires wine list is a delight, with moderate pricing and a large number by the glass.  Equally delightful is the fact that the list is not limited to the cabernet sauvignon-merlot-chardonnay axis, but has Californian, French, Italian and Australian varieties, including sauvignon blancs, pinot noir, real (red) zinfandel, shiraz and a number of other wines, both red and white, that are worth sampling. Buying by the glass is a chance to expand the horizon at minimal expense. Be sure and take notes.

We tasted a couple of Folie a Deux zinfandels, and a Honig sauvignon blanc that were good values and highly pleasing wines, in addition to the aforementioned Sancerre. Another bit of good news is a cheese plate, something seen on far too few menus in River City. The ample serving was mostly rather pedestrian, but did have several tasty – if standard – varieties. The fruit was pleasant, and I hope the idea is successful, because the selection and style can grow, and we'll all benefit.

The dessert list is short, led by ice cream and bread pudding, but the latter, of changing ingredients, was spectacular. On one visit, there was peach, and it was very good, but not exciting. On another, the waitress spoke of "tiramisu bread pudding." We couldn't get much more information from her (and torture remains forbidden in St. Louis dining rooms), but based on the first bread pudding, it was safe to try again, and we did. Well, we encountered chocolate, not a primary tiramisu ingredient but we didn't find much else that was very different from a chocolate bread pudding. Still, this was outstanding, with what we consider superior texture and flavor balance. It was a true winner.

Service was excellent, with servers who seemed to know their stuff, and management supervision that was on hand and available, but not intrusive. Teams of servers carry most dishes individually to the table, a nice touch and one that obviates large, intrusive trays. SqWires is the new hot place, so make reservations. It's nice to see another good destination restaurant in downtown St. Louis and its environs.