Review: Smith and Slay's in Clayton

Editor's note: Smith and Slay's has closed.

David Slay knows what St. Louisans like in a restaurant. He serves large portions of gently spiced food, from good raw materials, with an elegant presentation. Surprise is rare on a David Slay menu. Unfamiliar flavors and textures are banished; few items demand much explanation from a talented, well-trained staff. Desserts are important.

He knows how to prepare meals in the French or Italian style. He has the rare ability to understand how to be trendy and familial at the same time, attracting the diner who wants to be seen in the hot spot, and the St. Louisan who wants dishes to be the same no matter how long it's been since they last were tasted. And he's been successful in his home town for a long time, at a number of locations, from fancy to falling-down.

I remember eating at his Hollywood restaurant some years ago. He was the L.A. wunderkind, and the simple storefront was popular and excellent, with an  L.A. menu that had just a couple of familiar phrases. "Many St. Louisans come in here?" I asked, and was not surprised when he replied, "Sure," adding, after oh-so-slight a pause, "and I can spot them immediately by what they order."

And that's the story of Smith & Slay's, where the chef and the shortstop have combined in an elegant new dining spot in a high-rise condominium-hotel, overlooking Shaw Park from the corner of Brentwood and Bonhomme in Clayton. Until it gets too hot, the balcony along the west side of the building will be a splendid place for a pre- or post-dinner drink – and for breakfast and lunch, as well. Meals are flavorful, the wine list is excellent (and practically out of sight at the top end) and dinner is a happy event, with dinner, before drinks, in the $40 range.  Desserts are mostly delicious.

The dining room, in cool blues and greens, benefits from the shadows of the late afternoon, and service is professional and slick.  In a slightly strange arrangement, rolling carts are used instead of trays or human arms to move plates from kitchen to table. It probably helps the serving staff, especially when dealing with private rooms upstairs, or rooftop parties, and there's nothing wrong, but it did appear a little odd and the carts' height caused some concern over back problems down the road.

A couple of daily specials bolster a menu that is heavy on steaks and chops (four of the former, two of the latter). There are meat, fish, poultry and pasta entrees, and some nice touches, like turning chicken and dumplings into something special by using sweet potatoes, or cranberry-jalapeno sauce for a turkey paillard, or a chili pepper-orange sauce for a pork loin, or fried green tomatoes with egg noodles and shrimp. Steaks and chops have a choice of sauces or toppings, though there's an extra two bucks for bearnaise.

The same old boring, sodden "seasonal vegetables" accompany almost everything, but on one visit, green squash and yellow squash seemed to be the only items in season. They had been drowned in butter and then cooked to eternal sogginess to ensure they did not rise up and bite an unsuspecting diner, and were the only totally unsatisfying dishes in a pair of visits, one when some almost out-of-control customers provided a show that could encore in Amsterdam almost any time.

Appetizers, both hot and cold, are almost completely seafood, with 10 of 12 dishes based on something that swims.  Barbecued chicken quesadillas and foie gras were the exceptions. But salmon tartare, with osetra caviar, served in a tortilla cone, were excellent, and so was sashimi sliced ahi tuna, in a salad with sprouts, tangy wasabi caviar and a variety of Asian greens. Charred scallops, wrapped in bacon and served with cilantro maple pesto, a delightful mix, were wonderful in every respect. Crab cakes were a disappointment, though I admit to being a hardhearted purist about the dish. The menu did not specify, but $11 crab cakes should be of lump crabmeat, and while the menu ignored the issue, a served assured us of their presence.  Well, there were a few lumps here and there (two or three per cake) but they were mostly claw or finger meat, tasty but not tasty enough and lacking in texture.

Chilled seafood cocktails, in various combinations, calamari and shrimp fritters round out the appetizer, which are accompanied by some rather cold, tasteless rolls. A wheat bread was better, but apparently had been baked with a minimum of salt, which tends to reduce the flavor.

Salads are interesting, with a Caesar available alone or with chicken or shrimp, a chopped Cobb salad that had excellent flavor and a good assortment of vegetables. There's also a retro wedge of iceberg lettuce with Maytag Blue cheese dressing, traditional mixed greens and an imaginative combination of grilled romaine with goat cheese, roasted pears and onion rings.

Steaks looked good as they went by the table, and a 16-ounce rib eye was a delight, tender and flavorful and cooked as requested. For all its good points, a rib eye is not a particularly beautiful cut, but flavor overcame that problem. Besides some inconsequential vegetables, though a couple of asparagus spears were included, a baked potato was acceptable, though extremely weary.

Roast chicken with sweet potato dumplings was exemplary. The crisp juicy chicken a splendid match for the tender, delicious dumplings, topped with a honey-lavender glaze that provided an idyllic dish. Thickly sliced, then roasted sweet potatoes, a natural with pork, came alongside the perfectly cooked pork shank; potatoes were roasted long enough so they started to caramelize, heightening the flavor, and the dish was glorious. Pan-fried chicken, stuffed with some goat cheese and topped with a tart lime sauce, also was tasty but a little dry.

The wine list is long, and the by-the-glass list includes a good variety of younger Callifornia wines, with a few Italian offerings added. They run from $5 to $10, and are mostly good values. The list of top bottles is extremely expensive at the high end, but there are some dazzling vintages and vineyards involved.

A pastry chef works in the mornings, and leaves some gems behind to fill up the dessert menu. Things are led by a magnificent "chocolate cupcake," with a texture somewhere between a brownie and a cake, and a mascarpone-cream filling so it looks like a giant Oreo cookie.  Add some splendid dark chocolate sauce on top, and a lot of whipped cream. Classic banana cream pie with an even larger pile of whipped cream, superior bananas chilled to perfection and a tasty crush make it a fine example of my favorite pie. Red currant bread pudding was satisfactory, but would have been better with the tang of currants.

And then there was the toasted angel food cake, fit for its namesakes.

The cake is covered with fresh berries, glazed in a variety of colors, and then macerated in a sauce that includes balsamic vinegar, which adds a flavor that super-sensitive St. Louisans may resist. The vinegar brings a hint of the aroma and flavor of fermenting fruit, but the fruit is not fermenting, merely enjoying.
A splendid repast.

Looking ahead, Slay continues to expand his empire, though it raises as many questions as it answers.
For example, Jerry Berger's column earlier in the week pointed out the incipient arrival, in the U City Loop-East, of Slay's City Grill, at 6154 Delmar Blvd., across the street from the Pageant Theatre, in a building being rehabbed as part of the area growing into Joe Edwardsville, Mo.

Berger predicts "comfort food" as the style at the City Grill.

Good, but that's exactly what he's serving at Zu Zu's Petals and at Smith & Slay's. We look forward to seeing how he expands the comfort-food envelope.