Dinner is served: Chefs aim for excitement, personality and zest at fine dining restaurants

The art of fine dining is an ever-evolving concept that varies from each individual chef to manager to restaurant owner. With passion and zest, chefs all over the world consistently work to create exciting, delicious flavors for their guests, all while working to maintain a welcoming and warm atmosphere.

Cape Girardeau's fine dining scene is no exception, with the most recent example being Vanessa and John Eric Klein's 36 Restaurant & Bar at 36 N. Main St., which opened earlier this year on Valentine's Day.

Vanessa Klein said she and her husband have always felt a desire to own their own restaurant, especially because it runs in John Eric's family. His grandfather once owned a Whataburger in Cairo, Illinois, and also was a butcher. A black and white photo of the restaurant in its heyday is placed above the new restaurant's bar as a note of inspiration in his honor.

With a combined 18 years of experience with fine dining, the Kleins wanted to create a space that would be "intimate, but not intimidating." Placing and detail are emphasized, but the space remains warm and inviting with touches of exposed brick, rich, dark wood features and romantic low lighting. Staff members are encouraged to remember regulars and greet them by name to create a more personal and welcoming experience.

Head chef Houston Sutton said he doesn't focus 100 percent on presentation, but instead shoots more for "simple food presented nicely that tastes really good."

Gabriele Ruggieri, general manager of Ciao Ristorante + Enoteca in Cape Girardeau, eats a lunch of spaghetti all'amatriciana, Monday, Dec. 21. (Laura Simon)

Sutton has been introducing some of his favorite flavor profiles on 36's dinner menu, such as bacon, blue cheese and caramelized onions in the signature "36" wedge salad, which comes with baked blue cheese-infused croutons.

Another recent addition to Cape Girardeau's fine dining landscape is Ciao Ristorante + Enoteca, along with Italian transplant and general manager Gabriele Ruggieri.

Opened on Oct. 16, 2014, Ciao offers a menu of simple and fresh Italian meals with authentic flavors and ingredients.

"We are very focused on the authenticity of the Italian food and Italian ingredients," Ruggieri said. "You cannot make Italian food if you don't buy the right Italian ingredients, so we only cook with very good extra-virgin olive oil from Italy and GMO-free tomatoes from the area off the Amalfi Coast."

Fresh ingredients are the most important component to the dishes at Ciao, especially fresh garlic and herbs. The pasta is all manufactured in Naples and imported, and a majority of the products the staff uses are native to Italy and have been imported.

Ruggieri said the goal is to create light dishes where the fresh ingredients are able to stand out and express themselves.

"It's like you're going to Italy without leaving Cape Girardeau," he said.

Italian products are available for purchase from the restaurant's pantry so guests can "bring a piece of Ciao home." Wine tasting sessions are available as well, and Ruggieri said a cooking class for guests may be in the restaurant's future.

For a dining experience with French influences, look no further than the restaurant at the Inn St. Gemme Beauvais in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri.

Owned and operated by Jan and Cathy Brans, the French cuisine-based restaurant has been open every Saturday and Sunday year round, excluding major holidays and January, since May 2004. Considering Ste. Genevieve's French roots, the Brans felt the need to create a restaurant where locals could experience dishes representative of the town's historic culture and background.

Nestled in the original 1848 home of Felix Rozier, a prominent and successful merchant in Ste. Genevieve, the inn is the oldest continuously operated bed-and-breakfast in Missouri. With a weekly-evolving menu, the restaurant always offers four entree, four appetizer and four dessert options. Guests have the opportunity to experience a classic candlelit French dinner in the inn's dining room and to take in the antique fixtures, especially the 19th-century crystal chandelier, imported from Florence, Italy.

Brans said she enjoys interacting with the community and helping them learn about and experience homemade, fresh gourmet French cuisine, especially since a restaurant of this nature and caliber is such a rarity for the area.

Back in Cape Girardeau, Celebrations' executive chef, DeWayne Schaaf, is no stranger to outside culinary influences.

Born and raised in Ste. Genevieve, Schaaf draws German influences from his family background, and has been working to incorporate other techniques and ideas to create what he calls "an eclectic mix of everything" at Celebrations, where he began his tenure in 1998.

With a style all his own, he finds new ideas and concepts from those he interacts with and says he enjoys having a collaborative creative team around him to bounce ideas off of on a daily basis.

"Each restaurant should be an amalgamation of the personalities that are there and have come through ... not just staff, but clientele," he said.

Schaaf said his job involves instant gratification with guest feedback, but he really cherishes the long-term positive effects, such as learning about the community, meeting new and interesting people and constantly adapting to the evolving tastes of the clientele he serves.

Personality is an important ingredient as well, and he strives to incorporate it in his dishes regularly. Along with that personality comes a desire to work hard and create the best possible product for the guests, day in and day out.

"We do it every night. Every night has to be the World Series, otherwise you start falling apart. You can't forget game after game after game or have a loss here and there. You have to be up, and when you do treat it like that, then you do just kind of focus on all the technique and the art as well," Schaaf said.

Adam Glenn opened The Glenn in Charleston, Missouri, with his father on Feb. 21, 2014. The two decided to open the restaurant to offer people in the area a quality place to come in, relax and enjoy a fresh, unique meal.

With a more down-home take on gourmet cuisine, The Glenn serves a fusion of home cooking with updated and more adventurous ingredients. From citrus peppercorn chicken pizzas to Thai-style soup to crispy pork belly, the menu consistently offers a spectrum of eclectic choices. A specialty menu is crafted daily by Glenn, providing options that are always fresh and served in a clean, comfortable setting.

Glenn also works constantly to incorporate local ingredients, such as his father's own fresh-grown sweet corn. He makes his own homemade pasta and tries to make as many of his dishes from scratch as possible, or as he said, he "makes everything but the ice cream and french fries."

In the end, he said it's all about giving his guests a taste of home, but with a new, innovative twist.

"It's like home cooking to the max. It's all flavors that you know, but it's prepared in a way that professional cooks do *... It's your grandma's cooking; we just call it something else," he said.

lyoung@semissourian.com

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