Heather Hughes Huff

Sauce Magazine • 1st October 2020

How YouTube helped St. Louis chef Brian Lagerstrom reclaim the kitchen

“Oh! Yeah! It’s me! Your No. 1 taco boy.” Maybe this isn’t the way you’d expect a lauded chef to introduce an instructional video on how to produce the perfect barbacoa taco … but Brian Lagerstrom is no longer a typical chef. This scene comes from just one of dozens of videos posted on Weeds & Sardines, the rapidly growing YouTube channel he co-produces with his spouse Lauren Adermann.

Sauce Magazine • 3rd July 2020

Soul Survivors

For many restaurant owners, the coronavirus pandemic is an unrivaled obstacle in a notoriously precarious industry. But for Jerk Soul’s Zahra Spencer and Telie Woods, it maybe ranks in the top five.

Sauce Magazine • 26th May 2020

The choice to open during a pandemic is a catch-22 for restaurant owners

St. Louis restaurants are permitted to open their dining rooms with limited capacity starting this week, confronting business owners with many fraught decisions only they can make. Restaurateurs have to consider how and how much to pivot their business models for an environment that is constantly changing...

Sauce Magazine • 18th May 2020

Restaurants face off against Total Wine lobbyists in the fight to legalize carryout cocktails

According to Missouri law, restaurants can only sell beer, wine or liquor in its original packaging, but that changed with an emergency suspension of the rule issued by the Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control of the Department of Public Safety in April.

Sauce Magazine • 27th April 2020

The coronavirus can't stop these new St. Louis restaurants from opening

Less than a month before the planned opening of Lazy Tiger in the Central West End, Tim Wiggins was at home thinking about the very expensive commercial glasswasher sitting in the middle of his would-be bar. Why did they uncrate it? How would he send it back, and what would the restock fee be if he could even return it?

Sauce Magazine • 1st April 2020

Editorial: The coronavirus' impact on St. Louis restaurants

There are 88,000 people in the St. Louis hospitality industry, according to Mayor Lyda Krewson. She shared the statistic at a press conference informing the public that all St. Louis city restaurants were required to close their dining rooms by March 19.

Sauce Magazine • 1st February 2020

4 rosé bottles perfect for winter nights

Rosé is not just for summer. It may seem off brand for the wine now synonymous with long days of sunlight and vacation day drinking, but rosé has a dark side. There are rich, ruby bottles out there that no one would think to name Whispering Angel or Hampton Water.

Sauce Magazine • 1st January 2020

Ones to Watch // Nico Shumpert

Nico Shumpert has a lot of ideas. From private dinners to pop-ups, social media series to YouTube cooking tutorials, this young chef is working hard to get noticed.

Sauce Magazine • 1st January 2020

Ones to Watch // Alejandra Fallows

Alejandra Fallows is sick of hearing “What did you expect?” when someone she knows is harassed at work. She’s tired of people laughing at the idea that the hospitality industry can change – especially because she’s going to change it.

Sauce Magazine • 1st December 2019

Best New Restaurants // Indo

Nick Bognar isn’t afraid to tell you what he’s good at. He knows he’s a good cook. As a young chef, he moved across the country to work under the best chefs he could find, learning how to do what they did – or better. The food was the only thing that mattered.

Sauce Magazine • 1st November 2019

Boss Moves

Holiday wine purchases can be a challenge. Any bottle needs wide-audience appeal at parties and family gatherings. They’re often half gift, half something you’re hoping to enjoy yourself. You want a bottle to impress – but also be affordable.

Sauce Magazine • 1st September 2019

No glass required: The easiest summer cocktail recipes

It’s been a long summer, and we need a drink, preferably one that doesn’t require a lot of ingredients, a recipe – or a glass. Join us on this journey with a Can Radler.

Sauce Magazine • 1st May 2019

St. Louis coffee shops create nonalcoholic coffee cocktails

Don’t tell Big Dairy, but coffee has finally escaped the milk-and-syrup hegemony. When it comes to flavored drinks, coffee shops are using espresso more like a versatile base spirit than a hot chocolate add-in these days.

Sauce Magazine • 1st January 2019

Ones to Watch // Alex Herman of Louie

They call him The Little Chef. Alex Herman was the most recommended person for Ones to Watch this year. Gerard Craft (Niche Food Group), Alex Donnelly (Gioia’s Deli), Nick Bognar (Nippon Tei), Tim Wiggins (Yellowbelly) and more suggested him.

Sauce Magazine • 1st December 2018

Best New Restaurants // Frankly on Cherokee

Everything Bill Cawthon touches turns to gold – starting with french fries. The chef-owner of Frankly on Cherokee transforms basic Americana into life-altering incarnations of hard-to-perfect classics that he serves himself, working both the register and grill station on a typical night.

Sauce Magazine • 1st December 2018

Best New Restaurants // Louie

Love isn’t easy to quantify. No accounting of superlatives conveys the feeling; no equation can objectively explain it. So, if we say the quality of food and service, the design and atmosphere of Louie are impeccable, elegant, ingeniously calibrated, you might nod politely. To know love, you must experience love.

Sauce Magazine • 1st November 2018

3 orange wines to try now

Orange wine has a reputation for being weird and funky. If you’re not a wine person, you might not know what the style is, and strangeness can cause distrust.

Sauce Magazine • 1st November 2018

6 aged wines for $45 or less

Aged wine has a reputation for quality and expense, but time isn’t always money. You can find mature bottles at a steal if you look in less famously age-able regions or luck out with pricing flukes like winery going out-of-business sales or retailers with direct chateau connections.

Sauce Magazine • 1st September 2018

Yellowbelly brings modern, tropical tiki flavors to St. Louis

Tiki is fundamentally extra, and that’s why we love her. But she’s growing up, and we’re not mad about that, either. The popularity of tropical spirits and flavors has given rise to a class of clean, stirred cocktails that belong in a rocks glass but have the heart of an appropriated Polynesian idol. Bars like Navy Strength in Seattle and Pacific Cocktail Haven in San Francisco are now joined by our own Yellowbelly, opening this month in the Central West End.

Sauce Magazine • 1st August 2018

How an Irish kid became King of The Hill

When Alex Donley graduated from high school, his girlfriend’s parents wanted to take them out to Cunetto House of Pasta to celebrate. When the wait was exorbitant, Donley had a better idea.