Review: Cielo Restaurant & Bar in St. Louis

At night, the first thing you notice when driving up to the Four Seasons Hotel – the sparkling luxury hotel sitting atop the equally upscale Lumière Place Casino – is the 650-foot ribbon of color emanating from the building’s illuminated tower, casting a fabric of light stretching up, over and down the edges of the hotel.

A hotel that lights up, cool. And glowing green for the St. Patrick’s Day parade even.

The first thing you notice upon entering Cielo – the contemporary Italian restaurant snuggled on the eighth floor of the hotel – is the warm lighting, huge windows overlooking downtown and stunning array of flowers flowing from a ginormous vase.

A restaurant with a view of the Arch, cool. Even if it is from the wrong side of the river.

It’s enough to make one forget that food was the reason for venturing out to the new multimillion dollar development on the north side of Laclede’s Landing – expensive food. Make no mistake, though; the food at Cielo (pronounced chee-eh-lo, Italian for sky) is very, very good. Headed by executive chef Karen Hoffman, the kitchen’s simple but elegant take on fresh fish, beef, lamb, pork, poultry and local ingredients makes for some beautifully prepared dishes. But even understanding that diners essentially rent space when eating out (because restaurants have fixed and fluid costs to cover), some of Cielo’s prices make it difficult to balance that mental value-to-price ratio we all have running in the background. And I’m no cheapskate.

Case in point: carpaccio. The aged, raw beef was delicious and wafer thin as it should be. But it was so thinly sliced that it practically melted on the fork, and its “house-cured” flavor was obscured by the caper and olive tapenade. In a Price Is Right moment, I compared the antipasti with other carpaccio I’ve eaten around town and decided that, while good, for $14 I want transcendent carpaccio. As we munched on an excellent salad of farm greens dressed in a white balsamic vinaigrette ($9) and Caesar salad with pancetta crisps with white anchovies ($11; disappointing, though, that the white anchovies were unavailable), that niggling little value-to-price voice again crept into our heads.

Then it dawned on us: This is the Four Seasons, and it is part of a casino development. Those two factors alone are enough to drive up prices a good 30 percent. Finally, a reason for $4 coffee, $28 chicken and $19 glasses of wine. Good service can assuage sticker shock prices; Cielo’s young staff is exuberant and friendly, if not overly eager, often exuding a charming nervousness. Our server during both visits knew her stuff, offering informed wine suggestions, detailing food descriptions and even describing how she makes her own peperonata. A server who takes her job seriously … always a good sign.

The peperonata that graced our homey-sounding $28 grilled Amish chicken was a fine example of the rustic Italian style, adding good flavor contrast to the crispy-juicy portion of the flavorful fowl resting atop braised fennel and baby carrots. Of course, pasta is represented. I’m a sucker for those big, wide, fat pappardelle and Cielo makes its own noodles, furthering the seduction with a reduction of braised veal cheek, broccoli rabe and lupini beans. The kitchen also makes its own gnocchi (along with ravioli – oxtail on my visits) and tops it with plum tomatoes and Genovese basil (the more flavorful variety) for a classic Northern Italian dish. (Two dry pastas were also available: garganelli with pancetta, Gorgonzola and spinach, and lobster risotto.)

Peeking over at the next table, we spied some mighty big seared sea scallops sitting in a pool of butternut squash purée and topped with caper-brown butter. Tempting as they were, I settled on the pan-seared wild striped bass ($28). The delicate white, moist fish was exceptionally fresh and clean tasting, allowing the pungent fig and saba reduction sauce to permeate the dense flesh. Served with crushed potato and grilled escarole, the dish was the perfect portion.

True to form, Cielo’s wine list is extensive, with 13 sparklers, 28 whites, 62 reds and two dessert wines from which to choose, representing mostly Californian and Italian districts. Fourteen half-bottles are offered, continuing a trend I like to see in restaurants. But don’t look for any values by the glass with prices ranging from $8 to $19. Pastry chef Christopher Jordan continues the kitchen’s knack for presenting the familiar in new ways, whether with chocolate-chip cannolis with pistachio gelato or a Fuji apple crostata in a flaky pastry with a small scoop of cinnamon gelato in the middle.

Restaurant prices are relative, and the last thing diners want is to leave an expensive restaurant feeling taken, or worse, hungry. That’s certainly not the case at Cielo. Besides, come spring, when the adjacent patio opens, you’ll pay anything for one of those poolside tables.