Missouri Restaurants

As young girls, sisters Suzanne and Stephanie dreamed of opening their own deli. As adults, they joined forces to open Sorella’s—Italian for _sister_—where they create a spread of sandwiches with Boar’s Head meats and cheeses and a hefty smattering of vegetables. The shop’s meatball sub is made from scratch with 100% ground beef, and the muffaletta encompasses black forest ham, salami, melted provolone, and Sorella’s own green-olive spread.

A choice of 12 meats, 8 cheeses, and 14 dressings and veggies provides diners with a multitude of options to stuff inside bread or a foam hand. Sorella’s also supplies sandwiches to parties and corporate events, as well as offering housemade desserts.

Cafe Berlin fills its kitchen with vegetables, coffee, dairy, free-range eggs, and other natural and organic foods from local farms, including Patchwork Family Farms, Green Hills Harvest Dairy, and Lakota Coffee Company. Breakfast, which is served all day, includes dishes such as Turkish-style eggs, french toast, and pancake burritos—a large pancake that enfolds two scrambled eggs and Patchwork bacon, served with maple syrup. Black-bean quesadillas, burgers with local, organic beef, and housemade soups crown the lunch menu and pair with an array of alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks.

Plastic dinosaurs and Godzilla figures dot the sunny dining room, where they hang from the rafters, sit on the counter, and gnaw on table legs. Patrons can gaze at the eclectic decor while listening to live music or tales from the Porch Light storytelling series.

Kostaki’s Pizzeria’s cooks hand-toss their dough, lending it an airy texture before stuffing it with mozzarella and cutting it into St. Louis-style squares within its Cherry Hill kitchen. They can customize pizzas with gyro meat, banana peppers, and the piquant sauces that also flavor their chicken wings. They also whip up a 14 specialty pies, such as a BBQ Chicken, Hawaiian, and the Flagstone, which hoists hefty toppings of peppers, mushrooms, pepperoni, ham, and italian sausage. The restaurant rounds out its menu with chicken wings, half-pound Angus beef burgers, gyros, and beers from Boulevard and Leinenkugel.

Seated among framed photos and wood wainscoting, visitors to The Gathering Place Café munch on hearty servings of daily specials that range from beef burritos to chicken-fried steaks. Serving up kansas city strip steaks every Saturday night and biscuits and gravy each morning, The Gathering Place continuously satiates diners with all local beef and farm-fresh, free-range eggs that wander into the kitchen.