Chesterfield Travel Guide

Some of my friends in St. Louis have been frequenting Veritas for a couple of years, and on my last trip to St. Louis in June I was able to experience the event first hand. While Veritas serves breakfast and lunch regularly, they only serve dinner on Thursday nights when they do wine tastings.

Veritas is located in a generic-looking suburban strip mall, but what goes on is more like something you would find in an urban neighborhood. Wine tasting (6 or 8 different wines) is free, and you can buy by the glass or by the bottle for your meal. Dinner is technically small plates, but the pork and mashed potatoes (delicious!) I had were enough for a meal - along with a shared appetizer and desert.

Several small tables are set up in the shop, or you can sit at a bar area and watch the chef.

The owners and the chef are all very friendly, which increases the enjoyment.

This is your basic, mid-western, sports themed restaurant. I didn't realize how good the food is at this kind of place until I moved to a part of the country without such places (Seattle). They have salads, sandwiches and some entres, and have a children's menu. And, with this being a suburb of St. Louis, they have a toasted ravioli appetizer.

For kids they have balloons, crayons, and placemats with coloring projects and word games.

Favorite Dish: The Burgers are classic, but the Southwest Chicken Salad is good, too. They used to have horseshoe sandwiches on the menu, but no more. I hear, however, that you can still order them.

Local fair trade, organic bean roaster, Kaldi's Coffee opened a shop in the Clayton area of St. Louis over 10 years ago. They've finally begun expanding and opened this oasis in the (somewhat) recently developed giant shopping area in the flood plain of the Missouri rivier that locals call "The Valley". That's short for Chesterfield Valley. Not to be confused with the San Fernando Valley, home of the Valley Girl. But I digress.

In addition to selling coffee you can feel good about buying, the coffee is made by trained baristas - they go through a 12 hour training program on the techniques of preparing espresso and other coffee drinks.

The Chesterfield Valley location expands the menu of the original location. There's a bakery on site, plus they serve lunch items such as panini and other sandwiches. Personally I've only had the coffee, but they hired a chef from a local bistro, so I'm guessing the food is good. I would imagine they'd apply the same quality requirements to their food as they do to their coffee.

It's a pretty big dining area with a fireplace surrounded by couches and chairs, along with tables and booths. There's also outside seating for when the weather is nice. And they have free wifi!