It takes a village! And St. Louis is a testament to that from the very early years in the 90's chefs like Cardwell, Gontram, and Vince Bommarito built a foundation that fast forward it to the past 8 years has taken St. Louis to a better place. We have incredible influx of talented chefs from Gerard Craft, Josh Galliano, Kevin Willmann, Chris Bolyard, Nate Hereford, Bob Zugmaier, Matt Olson to name a few.
With amazing farms, resources, BBQ (Mike Emmerson aka Pappy's), and food culture (2 local food magazine Sauce and Feast). St Louis has become a city with a village of talented and like minded folks.

I'm fairly new to my city, relatively speaking. I've been in St. Louis for about 6 years now, and that makes me new because there are true and solid restaurants that have been around for decades. And now, there are new players, from St. Louis and beyond, that are bringing in a great dynamic in the food scene.

As the American public has matured about food over the last decade, St. Louis has developed in a similar fashion but at a greater trajectory. What people around the country discovered a little later about farming, the St. Louis region had known for decades. This is a farming community with a great city hub, and that farming background has provided quality goods to restaurants and given an "anything can be grown" attitude to allow for even better and diverse goods to show up in restaurants.

The past few years has seen national trends adapted to St. Louis through food trucks, burger centric restaurants, and farm-to-table dining. Other trends have been incorporated into the St. Louis and Midwest restaurant lexicon to provide for a better dining experience, be it better drink programs, farm dinners, or craft beer.

I think the St. Louis dining scene had a small upheaval about 7 years ago when Larry Forgione opened An American Place, Kevin Nashan bought Sidney Street Cafe and Gerard Craft began Niche. There was a new intensity added to the St. Louis food community. That intensity continues today with an added fervor. Craft and Nashan continue to provide excellent, provocative food; now, there is more potential growing in St. Louis with a new flux of chefs and restauranteurs.

In the past, most young cooks worked their way around St. Louis restaurants before honing their skills in a bigger city, like Chicago or New York City. That trend continues, but now many chefs kind find challenges and hone their skills with great chefs in St. Louis. When these cooks stretch out on their own, we'll see another great intensity in St. Louis restaurants. We're about at that point with a number of well known chefs in St. Louis poised to open their own restaurants, like Wes Johnson, Ben Poremba, and John Griffiths. These new restaurants will spark more passion in St. Louis and provide another great foundation for an already vibrant food scene.

Chicago's culinary scene has really blossomed in the last ten years to become truly world-class. There have been three major contributors, and I think perhaps the most important of these is the inspiration and growth of the Green City Market and the local food movement. The prevalence of quality culinary schools has helped very much, and the contributions of talent mills such as Charlie Trotter's and Alinea are not to be overlooked. It's humbling for me to be a part of Chicago's restaurant scene, and I hope to do my part to keep raising the standards.

St. Louis has been on the rise for the past 7 or 8 years and it is starting to come to fruition. There is a good core group of great chef in all different cuisines pushing to create memorable food and draw attention to the Midwest as a whole. The passion, competition, and commaraderie in this city inspires me daily and is one of the biggest reasons that, as an outsider, I have stayed here for so long and made it my home. Chefs like Keving Nashan, Josh Galliano, Kevin Willman, Michael Petres, Adam Altnether, Nate Hereford, Qui Trang, and last but not least the BBQ Guru Mike Emmerson. There are many more as well. The connection between Kansas City and St. Louis has also been growing tighter bringing chefs like Jonathan Justus, Colby Garrelts, and Debbie Gold into our loop. St. Louis and its surrounding areas are home to some of the best ingredients in the country and we get to work with all of the amazing farmers and foragers to help really craft a new and interesting cuisine. Our area is still young as far as food scenes go but we are pushing hard and fast. STL pride is huge and we just want everyone else to come check us out so we can show them our midwest hospitality.

The state of Philadelphia's cuisine is going in a good direction. It has evolved from a lot of mediocre places and a few quality, to a lot more quality places.