Photo provided by The Gateway Arch. Click on images to view larger versions.

By Pamela Dittmer McKuen

17-Sep-24 – When I learned Michelin-starred chef Gordon Ramsay was opening his first restaurant in St. Louis, I had to make the trip.

Ramsay’s Kitchen by Gordon Ramsay opened in June at the Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis as the multi-Michelin-starred chef’s first restaurant in the city. Already, it has received the prestigious Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator magazine.

Scottish-born Chef Ramsay (left) is also a celebrated television personality, hosting cooking competitions Hell’s Kitchen and MasterChef on Fox. I’m a salivating follower of his shows. Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis

After securing a dinner reservation, I took in some relaxation and sightseeing in the Midwestern city nicknamed “Gateway to the West.”

Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis is a serene luxury retreat on the banks of the Mississippi River near the city’s iconic Gateway Arch. The 200 newly renovated guest rooms and suites occupy Floors 9 through 19 of the modern high-rise. Book an Arch View room for the best panoramic vistas.

Amenity spaces are on Floors 7 and 8, including a full-service spa and fitness center, a Topgolf Swing Suite luxury sport simulator, and an outdoor heated swimming pool with private cabanas.

The culinary heartbeat is Ramsay’s Kitchen, which is arranged with a main dining room and expansive seasonal patio, indoor and outdoor bars, and loads of cushy lounge areas. The restaurant serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

First on my agenda was an appointment at the Four Seasons Spa for a Grounding Massage Ritual, an 80-minute indulgence that transitioned me from office nuttiness and airport chaos to mindful bliss. That feeling was prolonged by additional time spent in the glassy relaxation lounge, sipping botanical-infused waters and watching boats gently cruise along the Mississippi River. A perfect launch to remarkable adventures ahead.

Gateway Arch National Park

The city’s signature cultural attraction is the architectural arch at Gateway Arch National Park. The sky-high silver parabola commemorates the city’s role in the western expansion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The following year, explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark kicked off their famous expedition from St. Louis through the new territory. The national park designation was awarded in 2018.

Getting to the park from the hotel was a short scenic stroll along brick-lined North Second Street through Laclede’s Landing, a buzzy live-work-play district fashioned from the city’s oldest buildings.

The neighborhood (right) was settled in 1764 by French fur trader Pierre Lacléde Liguest and named after King Louis IX of France. Locals simply call it “the Landing.” Photo by Pamela Dittmer McKuen

North Second Street merges into a leafy, winding pathway to a capacious plaza and visitors center at the base of the Arch, which stands 630 feet high and 630 feet wide at ground level.

Or, as my tour guide cited, the Arch is 3,780 toasted raviolis high. (Toasted ravioli, if you haven’t heard, is a breaded deep-fried pasta pillow served with marinara dipping sauce, and legendary in St. Louis.)

Within the visitors’ center is a top-flight museum that depicts the city’s history – from its early colonial days to building the Arch – through interactive galleries, video, and artifacts. It’s also the starting point for rides in compact five-person capsules to the vertex. In agreeable weather, you’ll capture aerial views of the Mississippi River and Illinois to the east, and the city to the west.

City Museum

Two more museums on my list were very different from each other but equally intriguing.

City Museum is a mundane name for the wacky assemblage of art, kitsch, and wonder. A vintage school bus dangles off the edge of the roof (left), for crying out loud. City Museum

It’s an all-ages creative playground housed in a 1930s shoe factory and warehouse. Four floors and the rooftop are chock-full of such disparate curiosities as colossal sculptures of imaginary creatures, walls made from bottles and bread pans, a three-story treehouse, 10-story slide, Ferris wheel, two airplanes, castle turret, tunnels and catwalks, live circus acts, custom shoelace factory, the world’s largest pencil (75 feet long), world’s largest pair of underpants (7 feet wide), second-largest collection of Louis Sullivan architectural fragments, casual eats and grown-up beverages, and lots of other weirdness.

Not a single digital element that I could see.

Opened in 1997, City Museum is the innovation of classically trained sculptor and art entrepreneur Bob Cassilly, who transformed the dilapidated building into an award-winning city treasure. Cassilly died in 2011, but his merry band of artisans continues his mission to delight. Most everything is created from salvaged objects and contraptions like train wheels and machine parts.

Pulitzer Arts Foundation

Pulitzer Arts Foundation is an understated art museum founded by philanthropist and arts patron Emily Rauh Pulitzer, whose husband was Joseph Pulitzer III, longtime publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. His grandfather established the Pulitzer Prize honors for achievements in journalism, arts, and letters.

The Brutalist-style building, designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando, is swathed in concrete planes and strategically placed glass walls. Originally, the museum was built for the Pulitzer collection but evolved to showcase rotating exhibitions – mostly contemporary – of global artists.

The museum owns only three permanent pieces, notably the courtyard’s massive walk-in spiral of weathered steel (above) that envelops the viewer between earth and sky. Designed by abstract sculpture artist Richard Serra, the spiral is titled Joe, a nod to Mr. Pulitzer.

Time to Dine

Between museum forays, I stopped at Katie’s Pizza and Pasta Osteria across the street from Busch Stadium in Ballpark Village. Katie Lee is a hometown gal who didn’t know how to fold a carryout box when she, her father, and a chef friend opened their first hole-in-the-wall (her description, not mine) pizza joint about 15 years ago.

A local favorite, the business has since grown to three sit-down restaurants and an elevated menu. Order the toasted ravioli. Photo by Pamela Dittmer McKuen

And then, my main event: Dinner at Ramsay’s Kitchen by Gordon Ramsay at the Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis. I’d already had a taste of culinary excellence at breakfast: Avocado toast accessorized with crispy chickpeas, spiced almonds, pomegranate seeds, and mustard greens. An egg or two was optional, and I obliged. If I’d had another day, I would have ordered the crème brulée french toast.

The restaurant decor is stylish yet relaxed, enriched by a warm color palette of navy blue, sienna, and cream, and, of course, a glass wall to capture that amazing Arch view.

On this night, the tables were seated with eager patrons amid an air of conviviality. I opted to dine al fresco beneath the halcyon sky.

For my selections, I paired a lovely rosé sangria with a jumbo lump crab cake – composed of crab and little else – and partnered with an herb aioli and citrus-dressed greens. My dessert was a Strawberry Eton Mess, another funny name but a happy medley of meringue chunks, strawberries and strawberry jam, and Chantilly cream. I later learned it’s an authentic British dessert believed to have originated at Eton College.

Other enticing menu selections, inspired by Chef Ramsay’s international travels, were beef wellington, chicken tikka masala, and pan-seared scallops.

I’ll look forward to more fine meals at Gordon Ramsay restaurants, which number about 90 worldwide. Until then, I’ll savor all my St. Louis experiences and tune into Hell’s Kitchen and MasterChef for temptation. And maybe I’ll learn to make a Strawberry Eton Mess.