Spend three hours eating your way through Downtown St. Louis with a local guide, tasting the dishes this city invented and still argues about. You’ll meet at the Old Courthouse, where the Dred Scott case was first heard, and from there the stories and the food arrive one stop at a time.
The first table belongs to the Secret Dish. It’s served at a historic spot that has fed locals for more than a century, and that’s all we’ll say until it’s in front of you. Next come toasted ravioli, or t-ravs as locals call them: breaded, fried golden, dusted with Parmesan and dipped in warm marinara. Your guide will tell you how a kitchen mishap turned them into the city’s favorite appetizer.
Then it’s time to pick a side on Provel, the smoky, gooey cheese you’ll rarely find outside St. Louis. It seals a golden calzone packed with pepperoni and Italian sausage, and locals either love it or refuse to touch it. Barbecue follows at a smokehouse led by a fine-dining-trained pitmaster, where brisket smoked low and slow for most of a day comes with a lineup of house-made sauces to compare side by side.
Between bites, you’ll hear about 1904, when St. Louis was the fourth-largest city in the country and hosted the World’s Fair and the Olympic Games in the same year. You’ll walk Washington Avenue, where brick and terra-cotta buildings from the old garment district now frame one of downtown’s liveliest streets.
The finish is gooey butter cake, a Depression-era baking mistake that became the city’s signature dessert, served at an independent shop bringing new energy downtown. You’ll wrap up at Luther Ely Smith Square facing the Gateway Arch with a list of places to come back to.