Sweetie Pie's -- St Louis, MO

I'm told that, some years back, local fried chicken places were as plentiful in St Louis as . . . well, as plentiful as donut shops still are. Now, sadly, there are many fewer of the little guys, and a great many more Church's and Lee's.

Fortunately, a new champion of chicken, a paladin of pork products, a centurion of the sweet potato has entered the field: Robbie Montgomery has opened a new location of her restaurant, Sweetie Pie's. Montgomery, a former backup singer for Ike and Tina Turner, opened her first soul food restaurant just a few years back in the suburb of Dellwood. Now she's opened a second Sweetie Pie's on Manchester Avenue.

I'll admit that I've only been to Sweetie Pie's once, but my visit this evening was enough to leave a lasting impression. The space looks fresh from a recent remodelling, and it is spacious and inviting. Conversation bounces off the walls, which seems to put families at ease, because in the course of the evening, we see several groups of 5 or 6 people here with small children or babies.

Dinner starts at a cafeteria-style line in the back. Servers stand behind steam tables and hand out handsome portions of the daily specials, which they then arrange on dinner plates the size of hubcaps. The spouse chose the fried chicken and was given four pieces (all pieces in view were leg-and-wing). I asked for the catfish and had my choice of the filet or the whole fried fish. The sides this evening included sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, gravy, black-eyed peas, plain rice, cabbage, okra, and macaroni and cheese. I chose the rice and was offered gravy to go with it, and I also tried a portion of the cabbage. The spouse chose sweet potatoes and okra. We both got a nice squaire of cornbread and, in a fit of excess, I took a piece of pie, as well.

There was a cooler filled with soda, but I was told that home-made lemonade and sweet tea could be had, so I waited and ordered the tea. We sat at one of the tables farthest from the two flat-screen tvs, which turned out not to produce much noise in any case.

I started out with my cabbage, which I now think must be what little cabbages dream of becoming some day. It had been cooked with chunks of bacon and just a bit of hot pepper until it was dense with bacon flavor, punctuated by occasional spots of heat. The rice was, in fact, too bland to be worth eating plain, so I was glad to have the gravy. The catfish, however, was flawless. It was encased in a deeply-browned, solid cornmeal coating, making it a nice study in the contrast between tender, sweet fish and crunchy, nutty crust -- a few drops of the table hotsauce didn't hurt, either. My spouse's chicken similarly moist and tender, with a crispy crust, as well. No dramatic spices in this crust, just a nice textural complement to the chicken and the sides. The sweet potato at first sniff seemed heavily perfumed with cinammon, so that I worried it had been over-spiced. Fortunately, this was a false alarm, and the spices were pungent, but not overly so. I was particularly impressed with the buttermilk cornbread, which was just slightly sweet and had a cake-like crumb. My sweet tea, by the way, was delicious, though the Big-Gulp-sized glass of it was more than I needed.

We left stuffed and content, and with a carry-out box piled with the remains of the chicken and fish, as well as another square of cornbread. The evening's tab had been $24, which I felt was more than reasonable. For comparison's sake, I'll say that I thought the food at Sweetie Pie's was superior to that at BJ's Cafeteria (of which I remain very fond) in Chicago.

A note on the location: The restaurant sits on a corner next to a hair salon and a tattoo parlor, and across the street from one of St Louis's ubiquitous -- and univesally grim-looking -- chop suey places. A few blocks away some bars occupy the corners, and directly across from Sweetie Pie's sits a brand-new bookstore. But for the most part, boarded-up buildings and empty lots dominate this stretch of Manchester. Sweetie Pie's closes at 8 p.m., and customers may park in a monitored lot across the street.

Sweetie Pie's
4270 Manchester Ave
St Louis, MO 63110
(314) 371-0304

hours: 6:30 a.m. - 8:00 p.m. Tues.-Sun.