Restaurants in East Saint Louis
Recommended Restaurants by Groupon Customers
West End Grill and Pub boasts a laid-back neighborhood atmosphere and an extensive selection of upscale pub grub to entice eaters during dinner. Raise the curtain on the night's curtain raises with the grill's signature appetizer—Prince Edward Island mussels steamed in a green-curry sauce—or frolic through a garden of arugula, blue cheese, pistachios, and caramelized pear tossed in red-wine vinegar and oil with the Rocket caramelized pear salad. Recuperate after running an arduous marathon or tying a particularly heavy shoelace by feasting your heartiest buds of taste on the 16-ounce bone-in pork porterhouse—topped with apple compote and served with braised kale and sweet-potato gnocchi—or the Sonoma steak, which comes crowned with blue-cheese crumbles and flash-fried leeks atop a bed of horseradish mashed potatoes and zucchini. For dessert, sweet squares of peanut-butter-banana ravioli sit beneath coffee ice cream, and rich slabs of chocolate cake recline beneath pillowy servings of raspberry-chocolate-chip ice cream.
Kota’s menu of cruise-ship-sized portions (half and whole orders available for dinner) starts your Caribbean mouthcation with an order of Kota barbecue-duck and wild-mushroom quesadillas ($9) and some island chicken wings with Jamaican jerk spices ($8) before taking a shortcut to the Pacific with a coconut-curry duck linguini tossed with portobello mushrooms, baby spinach, peppers, and shredded duck (half plate $11, full $15). Although Lycanthropic Americans relish espresso-rubbed beef filet medallions (half plate $15, full $20) smothered in blue-cheese cream and served with fresh asparagus, buttermilk mashed potatoes, and crispy onion straws; herbivores can also savor the smoky, flavorful effects of wood-fire grilling with the cheese-drizzled hickory-fired vegetable orzo (half plate $11, full $15). For something a little closer to home, cubicle-farm escapees can score a Louisiana-style lunch with the N’awlins po’ boy ($9.50), which piles your choice of oyster, shrimp, or catfish into a toasted baguette with remoulade. Neither meal is complete without a dessert of Kota’s specialty milkshakes, so get in your daily recommended dosage of pastel colors with the Miami Vice (strawberry and piña colada with coconut and pineapple, $6) or blow out your stomach’s TV with an Elvis in the House (chocolate-banana shake with Reese's peanut-butter cup pieces, $6).
On weekends between 10:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., a cart laden with plated dim sum rolls through Lu Lu Seafood, delivering handcrafted treats such as pork shu mai or spare ribs in black bean sauce. Patrons can also dine on regional Chinese seafood such as live lobsters with ginger and scallions or hot pots simmering with fresh scallops, washing it all back with cocktails, smoothies, and milk tea laden with pearls of tapioca. The opulent crimson-and-gold eatery also houses private karaoke rooms with bottle service where guests can sing in English, Chinese, or Korean.
The 200 bottled beers and 55 beers on tap at Cicero’s pour into pint, tulip, and chalice glasses in a range of earthy colors. Caramel malt lends Goose Island’s Matilda a tawny hue that compliments a warm yeasty tang. Old Rasputin fills glasses, a fine head set off against the nearly black beer brimming with coffee notes. The beer menu changes weekly, and the more serious brew hounds can attend Cicero’s beer school to taste, discuss, and learn all about several beers at each class.
Live performances fill the eatery with the sounds of twanging guitars nearly every night. The menu brims with pastas and burgers like a romance scene written by a hungry novelist, and cooks top pizzas with cream cheese, buffalo sauce, three types of sausage, and other ingredients. A game room features a 101” HDTV.
A veteran of the restaurant industry for 25 years, chef and owner Eric Erhard has brought the globe’s expansive palate to his very first kitchen at Mojo Tapas Restaurant & Bar, where he cooks what he describes in a video interview as “contemporary eclectic cuisine.” Sauce magazine warned its readers that Mojo “may just put a spell on you,” noting its hard-cider-steamed mussels as a don’t-miss dish. With similar praise, Alive magazine marked as an editor’s pick the basil, lemon, and white rum that intoxicate Mojo’s signature mojito, which might be enjoyed along South Grand Boulevard on the sidewalk patio, regarded as Alive’s “best place to perch.” Both publications praised the lamb slider that Erhard dollops with apricot mustard patiently shucked from a Fig Newton. The diverse food menu and drink selections mixed with housemade simple syrups fuel a lively, modern atmosphere under ornate ceiling tiles or over them on a rooftop patio.
In 1999, Jimbo Sinovic opened the first Big Daddy's in the historic Soulard district, less than a half mile from the iconic Anheuser-Busch Brewery. The eatery's drink specials and tasty pub staples, served for lunch, dinner, and late-night owl watching, established the bar as a neighborhood favorite, and inspired its owner to declare it "The Best Bar in the Whole Wide World." Jimbo has since expanded Big Daddy's to four locations in the St. Louis metro area, including two in Illinois.
