51黑料

Obviously, you can鈥檛 fit an entire city into the Creve Coeur restaurant Oh London. Bring your tape measure to be sure, though. This is a cavernous space, with a bar area bigger than most dining rooms and a dining room like a castle鈥檚 great hall.

The size inspires fanciful comparisons. It doesn鈥檛 suggest a locally owned restaurant where the executive chef might visit the table during your meal. For several years, it was home to a location of the Granite City Food & Brewery chain. My charitable memory of dining at Granite City is thinking, 鈥淏oy, this place is big!鈥�

The previous attempt to fill this storefront, the Reserve Restaurant & Lounge, made it only a year, give or take.

Still, I wouldn鈥檛 bet against Oh London owners Raj and Shweta Pandey and the married duo鈥檚 business partner, Sanjiv Shekhar. They also operate Black Salt in Chesterfield, which since opening in 2023 has claimed the title of 51黑料鈥� best Indian restaurant and a spot among the area鈥檚 best restaurants of any style. I ranked it in the Top 25 of this year鈥檚 STL 100.

Black Salt alone could keep the team busy. The team has debuted a second location in the same Creve Coeur shopping plaza as Oh London, and packaged meals under the Black Salt brand are available for retail purchase in some 120 stores across multiple states.

Oh London, which opened in February, doesn鈥檛 draw on Black Salt鈥檚 menu. You won鈥檛 even find a token curry to acknowledge, maybe cheekily, the profound impact Indian cuisine has made on British culture.

Instead 鈥� boldly 鈥� Oh London stands on its own. Even more boldly, executive chef Brigithe Gilardi doesn鈥檛 only undertake fish and chips, Scotch eggs and other British fare. The menu, nearly as capacious as the restaurant鈥檚 footprint, also features what you might broadly call upscale American cuisine and sometimes nods to international influences.

Given the restaurant鈥檚 name, if not its lack of cozy pub vibes, you might begin with those fish and chips. Oh London plates three pieces of tender, but not collapsing, haddock in a crunchy jacket of batter. The requisite tartar sauce and malt vinegar are served on the side, each in its own ramekin, but by itself the haddock is surprisingly flavorful for such a mild fish, as if brushed with lemon juice.

The chips are steak fries. I鈥檓 not a reflexive hater of steak fries 鈥� I鈥檒l vouch for them at Kreis鈥� Steakhouse & Bar, for example 鈥� but the plank-like cut demands careful preparation. At Oh London, the steak fries are halfway there, thankfully not mealy or mushy, but not gloriously crisp and pillowy, either. The result is a dish better described as 鈥渇ish (with chips)鈥� than the dual billing of 鈥渇ish and chips.鈥�

(Those steak fries also accompany Oh London鈥檚 fine deluxe burger with cheese and bacon and its housemade black-bean veggie burger.)

Oh London鈥檚 bangers and mash captures its inspiration more completely. The plate brings a generous portion of three snappy, juicy sausages 鈥� bratwurst or seasoned to approximate bratwurst 鈥� smothered in sauteed onions on a bed of peas and creamy mashed potatoes.

Mashed potatoes also accompany the bavette steak, but those with my order were pasty and lacked both the accent of salt and the richness of butter or cream. Cooked to my requested medium rare, the steak itself showcased a brawny flavor and a pleasantly juicy chew. Yet the kitchen had barely browned its exterior, robbing it of that crucial Maillard reaction richness.

To be fair, the bavette steak is a tricky cut, exceptionally thin 鈥� it resembles a flank or skirt steak 鈥� and demanding a quick sear to retain its full flavor. Thankfully, with the steak Gilardi includes a ramekin of a bracingly verdant chimichurri. With a few dabs of this, I quickly forgot the steak鈥檚 lack of crust.

These touches distinguish her cooking and Oh London at their best. Duck 脿 l鈥檕range brings a welcome note of continental elegance to the menu with its tender roasted leg and thigh meat and especially the puckering gastrique that sharpens the citrus sauce.

Oh London鈥檚 British roots and international influences certainly suggest the restaurant鈥檚 forward more than the scattershot American fare. You can hear the kitchen鈥檚 sigh in plates of fried calamari and chips with an insipid cheese sauce. The Scotch eggs (listed as Little Bird鈥檚 Nest on the menu) are a keeper, but the ground beef packed between the egg and its crunchy shell needs more pizzaz.

In recent months, I鈥檝e encountered a few modern riffs on sticky toffee pudding. Oh London sticks to the classic dessert, with a moist crumb and the elegant sweetness of dried fruits. With a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top, the sticky toffee pudding is nearly enough to fill an appetite as big as the restaurant.