1 minute read

Fiddlehead Fern Café

from GUIDED Saint Louis: Shaw + Botanical Heights

from GUIDED Saint Louis: Shaw + Botanical Heights, page 10

Future Ancestor

It’s safe to say there isn’t another café quite like this one in the entire metro area. Sure, others offer locally sourced ingredients, have brightly minimalist spaces and offer live music on weekends. But owner Darcy Heine has concocted something uniquely her own that matches her perspective on the Shaw neighborhood.

Customers start arriving early in the morning for coffee from local roasters PERC and Coma or tea from Nashville-based Firepot Nomadic Teas. Or, on weekends, they might choose instead to go with a mimosa or bloody mary. Gradually, groups of friends and work colleagues begin to gather, sipping glasses of wine or experimenting with cocktails featuring natural syrups from nearby Heirloom Bottling Co. There are a few breakfast options—eggs, yogurt parfait, house-made granola with fruit—and a few soups and salads, but loaded toasts make up the heart of the menu. Conveniently, these are perfect brunch food: hearty enough to stave off hunger for hours, and flavorful enough to satisfy mid-day cravings with toppings like apples and brie with seasonal jam, avocado with tomatoes, chickpeas with radishes or a BLT with peppered bacon. For baked goods, the kitchen focuses on croissants and scones while outsourcing cookies and other sweets to Whisk bakeshop. They’re just the thing to perk up a solitary work session or treat a hungry neighborhood child out and about in a stroller.

4066 RUSSELL BLVD.

314.300.8111