Restaurant in St Louis, United States
Serious Midwestern tasting menu, easy to book.
Robin is one of St. Louis's most interesting new openings: a four-course tasting menu restaurant on Manchester Road in Maplewood, built around seasonal Midwestern cooking with technically sharp, playful execution. Opened March 2025, it's the strongest current option in the city for a structured special-occasion dinner. Booking is easy — for now.
Yes — and it's one of the more compelling answers to "where should we go for a proper dinner in St. Louis" that opened in 2025. Robin, which launched in March 2025 on Manchester Road in Maplewood, runs a four-course tasting menu (five with optional snacks) built around seasonal Midwestern ingredients. The format is focused, the cooking is technically grounded, and the room punches above its strip-mall address. For a celebratory dinner, date night, or a meal where you want the kitchen to make decisions for you, this is a strong call.
The exterior gives little away. Robin sits in a block of ordinary storefronts on Manchester Road, and the signage won't prepare you for what's inside. The interior is soft-lit with earth tones — a deliberate contrast to the boxy commercial shell it occupies. It reads calm rather than flashy, which suits the tasting menu format well. For a special occasion, the room works: it's intimate without feeling cramped, and the atmosphere is structured enough to feel like an event without tipping into stiffness.
The cooking centers on Midwestern produce and traditions, but the approach is playful. Documented dishes include a cold green garlic soup, a mushroom-cured trout with horseradish foam and fried green tomatoes riffing on surf-and-turf, and a pork schnitzel wrapped around Swiss cheese, cabbage, apple, and mustard. The snack course , technically optional , has included a chicken liver mousse served between two corn cookies in the format of a savory sandwich cookie. Skip the snacks and you're leaving some of the most interesting cooking on the table. The dessert course has featured an amaro-infused chocolate mousse mille-feuille with caramelized toast.
Robin opened in March 2025, which means the kitchen is still in its first year of service. That's actually a reasonable time to visit: tasting menu restaurants tend to be sharpest and most energized in their opening months, and the format here is tight enough that early-run consistency should hold. For a special occasion dinner, a weekend reservation gives you the full experience without the compressed mid-week pace. Spring and early summer are worth targeting if you want the kitchen working with peak Midwestern produce , the cold green garlic soup documented from a late-spring service suggests the menu tracks the season closely.
Robin's format , a four-course tasting menu with structured snack and dessert courses , is not designed to travel. Dishes like horseradish foam, fried green tomatoes, and mille-feuille with caramelized toast depend on temperature, texture, and plating timing. There is no publicly available information indicating Robin offers takeout or delivery, and the tasting menu structure makes off-premise dining a poor fit for the food. If you're looking for St. Louis restaurants with strong takeout options, Bogart's Smokehouse and Pappy's Smokehouse are built for exactly that. Robin is an in-room experience.
Booking difficulty is rated Easy. As a recently opened tasting menu restaurant in a neighborhood rather than a downtown dining corridor, Robin does not appear to carry the reservation pressure of longer-established destination restaurants. That said, tasting menu seats are finite by nature , the format limits covers per service , so booking ahead rather than walking in is the smarter approach, particularly for weekend dates or group dinners. Phone and website details are not currently listed in Pearl's database; check directly with the venue or through third-party reservation platforms for current availability.
St. Louis has a strong casual dining culture anchored by barbecue, Vietnamese, and diner-format institutions. Robin sits in a different register entirely. It's one of the few current options in the city for a structured tasting menu with seasonal-regional ambition , closer in format to what you'd find at Lazy Bear in San Francisco or Alinea in Chicago than to St. Louis's barbecue and luncheonette staples. The price point and scale are different from those destinations, but the commitment to a kitchen-driven, course-structured experience is comparable in intent. For other St. Louis dining options across formats, see our full St. Louis restaurants guide, and if you're planning a full trip, our St. Louis hotels guide, bars guide, and experiences guide cover the rest.
Robin runs a four-course tasting menu , five with optional snacks , focused on seasonal Midwestern cooking. The format means the kitchen controls the meal; there's no à la carte option. Take the snacks: they're where some of the most inventive cooking shows up. The room is calm and soft-lit, not a scene-driven space, which makes it better suited to conversation than to a big group night out. Pricing isn't currently published, so check directly before booking to calibrate expectations.
Yes. The tasting menu format, intimate room, and technically serious cooking make Robin one of the stronger options in St. Louis for a celebratory dinner or date night. It's structured enough to feel like an occasion without being stiff. Book a weekend table and take the full snack course for the complete experience.
Tasting menu restaurants can work well for solo diners , you're in the kitchen's hands regardless of party size, and the pacing is set by the restaurant rather than the table. Robin's calm, earth-tone room doesn't skew loud or social in a way that would make solo dining uncomfortable. That said, specific counter or bar seating details aren't confirmed in Pearl's current data, so check with the venue directly if solo counter seating matters to you.
Bar seating details aren't confirmed in Pearl's current data for Robin. Given the tasting menu format and intimate room size, options may be limited. Contact the venue directly to ask about bar or counter availability before planning around it.
Tasting menu restaurants have a fixed capacity per service, which limits how large a group they can seat together. Robin's seat count isn't published in Pearl's current data, but for groups of four or more, booking well ahead is important , and for larger parties, it's worth calling directly to ask about private or semi-private options. Walk-in group dining is not realistic here.
The menu is set , you're booking the four-course tasting menu, not ordering à la carte. The one active choice is whether to add the optional snack course. Based on documented service, the snacks (including a chicken liver mousse served in a savory sandwich cookie format) represent some of the kitchen's most playful cooking. Add them.
No specific dietary restriction policy is listed in Pearl's current data. Tasting menu kitchens vary widely in how much they can accommodate , some will adapt courses, others have limited flexibility with a set menu. Contact Robin directly before booking if you or your party have dietary needs; don't assume adaptations are available without confirming.
For casual dining in a completely different register, Mai Lee is the go-to for Vietnamese, Bogart's Smokehouse and Pappy's Smokehouse cover barbecue, and Crown Candy Kitchen is the classic luncheonette option. None of these compete directly with Robin's tasting menu format , they're different categories entirely. If you want a tasting menu experience elsewhere, Alinea in Chicago is the regional benchmark, though at a significantly higher price point and booking difficulty. For the full St. Louis dining picture, see our St. Louis restaurants guide.
| Venue | Cuisine | Price | Booking Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|
| Robin | Seasonal, Regional | Easy | |
| Bogart’s Smokehouse | Barbecue | Unknown | |
| Crown Candy Kitchen | Luncheonette | Unknown | |
| Mai Lee | Vietnamese | Unknown | |
| Pappy’s Smokehouse | Barbecue | Unknown | |
| Ted Drewes Frozen Custard | Ice Cream | Unknown |
A quick look at how Robin measures up.
Robin's four-course tasting menu format works best for small groups. Tasting menus at this scale typically seat parties of two to four comfortably; larger groups should check the venue's official channels before assuming availability. The intimate, softly lit dining room on Manchester Road is not built for big-table celebrations the way a standard à la carte restaurant would be.
Come expecting a structured four-course tasting menu with an optional snack course — this is not a place to order freely from a menu. Chef Alec Schingel's cooking takes Midwestern ingredients in a playful direction, so arrive with some flexibility. The exterior on Manchester Road is plain and the block is unremarkable, so don't second-guess yourself when you pull up.
A tasting menu format is one of the better solo dining options because the kitchen sets the pace and you're not navigating a shared plate decision. Robin's soothing, low-key interior makes it a reasonable choice for a solo dinner, and the snack course gives the meal a relaxed early rhythm. Worth trying if you want a proper sit-down dinner without the social overhead of a big group.
Yes — Robin is one of the stronger cases for a celebration dinner in St. Louis right now. The four-course tasting menu with structured snacks and a finisher like the amaro chocolate mille-feuille gives the meal a clear arc, which suits birthdays, anniversaries, or any dinner where you want the kitchen to carry the experience. Booking difficulty is rated Easy, so you won't fight for a reservation the way you would at comparable tasting menu spots in larger cities.
If you want tasting-menu-level cooking with a similar Midwestern focus, Robin is the clearest current option in its category in St. Louis. For something more casual and lower-stakes, Mai Lee on Delmar delivers consistent Vietnamese cooking at a fraction of the price. For a city institution with a longer track record, Crown Candy Kitchen scratches a completely different itch — diner format, long history, no tasting menu.
Bar seating is not confirmed in available venue data for Robin. Given the tasting menu format and the intimate, structured dining room described at the Manchester Road address, the experience is designed around seated table service rather than casual bar dining. Contact Robin directly to confirm counter or bar options before planning around it.
Don't skip the optional snack course — described as a chicken liver mousse served between two corn cookies in a savory Oreo format, it sets the tone for what Schingel is doing here. The four-course menu is fixed, so the real decision is whether to add snacks: add them. The amaro-infused chocolate mille-feuille with caramelized toast rounds out the meal at the dessert end.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
