Kemoll's Chop House 7-10-2021

 A looooong time ago we used to like Kemoll's downtown.  It had the BEST location.  It had a restaurant on the ground floor and another section of it on the top floor.  The views of St. Louis and the Arch were wonderful.  The food was good.  The views remained, but the food waned over the years.

To try and fix their dwindling reputation, the Cusamano family decided to move and change the style of the restaurant.  Kemoll's Chop House in Westport Plaza is a combination steak house and Italian restaurant.  It is expensive for both styles of food.  There is not an entree on the menu that is under $45.  That is steep!  

Mike and I started with a cocktail and the meatball appetizer.  It was OK.  It was in their house meat sauce.  This tends to be a heavy, somewhat sweet meat sauce.  I had one meatball, Mike had a couple.  I think there were only 4 or 5 in the app.  We took the rest home  It was kind of heavy for an appetizer.

The wine list wasn't available online, so I had to do my research there.  Our waiter didn't see very knowledgeable about the wines, but we didn't do a lot of asking.  It seemed that one of the girls from the bar was in charge of all wine from the large wine cabinet in the dining room.  I don't know if she was a sommelier or not (our fault that we didn't even give her a chance).  We ordered a wine called Requiem.  It was a California cabernet.  It was good but not incredible.  

For dinner I chose the special of the evening, a sea bass on a bed on capellini pasta with a lemon butter caper sauce.  It was good but very rich.  The fish is buttery all by itself, but then to add butter, wine, capers and asparagus,  it was all too much.  The portion was quite large.  I ended up taking A LOT of it home.  It almost reminded me of restaurants like Maggiano's or Carmine's (both chains found in tourist areas) that charge you a lot for an entree but give you a large portion.  I wish they'd give you a small portion and charge you 1/2 the price!

Mike started with the house salad.  This was delivered with house garlic cheese bread.  I don't know that I really liked the bread.  It was kind of crunchy.

  

Then Mike had the veal parmesan.  The veal comes with a side of pasta.  The amount of food he got was kind of ridiculous.  The veal covered an entire dinner platter and then he also had a side of pasta.  He didn't even eat 1/2 of it.  He said the flavor was good and they used good, quality veal.  The house sauce was on the sweeter side.  He said it was sweetened with carrots, as they were in the sauce (little, tiny pieces).  

For dessert Mike got the ice cream cake...it was very much like what you get from Dairy Queen, only larger.  I got creme brulee.  It was good, but it was too much.  It could have been better if it was smaller and had a few berries on top to contrast the sweet cream taste.  

So, that's the ongoing thing with Kemoll's...the food is good, but all the portions, including the desserts are too big and thus too expensive.  

It was a nice place.  There was a guy at a piano who was entertaining and kind of fun to have in the room.  People would make requests from time to time.  

We enjoyed ourselves, but I don't know that we'll be back any time soon.