Buzzetta's in Chesterfield 11-14-25

 This place is still about a 4/5 stars.

We were on our way to the Fox and needed a place we knew well and knew how to get into and out of in about 90 minutes.  We chose Buzzetta's Italian Cafe in Chesterfield.  There food is pretty good.

We had a reservation at 5.  They must open at 4 as there were several tables already eating when we arrived.

When we arrived they tried to seat us at a hightop tables.  I don't like hightop tables...they make my legs hurt.  Mike asked if we could sit at a regular table (which were set for 4 people).  The seating hostess said she'd have to check.  This didn't sit to well with Mike...either let us make reservations and ask us if we want a high top, or allow some parties of 2 sit at regular tables.  We did get a regular table in the end. 

We started with a cocktail.  Recently I have been on a quest to find places that have a cosmo as good as Cafe Napoli.  This one was NOT as good.  It was strong on the vodka and thus not perfect

Mike got his typical gin and tonic. 

For dinner I asked for the eggplant parm appetizer with a side of cappelini pasta with red sauce.  I got the appetizer, but I got penne pasta...not horrible, but not what I asked for.  Since we were going to the Fox, Mike didn't want to split a whole bottle of wine, so I got a glass of Sebastiani.  It was good

Mike asked for the chicken parm (he would have preferred veal) with a side of cappelini with red sauce (he was supposed to get green beans, but he wanted to substitute pasta).  He too got the penne.  

Overall the food is good.  The ambiance is nice.  The waiter was good.  It is a nice place without having to go all the way into St. Louis.  

The Gin Room 10-18-2025

 I would give this place a 4.5/5 just because the food menu is so sparse.

Mike is a gin lover.  He likes old style gin...the kind that tastes and smells like a Christmas tree.  It is actually the smell of juniper berries off those trees that is used in the making of gin.

I like gin...it is OK.  I like drinks that have gin in them but would rather not taste the gin.

I had read this article about Natasha Bahrami and The Gin Room and knew it was a place Mike and I needed to see.  She is a fountain of knowledge on all things gin.  

So, when I made our reservations I made sure to make them "at the bar."  We were lucky enough to have her be there when we were there and she did the explaining on Mike's "gin flight."  

They had a variety of 5 gins laid out before we began, but as she found out more about Mike and the fact that he doesn't like "botanicals" in his gin, and the fact that he can't drink grapefruit juice...even in gin because he is a transplant recipient...she kept changing her choices.  The variety of their gins is massive.  

She explained all the different varieties.  Mike discovered that he liked the "London Dry" variety but we LOVED the story behind the "Old Tom" variety.  Apparently during prohibition people in the gin making world (Scotland, mostly) would put out a sign with a black can on it.  There was a pipe that came out of the building somewhere...an unassuming lead pipe that could look like an old drain pipe.  If you walked up to it and said something like "puss" or "mew mew" there was a response back like "mew mew" and then a shot of gin would come out.  That tom cat is how they developed the "Old Tom" variety!  She also talked about "bathtub" gin like Miss Hannigan had in the musical "Annie."  Those were so toxic and made with such bad ingredients that they flavored them with annis (licorice) and other flavors and that is when flavored gin began.  

While Mike was tasting all these different gins, I was having some amazing gin drinks.  The first one was called the Icelandic Pear.  It had moroccan mint tea, brandy poached pear, cardamom, lemon and gin in it.  It was super yummy.  

Then I tried a classic gin gimlet made with fresh lime juice.  It was nice and sour and great.  

So, we looked and looked at the menu.  There was no beef dishes.  There was one pork chop dish, one fish dish, and a morrocan meatball appetizer but nothing that really sounded like something Mike would like.  So, we ordered the meat and cheese platter.  It was good...2 different meats, 3 cheeses, some crostini bread, jam, very vinegary whole grain mustard and some green tomatoes.  

Natasha made Mike a lovely "gin tonic" as she called it...not a gin and tonic.  And I finished with something called a "Cinnamon."  It had cardamom tea cordial, lemon, atomiced spiced rum, smoked cinnamon, gin and St. George spiced pear liquor.  It was like a dessert and just the right finish.  

If you are looking for a fun place to go and try a drink or two or three.  I would totally recommend Natasha and her big brain!  Sit at the bar and try some great drinks.  

Napoli Kirkwood 10-16-25

 I would give this place a 4/5

We had to run to Kirkwood to look at cabinet colors.  So, instead of sitting in rush hour traffic on the way home, we decided to have an early dinner in Kirkwood.

We knew Napoli had their newest restaurant here, but we've never been here.  It is in the bottom of The James apartment building.  The parking is confusing.  The Alpine Store has a big lot north of the restaurant but you aren't supposed to park there (even though that is where Google maps takes you) you are supposed to park in a lot south of the building.  We parked in the wrong place.

The menu is essentially the same as Napoli Cafe in Clayton and Napoli II in Town and Country.  

I started with their ever so yummy cosmo.  I don't know how they make their cosmos but they are the best anywhere.  I think it has to do with real lime juice and a lot of it.  Mike had a beer.

We weren't in the mood for full on entrees, so I got the eggplant appetizer and Mike got a pizza.  I wasn't going to take photos, but I decided to...after we'd already started eating.  

The sauce is the same as it is at the other places, but the eggplant was breaded heavier and fried more.  It was more greasy and gave me more indigestion than the other places.  It still tasted good, but the breading wanted to fall off it as you ate it and it was harder to tasted the eggplant and not just breading.  

Mike liked his pizza. The waitress talked about how they have these amazing European pizza ovens and Napoli has one in Kirkwood and one in Chesterfield valley.  We've been to the Napoli in the valley and they like the pizza with the "char" on it.  I know some people like that added flavor of charred crust and cheese.  Mike doesn't...he thinks it tastes burnt.  So, the fact that this place DIDN'T take the pizza to that dark level made him happy.  

The inside of this new restaurant was sleek and modern.  The floor is a polished cement with wild paint splatters on it.  The light fixtures are wire and gold.  It was sleek but not my favorite feeling for an old style Italian.  I would say it is not as nice as the Clayton restaurant but on the same level as the Town and Country one.  It is nicer than Chesterfield, which is open kitchened and louder.  

This was a nice place, but if we want Napoli food, we will probably go to Clayton or Town and Country first.  

Cafe Provencal in Kirkwood 10-11-25

 This place is always a solid 4/5 for French food. 

There are only a few French restaurants that we go to in the STL area (La Floraison, La Bonne Bouche, and Cafe Provencal).  

Cafe Provencal is very busy at 5 pm on nights that Stages St. Louis has a show nearby.  There was a line waiting out front waiting for the restaurant to open.

We told our waiter that we were going to the Fox and had a little more time than some of the other nearby patrons. 

We had a little weirdness with the cocktails.  Like I said, there were A LOT of people who all arrived at the same time.  We were sitting outside, but so were about 10 other tables.  Our waiter came with a bunch of drinks on a tray.  He gave Mike his gin and tonic, but gave my vodka collins to a guy at the next table, who took a drink and then said "this isn't right."  Our waiter took it away.  I knew that that had been my drink.  He came back out in just a few minutes with my drink in a different style glass.  Mike said he wondered if he just took the guy's straw, tossed it and poured the drink in another glass.  That was kind of a gross thought.  I drank it anyway.  

I started with the escargot.  I have only had them one other time in my life and I wanted to try them again.  They are good, but really you could put almost anything in that garlic, parsley butter and bake it and it would be good.  It is also kind of crazy to pay something like $16 for 6 bites of snail.  Now that I've had them, I won't need to have them again for a long time. 

Mike started with their classic French onion soup.  It is always good.  

Mike wasn't in the mood for wine, so I ordered a glass of Crocus Malbec.  They had 6 red wines by the glass and I used my Vivino app and went through every one of them.  5 of them kept saying "This would not be a good choice for you."  Thank goodness this one said it was a good match.  It was fine.  

For dinner Mike ordered the steak frites.  It was a steak with some roasted veg and fried shoestring potatoes.  The potatoes were too fried and there were too many of them.  But the steak and veg were really cooked properly.  Mike said it was good overall. 

I ordered 2 appetizers for my entree.  I got the French onion soup and crab cakes.  I should have only ordered the soup.  I ate the soup and then I ate the salad that came with the crab cakes and I ended up taking the crab cakes home.  

You can't go to a French restaurant and not do dessert.  Mike and I shared a profiterole with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce.  It had a variety of berries on the side.  It was more than enough for the two of us and it was lovely.  

We enjoy this restaurant and its French faire.  

Peno-Southern Italian Soul Food in Clayton 10-4-25

 I would give this place a 4/5

This little area at the corner South Hanley and Wydown is the home to several very good restaurants (Akar, Wright's Tavern, Bistro La Floraison).   The problem is...there is NO parking for any of them.  Just around the corner on Westwood Drive is Peno.  It is in a little strip mall and doesn't look like much, but it is a nice, well-managed place.

Peppe is the owner/chef and he's hands on.  We saw him several times talking to regulars at other tables.  People come in and don't look at the menu, they just talk to Peppe.  

It was a lovely evening and we chose to sit outside.  There were probably a dozen tables outside under an awning.  Since we were on an off street the outside noise was low.  It was nice.  

We sat by a couple who had been coming here for 8 years.  They love Peppe and his food. 

The patrons seem to be a mix of local people from the Clayton area and others from farther away, like us. 

We started with cocktails.  Mike got his typical gin and tonic.  I tried the pepperoncini-martini from the menu.  I had had one at Napoli Sea a year and a half ago and it was really zingy.  This one wasn't near as good.  It didn't have the twang of the pepperoncini and there seemed to be something that was oily floating on the top layer of the drink.  I wouldn't recommend it. 

We ordered some toasted smoked mozz bites.  What came were some fried cheese squares.  There was a slight smokey taste to them.  They were fine but nothing awesome. 

We always struggle when a restaurant only has "Old World" wines, since we prefer California cabernets.  We did an ok job with this Nobile de Montepulciano.  It was good and went well with our food.  

I heard Peppe telling someone at another table that their octopus and eggplant were 2 of their specials.  I would like either, so I went with the eggplant.  It had been shaved thin on a mandolin and then almost layered like lasagna.  It was good and it had plenty of sauce.  It had a side of pasta with mushrooms on the side. 

Mike got pasta with sausage and meatball.  He said he liked the homemade sausage, it was good.  But he said we've had better meatballs at other places.  I really like the meatballs on Mamma's on the Hill.  

The food was good but not great.  I said that if I wanted eggplant, I would go to Napoli every time.  If we want meatballs, we'll got to Mamma's on the Hill.  

It was a lovely evening and nice sitting outside, but the food was not outstanding enough to make us return.  

Esca in the Delmar Makers District 9-13-25

 I'd give this small restaurant a 4/5

OK, full disclosure, I'd never heard of the Delmar Maker's District.  It is just an area on Delmar east of the Pageant.  Right now it is VERY close to all the demolished homes from the May 16, 2025 tornado.  

So, Ben Poremba is the chef/owner of 3 restaurants on Delmar: Esca, Nixta and Florentin.  Each is a different style of restaurant.

Esca is geared toward Mediterranian food.  The restaurant is very small.  The inside only holds 12 tables.  There is a nice patio with another 8-10 tables, but on the night we visited, it was 95 degrees outside, so most people were inside. 

Mike and I both commented that the menu may be Mediterranian, but there really is nothing inside that distinguishes the space as any specific type of food.  It is just a typical city restaurant in a fixed up old building...wood floors, exposed brick.  The semi-open kitchen is nice.  Mike enjoyed watching the dessert station.  

We started with cocktails and an order of their signature bread and butter (which you have to order and pay for, by the way).  Then Mike ordered a salad.  We ended up splitting this as it was actually too big for one person.

They have a sommalier who we think was also in charge of some other aspect in the kitchen most of the time.  He did come out and present our wine.  Speaking of the wine...their wine list is all French and Italian.  We ordered an Italian whose region we were familiar.  It was fine.  It just would have been nice to have a regular old Californian cabernet. 

For dinner Mike ordered the special, which was lasagna.  It was a very pasta forward lasagna.  There were about a dozen layers of pasta!  There was meat (beef and sausage) in there and there was ricotta cheese, but there was almost no sauce.  Maybe it had all been absorbed by all that pasta.  Mike said it was good.  I would have needed a lot more sauce.  

I got the grilled octopus entree.  It is served with chickpeas, celery, oregano and chili spices.  It had an celery/olive oil drizzel on the plate.  The octopus was very good.  It had been grilled well and wasn't chewey at all.  The rest of the dish didn't have a lot of flavor and there wasn't much to it.  I liked the dish but yearned for a more substantial side dish. 

After dinner we each decided to get dessert.  Because the restaurant is small we had been very near to a singular girl who dined alone and then had 2 desserts at the end because she couldn't decide which one she wanted.  Both of her desserts looked good, so we decided to each get something and not split one. 

I got an olive oil cake with strawberries that had been masurated in balsamic vinegar. There was a quenelle of a sweet almost frosting like substance on top. It was also topped with fresh cracked black pepper. It was really yummy.  The cake was a little dry but the strawberries really helped with that. 

Mike had an ice cream sundae with cocoa nibs and chocolate sauce. 

 

Overall this was a nice dinner.  The food was interesting but not amazing enough to make us feel like we need to come back.  The menu is very small and doesn't seem to change that often.  

Also, on a side note, they add 16% to the bill for an automatic tip and then ask you to please add more.  Just a little pushy.  

Sam's Steakhouse on Gravois in St. Louis 9-5-25

 I would give this place a 4 out of 5.  

We went to Sam's for Mike's birthday.  He wanted steak.  We were seated in the "Piano Bar" section of the restaurant.  Since the full title of the restaurant is Sam's Steakhouse and Piano Bar I guess they believe most people want to be in the piano bar part of the room.  Mike said he wished we would have just been in the regular dining room.  I'll have to remember and ask for that the next time.  

At about 6:30 (we arrived at 6:15) a guy began singing (not overly loudly) in a corner to music coming from a computer...so I don't even think that really qualifies as "piano bar."  LOL  It is louder in this part of the restaurant because there are quite a few people crowded around the bar. 

There were 2 bartenders who also were the wait staff for this section of the restaurant.  Ava, our waitress was nice, but also had to constantly rush back to the bar and do her bartender duties.  

We had cocktails and Mike ordered the sampler appetizer.  I ate the crab cake (it was very good and full of crab) and Mike ate the rest (cajun shrimp and toasted ravioli.  

When we order wine we used to order more worldly wines...French, Italian, Australian, South African.  But in the past 10-15 years or so, we've really honed in on only American/Californian cabernets.  Years ago we were fascinated by a wine called Chateauneuf du Pape and the whole story behind it.  It was when the Pope's residence moved years ago (for a short time) to the Rhone Valley in France.  That is why they can call it that name.  Fifteen or more years ago we couldn't afford this wine, so we always passed for something cheaper.  Well, tonight we saw it on the wine list and it was about the same price as the cabernet we would have ordered.  So, we ordered it. 

It was fine, but it wasn't as good as the cabernets we've been drinking recently.  It has a nice taste, but it has no complexity and absolutely no finish.  It was nice with dinner, but not worth the price.  Oh, well, now we can say we've had this wine and go back to our cabernets.

We each had a salad.  They were nothing exciting.  The croutons were house made and a little greasy.  They also didn't have a very wide variety of salad dressings.  Mike wanted honey mustard and ended up with plain old Ranch. 

For dinner Mike had the filet with a baked potato.  He said the filet was nicely cooked but it was awfully small for the price we paid. 

I had the sea bass.  It must have been lightly floured and then seared as there was a crust on it.  I was afraid that it would be dry because you have to cook it for a few minutes to get that crust, but it wasn't. It came on a bed of tasteless spinach.  I, too, had baked potato.  

Obviously we like this place as we have returned 6 or 7 times over the years.  It is not perfect and the food is a little overpriced, but it is a nice steakhouse if that's what you are looking for.