Niche offers innovative and simple food, fresh seasonal ingredients, and a beautiful presentation. The menu changes frequently. Whether you are looking for a full and exquisite dining experience, or just a glass of wine and a "nosh", Niche is the place. We offer a three course dinner for $30, several items to nosh on for under $10, and reasonably priced wines.
 

News on a second Gerard Craft restaurant
By joe bonwich P-D restaurant critic and food writer 08.01.2008

After yesterday’s debunked rumor about Gerard Craft possibly opening another restaurant in the former Melange space, Gerard was kind enough to check in and elaborate on the state of his expansion plans.

“We’re actually still looking,” Craft said, “but it’s been really important for me for the next place that we don’t just jump into it.”

Craft added that the Melange space had been under consideration, and that he’d originally started looking in Clayton in his search for a second space. “We’ve looked all over the area, but as the search has gone on, our best choices have actually been getting closer and closer to my doorstep (Niche’s current location on Sidney Street in Benton Park),” Craft said. “This neighborhood has done a lot for us, and I really don’t want any new place to be very far away.”

Craft said that he intends for any new restaurant to be more casual than Niche.

 

New York, NY (April 3, 2008) — Who are America’s next superstar chefs? Food & Wine Editor in Chief Dana Cowin today announced the magazine’s highest honor, the Food & Wine Best New Chef award, for 2008. This highly coveted award, launched in 1988, identifies up-and-coming chefs in America who are innovators with a distinct culinary style and vision creating exceptionally delicious food. The 2008 winners will be featured on the cover in the July issue and profiled as part of a 20th-anniversary package on foodandwine.com.

“Food & Wine has been scouting extraordinary chefs for the past two decades, and I expect this year’s winners to make us as proud as any of the chefs who have preceded them,” says Cowin. “These great cooks come from all around America, from California to Missouri to Vermont, and I’m excited to introduce them to a national audience. They are incredible talents.“

2008 F&W Best New Chefs
 

Food & Wine finds our Niche!

Food & Wine magazine has named Gerard Craft, executive chef and co-owner of the Benton Park restaurant Niche one of its ten Best New Chefs for 2008. Craft is the first St. Louis-based chef to receive the honor, which has been awarded since 1988. Previous winners include such noted chefs as Daniel Boulud (Daniel), Thomas Keller (the French Laundry and Per Se) and Tom Colicchio (the restaurant Craft and co-host of Bravo's Top Chef).

Food & Wine says the award "identifies up-and-coming chefs in America who are innovators with a distinct culinary style and vision creating exceptionally delicious food."

Craft learned the news a month ago. "I thought one of the other chefs was playing a joke on me," he tells me by phone from New York City, where Food & Wine honored this year's Best New Chefs with a celebrity-chef-studded party in their honor.

The magazine swore Craft to secrecy, which he admits was difficult: "I have a big mouth."

While the news did remain a secret, obsessive observers of the St. Louis dining scene might have suspected that the stars were aligning for Craft. Food & Wine editor-in-chief Dana Cowin dined at Niche a few months ago and mentioned the restaurant in the "Where I'm Coming From" sidebar to her editor's letter in the magazine's February 2008 issue. (She had the pappardelle with smoked pork shank.)

The exceptionally modest Craft says his staff at Niche "were the ones who got [the award] for me."

"I consider myself to be extremely lucky," he says. "There are so many [chefs] better than me. They all deserve to be recognized. Hopefully, this will give a boost to the St. Louis dining scene."

Josh Galliano, chef de cuisine at An American Place, agrees: "It's awesome for St. Louis."

Galliano believes the award will let Craft and Niche represent St. Louis' contemporary dining scene to the rest of the nation. "People can look beyond the St. Louis specialties," he says. "There's nothing bad about that heritage, but we're in a new [restaurant] industry."

Craft and the other Best New Chefs will appear on the cover of Food & Wine's July 2008 issue, which will include a profile of and recipe from each chef. Coincidentally, Mathew Rice, pastry chef at Niche and the adjoining Veruca bakeshop, will have a recipe featured in the magazine's June issue.
 

Gerard Craft of Niche Named "Best New Chef 2008" by Food & Wine Magazine

Review - Niche
A small space and big taste add up to top-notch dining in Benton Park
By Dave Lowry

What’s not to like about Niche? A sleek and intimate interior, with space shared by banquettes and tables, holds about 40 diners. Enormous front windows catch natural light, and well-placed lighting inside bathes the place in a welcoming glow after dark. The space is tucked into a corner of the Benton Park neighborhood, amid lovingly rehabbed Second Empire houses and shops that exude charm as surely as Matt Lauer oozes insincerity.

What’s not to like about the menu? It is a bit precious, with the “To Nosh On” and “On to Bigger Things” sort of headings instead of the “appetizers” and “main courses” that grown-ups use in dining, and it’s presented—in an apparent confusion of clunky and chic—on an awkward wooden clipboard, but the selections are absolutely worthy. Appetizers feature a chicken-liver terrine that should not be missed. We could taste onions and chicken stock, and even if the liver had been ground instead of chopped (as it should be for a good terrine), the kitchen did a great job of hiding it. This is a top-notch terrine, served with an orange-and-date compote. The cheese plate is an unusual choice for a starter course but one that works well here: a trio of soft, pungent cheeses with a juicy strawberry and nuts to complement the flavors. On our visit, one of the cheeses was a buttery triple-crème St. André, a cow’s-milk cheese that’ll make you forget the best Brie you ever ate. Order the cheese plate with the flatbread—square hunks of a pita-like bread lightly brushed with butter, a pleasant change of pace. (The olive tapenade that comes with the bread is salty and flavorful, the white-bean purée is chalky and bland.) As for other starters, the tastes of dill and chives unfold on the palate with every spoonful of a creamy chilled beet-and-buttermilk soup; we took the waiter’s advice and ordered a cup of it along with a tangy salad of field greens topped with a light Champagne vinaigrette.

Among the main courses, a bistro steak tasted like tenderloin, the surface nicely caramelized on the grill and the meat tender and juicy, seated in a shallow purple pool of a port and plum–reduction sauce and served with a dollop of finely whipped potatoes and a spray of buttery asparagus. Little knobs of gnocchi are laced with herbs and tossed with a tangle of meaty and delectable wild mushrooms, crisp English peas and delicate shards of truffle, then topped with a grinding of pecorino cheese. This dish
is extremely suc­cessful, a mélange of disparate ing­redients that work together without losing their own essential identities.

Arranged beautifully on a long rectangu­lar platter, seared medallions of duck breast rest on a bed of faro. Faro, or wheat berries, has become a must-serve for many chefs. About the size of popcorn kernels, the grains add a slightly chewy texture to a dish. Here, mixed with fresh spinach, they are a worthy accompaniment to the duck, with its honey-sweet crispy skin and fragrant meat. A pork tenderloin is cut into similar medallions, the meat happily prepared to be just a little pink in the middle. (Lighten up; you are more likely to get rich from a Nigerian banking offer online than you are to suffer from any undercooked pork.) With a beer-reduction sauce and an apple-cider demi-glace, along with riced sweet potatoes and cabbage, this locally produced pork has become a signature dish at Niche.

Normally we react to the notion of a vegetable tart with about as much enthusi­asm as we’d show for our cable service’s adding the Bollywood Channel. Here, however, the vegetables are cooked until just done, retaining all their texture, and caramelized onions and ricotta cheese add a satisfying character to the dish, brought together with a spritz of Champagne vinaigrette. The portion was huge and would make a good side dish to order for the table ($15). Niche is justly proud of its lamb shank; the meaty bone is slowly braised just to the point where further preparation would compromise the taste and mouth feel. It’s presented with polenta and a bramble of wild mushrooms ($20).

The menu has “Sides” that are recommended if you’re dining in a group. They’re generous servings of choices like a purée of potatoes drenched in olive oil or roasted vegetables, that change frequently. Note, too, that Niche features a three-course prix-fixe for $30 that must be one of the best dinner bargains in town.
A chocolate-ganache cake is one of several unusually good desserts, a luxurious fudgy sauce spilling from the center with the first forkful. The kitchen also enjoys trying out weird ice-cream flavors: Ovaltine and tea were available recently. The dollop of apricot sorbet that accompanied a brown-sugar cake was nearly as good as the cake, and that’s saying something; the cake was simultaneously airy and extrav­agantly rich with the taste of warm brown sugar.

Like our weekend in Ibiza with Salma Hayek, the wine list here is short and wonderful. Equal thought went into quality and price, a welcome approach. Nearly every bottle is in the $20-to-$30 range; none is a compromise. We tried a Zinfandel, the Hess Artezin ’04, which was wonderful, staining the tongue with cherries and raspberries. (Warning: That St. André on the cheese-platter will make any white wine taste like liquid pennies. Skip drinking wine with it or choose something like a Pinot Noir.)

So what’s not to like? Very little, but Niche does make a few gaffes: More money should have been spent on tableware than on the cauldron-size wineglasses. A cheese plate arrived without a knife and so did a steak, and sides meant for the entire table came without serving spoons. Before taking orders, waiters deliver an informed litany of the menu, including loving descriptions of the dessert offerings, and it seemed as if we were being rushed. Let us contemplate the meal before we consider its final course.

Service, on the other hand, manages to be friendly but not familiar. It can get a little slow as the place gets crowded, which it does almost every night. Diners at Niche were initially plagued in colder months
with blasts of frigid air that invaded each time the door opened, but the problem was solved last year with a glass propylaeum. And if the weather is at all amenable, the outside seating here is delightful. Benton Park is seeing the emergence of an urban renaissance. The presence of an establish­ment such as Niche is a significant factor in making this neighborhood a destination, either for an evening’s dining or as a
place to call home.

Niche

Benton Park, the neighborhood just west of the giant Anheuser-Busch brewery, has a truly sophisticated restaurant in Niche. In a storefront that (if it were more crowded) could be in Manhattan, chef Gerard Craft and his pastry chef Mathew Rice bring unique tastes to an old brick building and to the throngs eager to try Niche. The cool, clean lines of the dining room are the backdrop to a menu that's brief but interesting, especially first courses like orange-date compote with a chicken liver terrine and desserts such as salted milk chocolate tart with licorice ice cream. The wine list is too brief, so far, and service has intermittent problems. But still, the prices are reasonable indeed for food of this quality, although anyone who goes expecting the traditionally immense St. Louis servings is in for a surprise.
 

Of Wee I Sing
At Niche, smaller isn't just better -- it's nearly perfect

By Rose Martelli, Article Published Jan 4, 2006

There can be no more aptly named restaurant in St. Louis than nine-week-old Niche. It is the cutest little bistro to debut in 2005: a mere twenty-one two-tops of small-scale splendor tucked away in the Benton Park neighborhood — itself a niche sandwiched between Gravois Avenue and Interstate 55, a shot glass' throw from the sprawling sudsburb that is Soulard. Niche also happens to be located down the street from the Sidney Street Café, one of the most prominent personifications of St. Louis restaurant lore writ large. But bucking recent restaurant trends (Lucas Park Grille, 1111 Mississippi, An American Place), Niche opts against five-figure square footage and fourteen-page menus. Niche could fit in the coat closet of, say, Maggiano's Little Italy. And Niche chef-owner Gerard Craft, who moved here from Salt Lake City along with his wife, his old pastry chef Matthew Rice and his old manager Christian Schnurr (Craft and Rice once worked together at a Salt Lake restaurant called Metropolitan), could probably whip up better food than they do at Maggiano's using only a few wooden hangers, some plastic claim tickets and a tip bucket as cooking utensils.

Niche's menu is one page long (or short, you might say), as is the wine list. The former changes now and then depending on what's available from local purveyors, but it typically comprises about ten appetizers, six entrées, a trio of side dishes and four desserts. As an alternative to standard à la carte dining, Niche offers a three-course prix fixe in which you choose any starter, any entrée and any dessert, for $30.

To repeat: Niche offers a three-course prix fixe meal — which any customer can curate for himself from the entire menu — for thirty dollars. This is nothing short of an amazing deal, and if there is but one diner who has passed through Niche's doors and opted against the prix fixe, I'd like that person to write in to this newspaper and give me a damn good reason why. Prix fixe meals are usually offered in the touristy parts of larger cities (and often as a quick pre-show dinner option in theater districts). Here in St. Louis, $25 prix fixe lunches were famously offered over the summer as part of a downtown dining promotion. They usually consist of pre-selected plates and downsized portions, which allows the house to serve whatever is most cost- and time-efficient. The prix fixe at Niche ranks the restaurant in a niche of its own. Better still, Craft and co. back up the gimmick with solidly prepared — and often fantastic — food.

A pair of sea scallops plated on a pile of stem-on spinach leaves with a scattering of pineapple slices produced mellifluous three-note harmony in an appetizer. The scallops were lightly seasoned and just a little firm. Riding the latest crest of what's in in produce, a pomegranate salad with chicken confit showcased individually tasty elements (the pomegranate seeds, the greens below, the confit) but couldn't coalesce; absent any evidence of dressing, the little pomegranate seeds were left with the burden of bringing the disparate dry elements together. A modest "bistro steak," a chuck tenderloin cut nearly blackened on the outside but still bloody within, was served with two nifty and audacious dipping sauces: a sweet-and-sour soy caramel and a sweet-and-sweeter pear port sauce. I'm told the pork loin has already proven to be one of Niche's most popular main courses, and it is a standout, thanks in part to the blushing cut of meat, but due mostly to the accompanying carrot purée, which looks like a puddle of butternut squash soup, or maybe a sweet potato bisque. It sort of tasted like sweet potato too, what with its natural sweetness, but then again, it may just have been the visual trompe l'oeil.

Pastry chef Matthew Rice has been around the block a few times, if not the nation (he's clocked time at Gramercy Tavern and Craft in New York City), and his handiwork evidences his ability to turn the old into the new. At Niche the molten chocolate cake — or chocolate lava cake, or warmed, ganache-filled cake, or whatever you want to call it — is labeled "liquid" chocolate cake, which is as silly a synonym as any of those others. What set Rice's cake apart when I tried it was its luscious, refreshing side scoop of candy-cane gelato, with real bits of candy cane mixed in. (This has since been swapped out for a Nutella gelato.) His pumpkin bread pudding, meanwhile, is one of the best bread puddings I've ever had, which is also off the menu for the season: Eggy, quiche-y, spongy and squishy, it was served in a cup but would stand on its own without that architectural support. (Schnurr says the newly introduced Tahitian vanilla bean crème brûlée with Meyer lemon shortbread cookies might make a suitable substitute.) At 11 p.m. on weekends, Niche transforms itself into a dessert and drinks bar, showcasing Rice's creations alongside paired wine tastings.

On the topic of architecture, Niche's small, single room has been carved out of the heretofore unused ground-floor space in the Sidney Street Lofts. The design is sleek and uncluttered, with large, inviting windows along the storefront façade and a black-and-white color scheme offset by splashes of velvety red. Despite the minimalist décor, it can feel cramped inside Niche. To prevent the entire restaurant from feeling a draft during winter months, a glass partition that kind of feels like a penalty box has been erected just inside the front door. The hostess stand, a handsome antique desk, abuts this partition on the other side, resulting in the awkward situation of receiving your initial greeting from the hostess through a pane of glass. So abbreviated is the bar, meanwhile, its tail end diminishes into a mere drinking ledge nailed onto a wall. In order to save precious counter space for quaffers, there's also no eating at the bar after 7 p.m. on weekends, which is a buzzkill. (On occasion the house will take reservations for dinner at the bar.) Customers need to play nice with one another at Niche; there's a lot of scooching of chairs to clear a path to the restroom, a lot of de facto eavesdropping and shared piles of stacked coats along the dining-room-long banquette. Parties are packed in so compactly in the dining space that on one visit some crewneck-sweater-and-pleated-khakis blowhard at the table next to ours felt justified in shoving an empty bottle of wine under our server's nose as our order was being taken, demanding that two more such bottles be brought for him and his buddies.

Though the wine list is anything but thorough, its authors have done a fine job of culling pleasant, crowd-pleasing, low-price-point varietals. (There's also an even briefer roster of higher-end bottles, available upon request.) Bonny Doon's Big House Red is a supple, serviceable by-the-glass selection, as are other California labels such as Au Bon Climat chardonnay and Steele's Sonoma Coast restaurant cuvée (a nice stand-in for pinot noir). It was a little disappointing (and a little amusing) to hear our waiter repeatedly use the word "ganache" when he meant "grenache." But he was very friendly and attentive.

This review of Niche is a bit on the short side. Which in Niche's case is not only fitting, but flattering.

 

A niche in St. Louis' Benton Park
Young chef opens his first restaurant.

BY JAIME INGLENews-Democrat

Chef Gerard Craft's Niche serves contemporary cuisine in a cozy space.

"I love braising things, homey dishes," said Gerard, 26, who opened his American bistro in St. Louis' Benton Park neighborhood near Soulard last September.

Braising is a slow, flavorful method of browning food, then simmering it in liquid.
Gerard's version of homey is steak topped with port pear and soy caramel sauces paired with potato puree. There's also seasonal pork loin with shallots, baby carrots, polenta and sweet garlic.

"It's contemporary rustic served in a modern way," said Gerard, who has worked at Bistro Toujours in Park City, Utah, the Ryland Inn in New Jersey and The Ritz in Paris.
He grew up in the Washington, D.C., area and knew good food as a youngster.
"My nanny, Dia, was Portuguese. She made cheese bread," said Gerard.
Dia's cheese bread is now a staple on Niche's menu under the "To Nosh On" appetizer section. Other appetizers include white anchovies and tomato jam on toast, spiced nuts and marinated olives. Soups and salads include parsnip soup with Fuji apples and smoked bacon and a Maytag Blue Salad with greens, candied pecans, pear and champagne vinaigrette.

Besides the steak and seasonal pork loin, Gerard serves sea scallops, roasted trout and wild mushrooms.

"People eat visually. We go above and beyond to create that. It's like creating something on canvas," said Gerard. "We lay things on the plate in a flat fashion rather than building towers of food."Still, he keeps it simple and leaves dessert making to pastry chef Mathew Rice.

"His desserts are beyond amazing," Gerard said as he surveyed a tray of caramel apple crisp cups Rice had made earlier that day.
Before he started cooking, Gerard was washing dishes to help pay for college. The more he watched chefs, the less interested he became in studying history and photography.
Food was his passion.

"The first thing I learned was how to braise beef. I messed it up so many times before I got it right," said Gerard.

Gerard didn't study at a culinary school. He learned by working with top chefs at restaurants, including chef Bryan Moscatello at Bistro Toujours in Utah.
Gerard learned more than braising. He also learned to blend contrasting flavors such as grapefruit and onion. He was ready for his own restaurant.

Gerard and his wife Susan, 21, have friends in St. Louis, so Gerard chose the Midwest to open his first restaurant. The small 1,000-square-foot space on Sidney Street near Interstate 55 was just his style.

In the early 1900s it was office space for a moving company. He had the place gutted and repainted white, with dark wood and red accents. There's room for 40 diners with a small bar area.

"We flip it all the time," Gerard said of the menu.

He uses seasonal produce which will include fresh fruits and vegetables this spring and summer.

"Susan named it. We wanted something that incorporated the neighborhood feel," said Gerard.

They live above the restaurant with their 2-month-old daughter Eleanor.

So far, Gerard said, customers seem to like the cozy atmosphere and trying new dishes.
"You can jump right into anything. It might sound wild, but it's simple and easy on the palette."

On the menu
Note: The menu changes seasonally to incorporate fresh local produce.

Appetizers and salads
Dia's Cheese Bread, $3
White Anchovies on toast with tomato jam, $5
Maytag Blue Salad, $7
Parsnip soup, $7

Entrees
lamb shank, $18
Bistro steak, $20
Roasted trout, $18
Wild mushrooms, $17

Desserts
Liquid chocolate cake, $7
Caramel Apple Crisp, $7
Homemade sorbets and ice creams, $5

At a glance

Where: 1831 Sidney St. Go west on Interstate 64, then head south on Interstate 55 and exit near the Soulard neighborhood. Sidney Street intersects with 12th Street.

Hours: 5:30 p.m.- 9 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 5:30 p.m.-10 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays with an extended dessert bar from 11 p.m.-1:30 a.m.

Information: (314) 773-7755
 

Last updated: Friday, November 14, 2008