Kain Tayo in Midtown St. Louis offers Filipino favorites

Sauce 75: the essential St. Louis restaurants right now

Sauce’s No. 8 Best New Restaurant of 2023, Kain Tayo (“let’s eat” in Tagalog) is the latest local eatery winning St. Louisans’ hearts and stomachs over to the cuisine of the Philippines. The Midtown restaurant offers a menu of traditional, comforting favorites like lumpia (egg rolls filled with pork, onions, carrots and celery with sweet chile sauce on the side), pancit (stir-fried rice noodles with pork and various veggies) and the unofficial national dish of the Philippines: chicken adobo (tangy chicken marinated in soy sauce and vinegar and served over rice). For those who want to dive a bit deeper into the cuisine, the restaurant also has dishes like sinigang, a sour pork soup, and pinakbet, a pork and shrimp stew chock full of squash, okra, eggplant, tomato and more. All of this deliciousness comes courtesy of chef-owner Sally Arcega. Before relocating their restaurant to Midtown, the Arcega family had been cooking up faithful Filipino flavors in Trenton, Illinois since 2019. They moved to St. Louis to bring their food to a bigger audience, and we’re so glad they did.

2700 Locust St., St. Louis, 314.396.2110, kaintayostl.com

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The Sauce 75 is a photomosaic of the best in St. Louis dining in 2024. This list is a celebration of the diverse skills, techniques and culinary traditions that meet across our region. In sum, it tells a story about where St. Louis has been, where it is now and where it’s going next. Many great and good St. Louis restaurants have not made the cut. (Seventy-five is a lot fewer than you think!) Restaurants are constantly growing and evolving and go through ups and downs. Newly opened restaurants can take time to find their feet: There are a few exciting new places we’re cheering for, but which we feel haven’t yet fully hit their stride. Read the entire list here.