stlbites.com – st. louis food blog of bill burge

Newstead Tower Public House Blurb

Jan 18, 2008 beer, chefs, farming, restaurants, sustainable agriculture

Nobody seems to have gone to Newstead Tower Public House but me so I thought I’d briefly comment. Forgive the haphazard style.

As Annie said over on the forum, the first thing you notice when you head into Newstead is that the bar is non-smoking. This is a huge bonus as the older I get the more I just can’t take the smoke and it’s nice to find a place I might be able to hang out for a while.

And hanging out is something you’re bound to do at Newstead because it’s a comfortable space with huge windows and warm wood all around. with an old style wooden bar down the Western wall, the bar area has the same dual TVs as Five, but here it’s not a strange addition to a fine dining spot and instead is a necessary addition to what is essentially a pub — but clean!

The beer selection is fair. As Mike commented, overall it’s a pretty ho-hum list for a place that’s claiming gastropub, and although it’s been a month since I’ve been I recall seeing the following on draught:

• 5-Day, Smoke Porter, and Wheat from O’Fallon
• Pale Ale and Hefe from Schlafly
• Lunar, Bully Porter, Wheat from Blvd
• Bud Select, Stella from AB

I’m sure that’s not 100%, but you get the drift.

In bottles, although they had a few, the only thing I recall seeing was a La Fin Du Monde.

And take note you restaurants that don’t have a good beer selection. If that’s the token Belgian style beer a restaurant adds to their menus, that’s fine by me. It’s one of the best bang for your buck beers you can find and, if you add only it, although the beer snobs of the world will still be unsatisfied with your overall list, they’ll at least be happy your token Belgian was not Delirium.

As for food I only ate two things one of which was simply okay and the other very good.

The okay dish was the Welsh Rarebit. I’m not sure it’s something that can really be elevated to something more than okay. Absolutely nothing was wrong with it, but then it’s really just a cheese sauce. It was oozy and rich as it should be and tasted exactly as you would expect.

My entrée was a pork loin sandwich which was very good. The pork was of noticeably higher quality than what you’d normally get, and I appreciated that they’d sliced it really thin instead of the thick chewy slices of your typical grub and suds type places.

My favorite thing was actually the chips that came with the sandwich. Instead of the thick cut ones you typically get they were thin and crisp like Lays; only house made, and salty.

As I ate at the bar I spoke to another guy who had gotten the trout with shaved fennel, baby greens, boiled potatoes and coriander vinaigrette and it looked very good. He confirmed that he enjoyed it and after discussing his favorite restaurants with him (Niche and Atlas) I’d think his opinion is accurate.

One thing I was pleased to see was that they are using chicken from Benne’s Best. It’s a farm in St. Charles, literally behind a sub-division off of highway 94, and they’re great people who deserve the business.

In comparison to Five I like this restaurant better.

Although I’ve only dined at Five two times I felt like the food fell a little short of where they were aiming.

At the time they had made spinach soup, and if you’ve ever seen the color that spinach turns when it cooks for a long time, you’d know that it’s pretty unappetizing. Certainly not what you’d expect in a fine restaurant, when Anthony Devoti asked me how it was, it was one of the few times I had to be honest and said something along the lines of “it tastes really good, but the color is rather unfortunate isn’t it?” He agreed, and doing so he never should have served it.

My main qualm with Five is that the two times I went were a Wednesday and literally that very same Saturday. For a restaurant that claims they change their menu daily, only one or two things had, and as they also tout their use of local ingredients, I found the lack of summer in their menu especially troubling considering it was June.

You see a lot of chefs these days that shoot for a very high mark and the reality is that some are better suited at kicked-up comfort food. And that’s not meant to be an insult in any way because for most people that’s the kind of food they eat most often.

So as the foie gras eaters of the world are drastically outnumbered by the burger clan, and I’ve no doubt the locally sourced Fruitland Farms grass-fed beef is outstanding, I think Newstead will last a very long time as Devoti is filling a void by providing a more relaxed menu that is still cooked at a high level, and with an emphasis on sustainability that is rarely seen in a pub.

Tags: Anthony-Devoti, Five-in-the-Grove, Newstead-Tower-Public-House