Searching for the top restaurants in St. Charles? You’ve arrived to the correct location!
If you are planning a trip to St. Louis, you must visit historic St. Charles, Missouri. A tranquil stroll through brick-lined streets with horse-drawn carriages, early 18th-century buildings packed with quaint stores, galleries, and more restaurants than you can think is just a short 20-minute drive west of St. Louis.
Food lovers will be ecstatic with the variety of traditional comfort food and modern eateries that will have you wanting to blaze a path through the numerous one-of-a-kind restaurants providing distinctive local cuisine, much as the pioneers did. These are some of my favorite restaurants in St. Charles for you to try on your next visit.
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Contents
The Top 8 Restaurants in Saint Charles, Missouri
Bakery Sugar & Slice
S Main St +16367573341519
Sugar & Slice Bakery is the place to go if you’re craving something sweet. Although most Main Street restaurants and cafés do not open until 11 a.m. or later, the bakery does. Its display case is brimming with vibrant macarons, massive cookies, and inventive cupcakes. It’s no surprise that our list of the greatest restaurants in Saint Charles MO begins with a dessert establishment.
The youthful staff is pleasant and timely in requesting your order. The oatmeal cream pie and gigantic chocolate chip cookie piqued my interest, but I settled on a lemon blueberry cupcake. To keep the cupcake secure, it is wrapped in a single turquoise box.
I sat on a seat outdoors as soon as I got outside and opened the package. I struggled to remove the cupcake without smearing it all on my hand. The icing on the cupcakes was so rich that the cupcake split in two when I was removing it. I had cake in one hand and icing in the other. Yet I was not let down.
I reassembled the two and took a mouthful. Wow! I gobbled the lemon cupcake in seconds to ensure that I received a mouthful of icing and a fresh blueberry in every bite. That was outstanding.
Magpies Restaurant
S Main St +16369473883903
This welcoming café is located at the start of the historic St. Charles Main Street. On beautiful sunny days, the terrace rapidly fills up, although there are a few tables inside for overflow. Despite being a cafe, it remains at the top of the list of the finest restaurants in Saint Charles MO, and here’s why.
Since strawberries were in season when I visited, they served fresh Strawberry Crepes and a delightful Strawberry Lemonade prepared with pureed strawberries. I ordered their half sandwich and soup, which arrived fast and hot.
One of their most famous dishes was the loaded baked potato soup, which was topped with gobs of crispy bacon. Yes, Honey was a sandwich with grilled chicken, bacon, provolone cheese, pepperoncini, and a honey garlic sauce.
The Half & Half seems to be the most popular option among the restaurant’s visitors, who also ordered soups, salads, quiche, and a variety of sandwiches. Nonetheless, flatbread pizzas and a giant piece of bread pudding with raisins, apples, and dried cranberries served warm with caramel sauce are available for dessert.
Hendricks Barbecue
200 S Main St
Hendricks Barbeque is the ideal venue to catch up with old friends. When I’m in town, I phone my pals and we meet for a wonderful hearty supper to catch up. Hendricks Barbeque has been frying down-home barbecue fresh every day since 2012. Their St. Louis-style ribs are so meaty and flavorful that you may forget to use one of the Hendricks BBQ sauces (Sweet, STL, and Hot & Sweet). It is most likely one of the top restaurants in Saint Charles, MO.
The Katy Trail, an ancient railway route turned park path that runs for 240 miles across Missouri, may make access to the eatery seem difficult. Cross the path and proceed toward the bottom of the building after you’ve found parking. There are two ways to enter: via the entrance with an elevator ready to take you to the second level, or through the deck steps up to the hostess desk.
Go ahead and order an appetizer after you’ve been seated. We ordered the Brisket Nachos, which are regularly $12.50 but were reduced to $5 by the waitress. Well, well, take it. The nachos are served with crispy tortilla chips topped with house-made queso, your choice of meat (we recommend brisket), our trademark baked beans, shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, jalapenos, and sour cream. This was my first time eating baked beans on nachos, and I don’t believe I’ll ever eat them without them again.
We both ordered the Barbecue platters for supper. My companion chose two meats (brisket and smoked sausage), whereas I chose three (smoked sausage, BBQ ribs, and pulled pork). You receive a choice of two sides whether you order one, two, or three meat platters. Applesauce, baked beans, coleslaw, green beans, macaroni and cheese, baked sweet potato, collard greens, potato salad, cheddar grits, french fries, and onion rings, or a baked potato are available as sides.
It’s a pity that you can only choose two from all of these options. Nonetheless, baked beans, mac and cheese, and onion rings are my top recommendations. We bought the bigger meat plate so that we may have leftovers for lunch the following day. And let me tell you, the second day is just as wonderful as the first.
Smoke + Salt
+13147270200501 South Main Street
Salt + Smoke is my favorite BBQ restaurant in Saint Charles, MO, and one of the greatest restaurants in the area. This eatery is so popular that there are sometimes long lineups outside the entrance. If you want to get in fast, offer to sit at the bar. If you’ve been there previously, you can just get takeaway. This is something I do every time I visit my family in St. Louis. That’s how fantastic it is!
On my first visit, I got the Pulled Pork Plate with a side of Burnt Ends Toasted Ravioli. Every dish comes with two sides and a massive bacon and cheddar popover that might be a meal in and of itself. Beef Fat Fries, Pit Beans with Smoked Bacon, Coleslaw, White Cheddar Cracker Mac, Green Bean and Tomato Salad, BBQ Sweet Potato Chips, Creamed Corn, Brisket Chili, and a Seasonal Side are among the offered sides.
The White Cheddar Cracker Mac is the stuff legends are made of. The richness of the cheese with the cracker combination is irresistible. So much so that I exclusively order the White Cheddar Cracker Mac and the Burnt Ends Toasted Ravioli, another delectable St. Louis speciality, for takeaway.
Braddens
S Main St +16364939303515
Braddens, a casual American diner that has been around since 1818, is directly adjacent to Salt+Smoke. Eckerts Tavern was the name of this institution, and it has a long history. These are some of the reasons why Bradden is one of the greatest restaurants in Saint Charles MO: In front of the brick fireplace, plans for the Santa Fe Trail were drafted and signed. Settlers looking for free land utilized wagon trains to travel the Santa Fe Trail out of St. Charles in search of a better life out west.
Currently, the restaurant offers a variety menu that every tourist would love. Toasted Ravioli, a popular St. Louis appetizer available in most St. Charles restaurants, was my order. The toasted ravioli originated in The Hill, a largely Italian-American area of St. Louis, when a ravioli was mistakenly placed into the fryer, giving rise to the toasted ravioli. A traditional Toasted Ravioli is produced by covering meat-filled ravioli with bread crumbs and frying till golden crisp. It’s topped with fresh grated Parmesan and served with marinara sauce for dipping.
I got the River Café Half Pound Burger for lunch. The burger is topped with BBQ sauce, crispy bacon, cheese (which I skipped), a fried onion ring, lettuce, tomato, and pickle. I also served the burger with crinkle fries. The burger was cooked to my liking, with just the proper amount of BBQ sauce covering the bacon and onion ring. The whole meal was delicious as I sat outdoors on the terrace, listening to the birds chirp and fly. But, you must exercise caution since some of the birds are more courageous and may approach your table in search of crumbs.
Restaurant Lewis & Clark
S Main St, +16369473334217
On a lovely day, I stopped for a late lunch at the Lewis & Clarks Restaurant. Request a seat on the terrace for the best views of Main Street and the Missouri River. This restaurant honors the history of the Lewis and Clark voyage with décor from the trip, such as a boat hanging from a wall on the stairway. If that wasn’t enough, here are a few more reasons why this restaurant is at the top of the list of the finest restaurants in Saint Charles MO.
The cuisine is fantastic, and there are numerous Lewis & Clark House Specials on the menu. The White Chili was just amazing, with the cheese melting over the shredded chicken and white beans. My Chicken, Apple, and Bacon Quesadilla was also rather excellent. I had never considered putting Granny Smith apples in a quesadilla. This is something I will absolutely attempt again!
Pizzeria Frankie Toccos
S Main St +16369477007108
I would agree that it is the greatest pizza and one of the top Italian restaurants in Saint Charles MO. Frankie Toccos Pizza was founded by Italian immigrants, who passed down their 100-year-old recipes to family members who maintain the culinary traditions today. The restaurant is tiny, with six booths and a few tables scattered about the centerphotographs by Frank James Dominic Tocco and his family decorate the walls with Italian art.
Traditional Italian dishes include Meatball Grinder, Linguine, Lasagna, and Sicilian Arancini. I got to sample an Arancini with cooked ham and cheese. Frankie Toccos Hand-Made Arancini are hand-breaded and fried arancini prepared with Sicilian ground beef and peas wrapped in Arborio rice. Try this massive rice ball; you’ll be surprised. That astonished me, and it’s one of the reasons why it’s considered one of the top restaurants in Saint Charles, MO.
I requested a single-topping pizza with pepperoni on top. Their pizzas are made in the traditional Saint Louis manner, using Provel Cheese and a thin crust. Mozzarella is available, but you must remember to request it. The pizza is soon delivered and sliced into square pieces. The first piece I nibbled into was boiling hot, but oh so tasty. If you’re looking for something a little more experimental, consider the Tocco Special, which has Italian sausage, pepperoni, Canadian bacon, mushroom, and onion. That will undoubtedly be delicious. Frankies is unquestionably one of the top restaurants in Saint Charles, Missouri.
Sugar Bot Creamery
N Main St, +16367240978302
When you’ve had your fill of wonderful cuisine in St. Charles, go to Sugar Bot Creamery, which is at the top of my list of the finest restaurants in Saint Charles MO. This vintage soda fountain ice cream business is a throwback to a simpler time. Their ice cream is manufactured in-house and rotates periodically, and it was just inaugurated in their new location. Traditional ice cream flavors are not available here. Instead, you may choose from flavors such as Oatmeal Cookie Dough, Madagascar Vanilla Bean, Perfect Pecan Shortbread, and my personal favorite, Belgian Waffle Wonder, which combines Sweet Cream Ice Cream with Belgian Waffle Pieces and Chocolate Chips.
The Creamery Specialties, on the other hand, are their daily handcrafted baked products. You may also have these baked goodies added to the Main Street Monster. This rich, over-the-top Milkshake has everything, which changes on a regular basis and could easily be a meal in itself. I saw one young woman having it made for her birthday. Wow! These Main Street Monsters are out of this world!
Summary of the Top Restaurants in Saint Charles, Missouri
If you’re in the St. Louis region, make a point to visit historic St. Charles. With so many options, you could eat for days and never have the same meal again. St. Charles has it everything, whether it’s a substantial Barbecue, a sandwich and soup combination, or a delectable dessert. Come start your next western journey at St. Charles, exactly like Lewis and Clark. You will not be disappointed and you will not leave hungry!
Which of these eateries in Saint Charles will you try first? Please share your thoughts in the comments box below!