TRAVEL FEATURES
St. Louis: Your guide to the All-Star city
Here's the score on St. Louis, host of baseball's party.
ST. LOUIS -- This is a great baseball town. Cardinal fans know to applaud for a sacrifice bunt, especially when laid down by their pitcher. They know not to applaud when the other team ties the score on a sacrifice fly, even though it means an out for the opponent. They dress in red as if it were the only color on the racks.
And this is a terrible baseball town. The food at Busch Stadium, which opened in 2006, is especially bad; ask 10 Cardinal fans about the best grub in the park, and eight will say the nachos, which are basically the same nachos you find at every other park. Fans do the wave when their team is down by eight runs in the eighth inning. And the streets surrounding the park are largely a charmless sprawl of chain hotels, predictable sports bars and parking garages or vacant buildings.
Which is something Larry Recar, 33, learned on a warm Saturday night after watching his beloved Cardinals get thwacked by the lowly
"When you've been doing this from 21 to 33, you want something where you're not neck to neck with someone you don't know," Recar said.
Well, Recar and others looking for a fresh take on St. Louis are in luck, if they know where to look. This year's Major League Baseball All-Star Game will be played July 14 at Busch Stadium, but rather than visit the same old haunts, we headed to the All-Star city to scout out its most all-star experiences.
Before the game
It all starts where you wake up. Though downtown is full of hotels, you can find neighborhood flair at the Moonrise Hotel (moonrisehotel.com; 877-872-1122), which opened in April in The Delmar Loop, a neighborhood 6 miles west of Busch. Built by developer Joe Edwards, the Moonrise is a boutique hotel with excellent service, cool amenities (iPod-compatible clock radio, shower head that sends water vertically from the ceiling) and an often packed rooftop bar with panoramic views of downtown. Best of all, the house snack -- the moon pie -- is endlessly available in the lobby.
If you stay at Moonrise, start the day at Meshugga h Cafe (meshuggahcafe.com; 314-726-5662), an independent coffee shop where the java is made one espresso-based cup at a time, and the breakfast sandwiches -- scrambled eggs and some combination of veggies and meat -- are cheap, hearty and delicious.
If you want breakfast closer to the stadium, try Rooster (roosterstl.com; 314-241-8118), which specializes in crepes, but not the flaccid ones that leave you hungry 20 minutes later. These suckers are closer to omelets, stuffed with fresh, surprising ingredients (two house favorites, for example, are the mushroom, basil and oven-dried tomato crepes with goat cheese, and the sausage and spiced apple with cheddar). Delectable. Also, to get you in the baseball mood, the bloody Mary menu is longer than most.
If you're up early enough that you have time between eating and the game -- or if it's a night game -- check out one of the most mind-bending museums ever, where kids will smile non-stop: City Museum (citymuseum.org; 314-231-2489). Full of things to climb on and ride, the place feels like a circus crossed with
If you sleep past breakfast and are ready to dive into lunch and beer, a great bet near the stadium is Schlafly Tap Room (schlafly.com; 314-241-2337), which is far from a sports bar but a perfect place to warm up before a baseball game. The shaved roast beef, served on a perfectly soft roll, was succulent, and the beer-boiled brat both spicy and tangy, topped with grilled kraut and eye-opening mustard. And the beer didn't disappoint.
After the game
If you want to skip the usual sports bars, you can walk to nearby music at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups (bbsjazzbluessoups.com; 314-436-5222), which sits just a couple of blocks from the stadium and where you can find a quick escape from the sports crowd. The savviest Cardinals fans will be there in their red and white jerseys, but the place is about music first -- usually rollicking -- and food second. The menu is Southern-inflected, ranging from blackened porterhouse to lemon-pepper salmon.
After three hours of sitting in the stadium, you may well be up for a walk. If so, check out Washington Avenue, which sits seven blocks north and a few blocks west of the park. From sushi to tapas to an Irish pub and high-end bowling, it's a bit of a scene; on one Saturday night it seemed as if every bachelorette party in metro St. Louis was converging there.
Among the most legendary of restaurants in town is Blueberry Hill (blueberryhill.com; 314-727-4444), a burger place jammed with funky retro memorabilia, be it old jukeboxes or figurines of comic-book characters, with the occasional stuffed animal head above a doorway. The most St. Louis thing you can order is a burger topped with Provel -- a mix of cheddar, provolone and Swiss that was invented in St. Louis -- with a side of toasted ravioli, also invented in St. Louis. Pair it with the suds of your choice from an impressive beer list, and you can't go wrong.
No matter what happened on the field.
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