St. Louis Restaurant of the Year

Just a few weeks ago, I blogged about trading some interior stock shooting time in a local restaurant for me, for some interior photos for them.  The restaurant was Stone Soup Cottage in Cottleville, Missouri.  At the time of the latter shooting, we also set up a rough date for me to use the exterior of the building as a background for a new series of stock images.  And, there’s some great news in the air…

Well, I went over, several days early, to check the light in the area, and the Owner/Chef Carl McConnell, informed me that Stone Soup had just been announced as the Restaurant of the Year by St. Louis Magazine.  Congratulations!  This foodie experience is certainly taking the city by storm.  My wife and I celebrated the announcement by enjoying our anniversary dinner there two days after my stock shoot (see below).  Our dinner rivals that of the 5 star Victoria and Albert’s restaurant in Orlando, at Walt Disney World.

If you’re into these explorations into cuisine, like we are, you can see the menu we enjoyed, here.  Chef McConnell started us off with an amuse bouche, a treat before the meal, of a small crab cake, which went well with our champagne.  The rabbit consomme was rich and clean, with bits of meat to enjoy.  The chef tries to source most things locally, but I believe the game came from another state.  A Parmesan crisp on top of the butternut squash souffle gave great contrast to the sweetness of the squash, and I want to say there was a touch of honey there.  The ginger sauce on the blackened salmon in the next course was just wonderful – you wanted to lick the plate to not miss a bit.  The white truffle on the risotto lent a touch of earthiness and I enjoyed my first turnip with the short rib course.

A surprising treat was the butter accompanying the warm bread.  It was filled with basil and marigold!  We were told it was an edible marigold harvested right outside the restaurant.  The floral scent was intriguing encased in the butter.  Yum!

Our co-diners at the table across from us, there for the first time, couldn’t stop exclaiming how much they were enjoying the meal.  Apparently, they were from more towards St. Louis, and couldn’t believe they were having such a meal “across the river” (it’s a St. Louis class thing) :).

Anyways, here’s a preview of the series shot a few days before the dinner.  I’ve got some great new mature adult models, as well as some models I’ve shot with before (also great) in various ‘shopkeeper’ themed settings.  I’ll do a proper write up on these in a week or two.

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