Review: Scape in St. Louis

It’s amazing what you can learn from a bartender. Even better if the bartender is actually a well-informed manager standing in for an AWOL bartender. Recently, while eating at the bar at Scape, I queried the “bartender” about the recent changes at the goofily named restaurant on the multimillion dollar refurbished section of Maryland Plaza between Kingshighway and Euclid in the Central West End.

There was lots of buzz last fall when Levy Restaurants – as in St. Louis native Larry Levy, the Chicago-based mega-restaurateur – and television magnate Ted Koplar partnered to open Scape. Yet something about the restaurant didn’t click with St. Louis diners. Cursed by its own hubris, there just wasn’t enough about Scape to justify entrées nudging 40 bucks. But as I learned from the bartender, the old Scape wasn’t the casual bistro it was supposed to be. It’s like when upper management doesn’t communicate a good idea, leaving underlings to interpret and execute; never a good thing. The good news is that nine months later, that original casual bistro concept is finally out of committee.

Scape (along with Crêpes Etc. next door) is no longer a Levy restaurant; chef Eric Kelly – who designed the original pricey menu – left the corporation, and Chicago, to personally run the kitchen, revamp the menu and lower prices. In short, Kelly is now free to put his personal stamp on the place. Things that didn’t work – piped-in satellite radio, stuffy formality, overpriced meals – were eighty-sixed and as of May 1, Scape was reshaped.

The first notable difference in the menu is, well, the menu. Gone is the unwieldy, heavy, trifold menu – the type that made you think “fancy” or “expensive” – in favor of a casual-looking one-page paper menu easily adaptable to the seasonal availability of local ingredients. The Plates du Jour section, offering nightly specials like chicken and dumplings, meatloaf, and a chicken and morel crêpe, is a smart addition, further deflating the formal image.

The grilled skirt steak dinner I ate at the bar was one of the $20 Tuesday selections, another smart addition and another way Scape distances itself from the old business plan. Fries (or “pommes frites” in bistroese), a salad of crisp field greens (though mine was overdressed and too tart) and chimichurri sauce accompanied the strip of tender marinated steak. Not a bad deal, given that the salad is usually à la carte. Wine by the bottle is also discounted on Tuesdays (typically the slowest night in the restaurant business), with bottles up to $30 available for $20. While there is nothing remarkable in that range, I would have been happy to save $5 on a bottle of Four Vines Zinfandel were I not dining alone.

Speaking of the wine list, Scape’s transition from old to new means a wine cellar in flux as stock turns over. Hopefully, that means the wine list will be restructured with more interesting selections in the lower to mid-price range. Also, there is simply no reason for $8.95 glasses of commonly available wine like 14 Hands Merlot or Blackstone Pinot Noir.

Those familiar with the former Scape will notice dishes like lamb, lobster roll, Aqua Pazza (the poached fish dish) and gnocchi Bolognese are missing. They will also notice that the chicken Mattone remains, but the chicken schnitzel is new: a flattened boneless breast breaded, fried and topped with a house-made applesauce (actually a salad made from julienned apple, baby greens and toasted pumpkin seeds), all supported by warm, thick, vinegary slices of potato. It’s not that the dish was unappealing, just uninspired. The mahi mahi – a more engaging dish – was a very fresh piece of the meaty fish, pan-roasted simply and splashed with a preserved lemon-butter sauce. Cauliflower couscous and ratatouille vegetables served as equal accompaniments to the savory yet sublime dish.

There are a lot of appetizers – 11 in all – including steak tartare, a delicious mélange of chopped raw beef, white truffle and red onion topped with deep yellow organic egg yolk. For dessert, the tower of ice cream cones labeled as Gelato Cone-a-Copia, while tempting, looked too overwhelming even if it is meant to be shared, as suggested by the menu. What worked for us at the end of one meal were the bananas Foster-stuffed crêpes. There was no tableside show of flaming bananas, thankfully, but the crêpes arrived plumped with vanilla bean gelato and bananas sautéed in dark rum.

With nearly a year under its belt, Scape is practically an adolescent in restaurant years, complete with all the associated growing pains. And the music is much better now; it comes from chef Kelly’s iPod. It’s amazing what you can learn from a bartender.