Fahrenheit

Photo: Martha Williams

Excuse the pun, but St. Charles is eating Peter Balodimas up. The Spiaggia veteran grew up in the western suburb, and at the moment he’s its boy-done-good. By eschewing the kitchens of the city, chef Balodimas is not only giving his hometown positive reinforcement (who needs the city when you’ve got St. Charles?), but also the type of contemporary American food it’s never had before: more seasonal and adventurous than anything else in the area. In fact, Balodimas has said that he’s going for a mix between Paul Virant’s extreme seasonality and Grant Achatz’s molecular style—only he’s doing it in a strip mall, where the closest restaurants are Quiznos and Pizza Hut.

Anybody who’s tempted to ask if food like this will fly in St. Charles need only look at Fahrenheit’s packed dining room for an answer. A better question might be what happens to this kind of “city food” when it goes to the ’burbs. If Fahrenheit is any indication, the term amuse-bouche is dropped in favor of a free, complimentary appetizer, a phrase that aims to preempt the rage of a diner who may sense a scam in getting food he didn’t order. The second thing that happens? Foam.

Balodimas is a man with a particular affinity—an obsession, really—for foam. Black-grape foam garnishes the scallops, Meyer-lemon foam floats in the asparagus soup and chocolate foam sits aside the butterscotch panna cotta. There’s so much foam, the restaurant begins to feel like a car wash.

Happily, not even this overused and dated gimmick can ruin the young chef’s inspired flavors. Balodimas wisely takes both the luscious dark and white meat of a guinea hen and wraps it in crispy, salty country ham. He swaddles his lamb in Sriracha, infusing the meat with a spicy bite cooled by the whipped yogurt on the plate. The aforementioned lemon foam brings a nice brightness to the rich soup, and that grape foam lends a sweetness that enhances the cabbage in the buttery scallop dish. And some of Balodimas’s desserts (which he concocts with Tom Laurell, another Spiaggia veteran) are impeccable. Spice cake is paired with an earthy carrot gelato and sage marshmallows in a successful marriage of sweet and savory; ditto for the salty-sweet combination of sweet-potato beignets, caramel and chunky bits of bacon.

The kitchen sometimes struggles with temperature control: Both the pork belly and the quail had charred exteriors that didn’t seem intended (if they were, they distracted from the dishes’ otherwise flavorful components). And sometimes Balodimas’s flavors just flat out don’t work (despite the many elements on the plate, his sturgeon still tasted overly fishy). Still, this is good stuff, and not just in comparison to St. Charles’ other options. If anything, its suburban location only heightens the experience. One night a hostess seemed appalled—politely appalled, but still—that a gentleman would try to slip her a dollar for bringing his coat to him from coat check. “Oh, no, no, no,” she said, blushing and pushing the money away.

Now just try to find a hostess in the city who would do that.